Today is the premier for the final season of Game of Thrones and we couldn’t be more excited! We have a viewing party all planned with some friends and family and a party wouldn’t be complete without a themed cake. Dragons are a big part of the show right now so we decided to decorate the cake to resemble dragon scales. For an extra element we topped the cake with blackish-blue tinted candy glass to represent dragon glass.
The inside of the cake needed to be just as dramatic as the outside. Blood oranges are currently in season so we knew right away this was the flavor we wanted for the cake. The color of this batter is a light pink shade so we decided to color the batter an orangish-red to give it a little extra pop. If you are not able to find blood oranges, regular oranges will substitute perfectly. For the filling we made a honey cream cheese frosting that paired perfectly with the blood orange cake. A friend of our has a ranch where they raise bees and we were recently given some jars of their honey that we have been waiting to bake with.
Decorating a cake like this we would normally use buttercream on the outside, but we didn’t have a whole lot of time to make this cake so we decided to make a large batch of the honey cream cheese frosting to use for the filling and frosting the cake. Plus the cream cheese frosting is so good we couldn’t resist having even more of it. We decided to go for a color scheme of dark grey, blue and green. We used Wilton gel food coloring in black, blue and teal until we achieved the desired colors. The black gel was coming off more purple than dark grey so we added a little yellow food coloring to get the grey we wanted.
Creating the dragon scale look on the cake is actually very easy. This is a great technique if you are new to cake decorating and aren’t quite ready to attempt the smooth buttercream look. We used the dark grey as our base color and filled a piping bag fitted with a round tip (we used Ateco 808). Start by piping a row of dots all the way around the bottom of the cake. Take a small offset spatula or spoon and put a little bit of the green or blue frosting on the back side. With that end of the spatula start at the center of the dot and smear it up. Repeat on each dot and make sure to change up which color you smear with. To give the dragon scales a more organic look we offset our dots, but you can line them up evenly if you are going for a uniform look. Pipe your next row of dots overlapping the frosting that you smeared from the previous dot. Continue until you make your way all the way around the cake. Do the same technique on the top in whatever direction you desire. This technique can also be done by smearing the dots horizontally rather than vertically. To add a finishing touch we dusted the scales with edible gold dust.
For direction on how to make the candy dragon glass view our post How to Make Candy Glass.
Blood Orange Cake with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
For the Blood Orange Cake
- 2 1/2 cups cake flour
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 cups (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter room temperature
- 4 eggs
- 3/4 cup blood orange juice about 6 oranges
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 tbsp blood orange zest
For the Honey Cream Cheese Frosting
- 16 ounces cream cheese room temperature
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter room temperature
- 2 cups powdered sugar sifted
- 3 tbsp honey
Instructions
For the Blood Orange Cake
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Prepare three 6 inch cake pans by spraying with baking spray and lining the bottom with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Mix till combined, about 15 seconds.
- Add the butter in small pieces and mix on low until combined and the mixture is the consistency of bread crumbs.
- In a separate bowl, whish the eggs, blood orange juice, milk and blood orange zest.
- Add half of the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on medium speed until light and fluffy. Scrape the bowl as needed since the dry ingredients will stick to the bottom of the bowl. Add the remaining wet ingredients and mix the batter until it is smooth and fluffy.
- Divide the batter evenly between the three cake pans. Tap the pans on the counter to remove any air bubbles in the batter.
- Bake at 325 degrees for 30-35 minutes.
- Let cakes cool in the pans for about 10 minutes and then remove to cool on a wire rack.
For the Honey Cream Cheese Frosting
- In your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter until smooth.
- Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time. Occasionally scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
- Add the softened cream cheese and mix until smooth and there are no lumps. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl.
- Add the honey and mix on low until combined. Increase speed to high and whip for about 5 minutes, stopping once or twice to scrape the bowl.
Notes
