Galaxy Mirror Cake

Get ready to make a mess.

If you've followed this blog for the past week or so, you've seen this coming.  I could have done this as part of the Mirror Glaze post, but I'm following my own rule of breaking down each cake into manageable recipes.

Now that I've done a mirror cake, it really is as easy as it looks on YouTube.  I probably didn't even have to stress as much as I did about getting the frosting smooth.

You can't do this in a rush, though.  The glaze will be at the right temperature whenever it feels like it.  This took something like half an hour in my un-air-conditioned kitchen on an 80+ degree day.  I didn't even try to do it during the heat wave.

You also can't leave these cakes out for long.  I set a personal limit of 15 minutes at a time.  Just like with Jell-O at a picnic, it's going to start to melt.  You might get half an hour at room temperature in the winter.

I used a buttercream/mousse mixture as frosting, so this isn't a true entremet cake.  I hear you can give fondant this treatment, but it seems silly to go to the trouble of laying fondant just to cover it with something else.  It isn't going to taste any better.

1 Chocolate Cake
1/2 batch Chocolate Mousse
1/2 batch Buttercream Frosting
1 Tb cocoa powder
1 batch Mirror Glaze
Gel food coloring in black, blue, pink, and white

1.  Trim cakes flat.  Mount onto a cake circle the same size or one inch smaller than the cake with a dab of frosting.

2.  Whip together mousse, remaining frosting, and cocoa powder.  Use it to fill and frost the cake layers, getting the finished product as smooth as you can.  Freeze for at least 8 hours.  You can do this days in advance.

3.  Get a hot scraper or offset spatula and smooth out any remaining dings in the frosting.  Because of the mousse, this was much easier than usual.  I even used my fingers to get a few spots the spatula was having trouble with.  Put it back in the freezer while you make the glaze.

4.  Set up your pouring station while the glaze is doing its 5-minute thing.  Line a rimmed baking sheet or roasting pan with plastic wrap for easier cleanup.  Set up some kind of lift for the cake that is smaller than the cake circle.  It can be a smaller cake pan or a wide-mouthed mug.  It needs to be high enough for you to reach under it to lift the glazed cake, so about 4 to 6 inches.

5.  Color about half of the glaze black, then two more bowls blue and pink.  Once they're poured over the black, they won't be this bright.

6.  When the glazes hit 90º, get the cake out of the freezer and set it on the drip riser.  Immediately pour the black on the top and around the sides.  I went just until all surfaces were covered, then kept the rest for touch-ups.  Start pouring the colors.  I poured a little blue, a little pink, then combined the two without stirring and poured them together.  Lastly, I finished with drizzles of the remaining black.

7.  Give it a minute to set, then go around the bottom with an offset spatula to remove the drips.  Flick  some white food coloring on the cake using a new paintbrush to be the stars.

8.  Carefully lift the cake and set on a larger plate or cake board for easy transport and less mess.  Refrigerate immediately, and for at least 2 hours before serving.

9.  Look into the pan at the mess you just made.  Unless you have some cake pops laying around that need to be glazed, or another small cake, this is just going in the trash.  This is why I wished I'd made half a batch.  There will always be some waste with this method, but this was a lot.

Makes 1 cake, up to 10" diameter

Difficulty rating :-0