Lego Ninjago Cake

J has been a Lego fan for years so logically he got into the Ninjago story. When I heard Ninjago cake, I thought "I've got this, yellow cake with red draped bands on top with back eyes, sorted!". That's when hes started describing his cake "the temple with Master Wu on top and bla bla bla..." to be honest I freaked at temple! Gone were my dreams of a quick and easy cake...

After a lot of avoiding thinking about it (it was way too hot!), I only had a week ahead of me and no idea how I was going to pull it off. Good news is we have plenty of Ninjago figures! I just had to figure out a way to make a temple... The ones I saw online were very intricate with painted dragons etc. Not my thing, and P (aka Daddy ) wasn't keen on having the pressure of painting dragons all around the cake an hour or two before the party! Back to the temples. I ended up picking the monastery from season 1: simple lines and a lot that could be made ahead. Bingo!

I stacked some tins to get an idea of the finished size and made templates for the decorations. I mixed tylo powder to some fondant and got to work as soon as I could so they would be dry. I used half toothpicks to hold the banners in place and also put bamboo skewers behind the main gate (not sure I needed them but I wasn't going to take any chances!).

-cake: 3 x 20cm cakes, recipe from the blog Life Love and Sugar (here)
Easy recipe and it worked out well.
-Mixed berries fruit curd: 400 fruit puree, 2 1/2 Tbsp sugar, 2Tbsp cornflour, a bit of lemon juice
mix everything in a small pan then slowly heat it up to thicken, stirring constantly. let it cool down, covered
-American buttercream: 250g butter, 500g icing sugar
-sugar syrup: 60g sugar, 120g water
- fondant: 600g to cover the cake (plus extra for the board and decorations)

I really enjoyed making this cake. Taking my time to come up with a doable design and templates really paid off and it looked amazing! (even if I say so myself! :p ) In case you're wondering what to do with the figures: they shouldn't be in contact with the cake so I simply rolled a bit of fondant to act as a barrier. Before slicing the cake, simply remove the figure with its little ball of fondant and it's all good.

The big empty space on the top was for the candles, J needed 7 this year!

Lego Cake - Gâteau Lego

J is obsessed with Lego so it wasn't a surprise when he asked for a Lego birthday cake! We spent some time researching Pinterest / watching Youtube videos and made a plan.

We also made a base out of Duplo (more details here).

I tried a chiffon cake, a molly cake, in the fridge, outside the fridge, etc. not satisfied with the results (I have a modular square tin which made the usual tricks impossible). In the end, I went back to the Zebra Cake recipe which is easy and works well even if it is kept in the fridge.

I did a practice run with sugar syrup and one without, both in the fridge and out. The sugar syrup/fridge version was as good as the one left out, winner!

Lemon cake:

I used the Zebra Cake recipe as a base (here), scaled up to 5 eggs but I should have done 6. I'm still having air bubbles issues, maybe I shouldn't add baking powder to the self raising flour... 

Baked in two batches, much better results than one tall cake. 4 layers in total, cut out the centre on the 3 bottom layers.

Sugar Syrup

2 part water, 1 part sugar, bring to the boil the cool and keep in a bottle in the fridge. I used a metal skewer to pierce a few holes in the top of the bottle.

Loganberry curd

I puréed and froze the loganberries from the garden. It would also work with raspberries (they would probably need less sugar).

400g loganberry purée

2 1/2 Tbsp sugar

2 Tbsp cornflour diluted with about 1 Tbsp of lemon juice

Swiss Meringue Buttercream

300g egg whites

225g sugar

375g butter

The mini smarties were a nice surprise but they didn't like the fridge much...

Making the deco bricks (in the truck, in piles on top etc) was a doodle: My friend Helga very kindly lent me her silicone mold. I mixed a bit of Tylo powder into the fondant, pressed it in the mold, popped into the freezer for a few minutes so they would be perfect. I made them a few days ahead, they hardened nicely, job done.
Now for the base and the actual cake, it was a different story... I needed them thin and soft enough to be eaten. I used some leftover fondant with a good dose of Tylo to make molds (I borrowed J's Lego for this). They too were made a few days ahead. I then had to press the fondant and very carefully peel it off and cut it down to size. I find cutting a rectangle out of fondant tricky so imagine the nightmare...

J loved the cake and the family was impressed so we can call it a success! 

Oh, and it tasted nice too, double!