After Eight Clock Cake

This cake began as a discussion with a friend about how much I love peppermint. I told her about the chocolate peppermint Christmas cake I made last year and how delicious it was. Then she told me that her mother's favorite candy is After Eight. And she asked if I could make an After Eight Cake for her mother's birthday. Later, the request to make a clock face on it. No more specific requests.

After looking at probably a million photos of ornate clocks, I finally decided that I wanted the look of an old-fashioned porcelain clock with lots of gold and some colorful flowers.

To make the peppermint buttercream, I made one recipe of my Swiss meringue buttercream, minus the vanilla flavoring, and included a tablespoon of peppermint flavoring. Then I added two drops of blue food coloring and five drops of green food coloring gel to get that minty color.

 Then I stacked my cake on the cake board with chocolate cake, peppermint buttercream, and I put some After Eights inside the layers. I covered the After Eights with another thin layer of buttercream, and chocolate cake. Yum! I seriously wanted to eat this whole cake myself.

 I crumb coated and frosted the cake in peppermint buttercream.

 Then I covered the cake in white fondant that I had textured with my flower-texture fondant rolling pin.

 I carefully trimmed the bottom and tucked the edges under just slightly.

 Then, using my fondant press form, I pressed Roman numerals for the face of the clock. That's 4 X's, 5 V's and 17 I's. All upper case. Pressed out of black fondant. I used a ruler to help me space them out evenly and place them straight.

 I extruded a few cords of black fondant and laid them on the cake, beginning in the middle of the clock, and making two loops near the end. Then I made a v-formation to act as the point of the arrow, and using some left over cords, I twisted them into a three-leaf clover and pressed it into the arrow. I made sure the clock read after eight o'clock, by the way. Can't have an After Eight Clock Cake that reads before eight o'clock!

 Using my clay extruder again, I extruded a thick three-sided cord out of yellow-orange fondant that I laid around the bottom of the cake. Then I extruded a long, thin cord of yellow-orange and twisted it around the side of the cake in a whimsical pattern.

 Then, mixing gold luster dust with clear alcohol, I created edible gold paint and painted just a touch of gold onto the cords.

 My daughter helped me with the decorations. We cut out several sizes of flowers using small flower plunger cutters in red, pink, purple, blue and orange. We also cut out some small green leaves. Then Sabrina also helped me place them on the cake.

 I think it turned out really lovely. It really resembles the kind of procelain clock your grandmother might have owned.

 And you can't go wrong with chocolate mint. Yep, I still wish this were for me. It's that good.

 

To watch the whole process on our YouTube channel, click here: https://youtu.be/14rv4QW8y3k
Um das ganze Prozess auf YouTube zu schauen, klickt hier: https://youtu.be/lMvRhF2c-ZA