Coronavirus Cake

coronavirus cake
coronavirus ice cream cake

One of my sons requested this coronavirus ice cream cake for his birthday this year.  It was easy to make, and I’ll show you how!

This cake isn’t terribly time consuming, but it does require a bit of pre-planning.  First thing to make is the royal icing “crowns.”  I chose to make them with royal icing, because I always seem to have some one hand.  But fondant, candy melts could also work…really anything that will dry firm and hold a shape.

royal icing for coronavirus cake
royal icing crowns for coronavirus cake

Make the royal icing triangle crowns by piping onto parchment and allowing to dry overnight to get a firm structure.  I pulled up the famous picture of the image, cropped and duplicated the crowns into a document, and printed out a page.  This was slipped underneath the parchment paper, and served as a great guideline to get uniform shapes.  Quick black lines piped under the red created depth.

royal icing crowns for coronavirus cake
coronavirus cake crowns

Create depth by piping a “stem” to be attached to the bottom of each triangle.  Allow the royal icing to dry overnight.

coronavirus royal icing crowns
coronavirus royal icing crowns

Once dry, flip over the triangles and affix a stem to each one with more royal icing.  Don’t worry about the fact that the bottom of the stem is a bit pointy.  This will actually work in your favor when you go to affix it to the cake.  I use this strategy when making royal icing “mushrooms” for my yule logs.  🙂

Apologies, the next phase of the cake was poorly documented!

Cut out a wedge of cake from the round

I baked a thin, white layer of cake in a large round cake pan lined with parchment.  Once baked and cooled, I cut a wedge out of the cake (kinda like this), and squeezed the thin cake into the inside of a round bowl.  Start with a smaller wedge and cut out more if needed.   Leave the parchment on the cake in order to make it easier to remove.  Once the bowl is lined with cake, fill it with ice cream and allow it to set in the freezer for at least an hour or two.

coronavirus ice cream cake
cake dome filled with ice cream

The results should look like this: a dome of cake with a dome of ice cream inside.  When you’re ready to assemble, flip out the cake from the bowl, and peel off the parchment paper.

coronavirus cake
peel parchment off of coronavirus cake to decorate

Make some chocolate ganache by pouring 1/2 cup of warm whipping cream over 6 oz of chocolate chips.

coronavirus cake ganache
Pour ganache over the cake

Keep pouring until the cake is fully covered.  The round shape makes it easy to get an even layer, thankfully!

coronavirus cake ganache
Pour until fully covered

Allow the ganache to set for a minute or two, and then transfer to a cardboard cake round with a spatula.

coronavirus cake ganache
Transfer cake with spatula to a cake round

Make the next layer with a 4.2 oz box of Oreo instant pudding, 1 cup of cold milk, and 8 oz of whipped topping.  I chose Oreo because of the black cookie flecks.  Cover the cake in the topping.

coronavirus ice cream cake
Spread whipped topping over cake

Use a skewer to carve away some of the topping in order to reveal the dark, ganache underbelly.

coronavirus ice cream cake
Use a skewer to carve out cake to create depth

Now the fun part: add the “crowns” to the cake!  If using royal icing, be gentle with them as they could break easily if you push them too hard.  Continue until the cake is covered in red triangles.

coronavirus cake
Add “crowns” to the cake

Optional finish to the cake is to add some orange and white dots with royal icing.  I can be a bit of a pain to mix and bottle icing for such a small detail, but the details are often the best part!

The finished product!

coronavirus ice cream cake

Cut the cake to reveal the different layers.  For the observant folks out there, I made multiple cakes, one for each household involved in the party (because…coronavirus).  So this ice cream core is a different flavor than the previous pics.

coronavirus ice cream cake

coronavirus ice cream cake
Ice cream, cake, ganache, whipped topping, and crowns!

I hope you found this helpful.  Stay safe, and stay healthy folks.

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