Willy Wonka Birthday Cake

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There is not a single possible way you can be looking at the picture of my latest cake and be grumpy, so Happy Monday to all of you! I do apologize that you can’t reach through the screen and take a bite, or sneak a candy though, because this is one fun, happy cake! It’s neon and it’s here to stay, baby!

This latest creation came about when I found out that Mike’s friend at work, Phil, was turning a year older. We’ve witnessed  the Olympic Torch come through town (read it now, my funniest post EVER on this site) with him and his family, his lovely talented wife has painted the kids faces at my son’s birthday party and he and my husband generally get up to anything but work, at work.

So when we found out the day, I set about making a cake that sums his delightful character up.

Welcome to the Willy Wonka cake, for the big kid who hasn’t grown up yet.

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This was a seriously F-U-N cake to make, a good time, a hoot and a holler creating something so bright and colorful.

Have I mentioned how easy and forgiving this cake is? Using the KitKat’s around the cake is something I saw a couple years ago on the interwebs and promptly tucked it into the back of my mind on those few grey cells that comprise the Make It Sometime List in my brain.

And it literally came to the forefront in a couple seconds when I was brainstorming of what to make for Phil. The cakes that did the rounds a few years back had M&M’s in them, which are also a great choice. And it was what I was initially going to do.

But while walking in the grocery store my eyes came to a halt on huge Willy Wonka Candy display. And the cake was born.

You need:

two layers of baked cake

9-10 packages of your choice of Wonka Candy

11-12 KitKat bars

Ribbon

First you need to bake up my favorite chocolate cake recipe, in two 9 or 10 inch pans.

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I usually pre-bake the cake and freeze it, much easier to work with, especially when you have to trim it!

When you have the two layers baked up, make a batch of my Chocolate Buttercream Icing. The one batch is enough to frost the cake. Put a small middle layer of icing between the cakes and put one on top of the other. You DO need to take a knife and carve the sides of this cake to make sure that they are fairly even, otherwise the Kitkats won’t do a good job of standing straight along the edges. When that is done,  frost the sides and top. It doesn’t have to be pretty since we are covering up all the surfaces.

Take your 11 or 12 Kitkats, depending on the size of your cake and line them up on the outside of the cake like this.

A little trick here is to freeze the Kitkats, because if you don’t, you leave fingerprints on the chocolate outside. In order to avoid this, freeze them! It won’t effect the taste at all.

Ready your Wonka Candy! I had two different types of Gobstoppers and Runts.

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Loosely wrap your ribbon around the KitKat….

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And Pull! Pull! Pull! Until the Kitkat’s stand up straight and are tight against the cake. You can exert quite the pressure at this point without breaking them if you have a nice wide ribbon.

Tie it up tightly, helping push the KitKat’s into the icing to stick a bit better.

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Start filling up your cake top, which is the best part of this whole cake, what could be more fun than loading up a cake with candy?

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And here is the finished product!

I played around with the candy, finally deciding that the bananas sticking up gave the top a nicer texture and more levels for eye candy.On another note, you can freeze the cake, then top it with candy, then return it to the freezer, which allows you to make it early but not have the candy get squishy from being on the cake too long. I did it overnight and it defrosted perfectly the next day, with a crunchy candy topping.

Have fun with this one folks, but keep the secret of how easy it is to make between us friends, deal?

Love,

The Nothing’s Better Than a Candy Cake Magpie

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