If you have a lumberjack in your life who loves dessert, this tree stump cake will be his dream come true.
Not only is it easy to make, but the buffalo plaid design of the cake inside is enough to turn heads at family parties. Lucky for us, it doesn’t take a master cake decorator to create this sensational cake.
Crafting the Cakes
To make the true buffalo plaid texture inside the cake, you will need to bake two 10” red velvet cakes, two 8” chocolate cakes and two 10” vanilla cakes, dyed red. These cakes will be carved into the final project and you will have a bit left over that you can use to create roots around the tree stump. Don’t worry about crafting recipes from scratch. You can use boxed cake mixes and food coloring.
In order to create the buffalo plaid design of the cake, you will want to use a ring cake pan set. This will allow you to pour rings of different colors in the same cake pan so that you’re not wasting a bunch of cake at the end. In two pans, you will want to place rings of the dyed vanilla cake and the red velvet cake. In the other two pans, you will want to place rings of the chocolate cake and the red velvet cake. Set them aside so you can work on the outside of the cake.
Time for Fondant and Ganache
If you’re not familiar with making fondant, don’t worry. You can buy it already made and dye it the color you want it. The ganache that you will need to hold everything together is quite simple to make, as you will just pour hot cream over chocolate and whisk them together until they form a creamy chocolate sauce.
You will place this ganache between the layers of the cake, so they stay together when you cut it. After you have the ganache and layers in place, your cake can spend some time chilling in the refrigerator.
Creating the Ax
One of the most fun parts of this cake is making the ax. You will want to use some 1/8” armature wire, wrapped with tin foil tape for the handle. The handle is made from dark and white molding chocolate and swirled together to give the look of wood.
The chocolate is then wrapped around the piece of wire. The ax head is made from dark molding chocolate. The wire should be inserted into the head and sticking out of the top of the ax, so that it can stick into the cake.
Creating the Stump
The tree stump look is created by making rings out of ivory and brown buttercream. The colors are alternated in rings until the edge of the cake is reached. You will then want to smooth the layers out and blend them slightly to make it look like the inside of a tree.
Making the Tree Bark
To make the bark on the outside of the cake, you will want to roll your ganache out onto a piece of crumbled up tin foil that has been sprayed with anti-stick cooking spray.
You can then wrap the ganache and the foil around the cake and put it in the freezer to harden. Once it has, simply remove the tin foil and voila, your tree has its bark! Painting the ganache with white and ivory food paints can give it color variation to make it look even more realistic.
Attach the Ax
The last thing you need to do is to attach the ax to your cake. Simply decide where you want to be and insert the ax head with the wire sticking out into the center of the cake. The more straight up and down the ax is, the less likely it is to tip over. If you are traveling with your cake, don’t attach the ax until you reach your destination.
That’s it! Making a lumberjack cake looks like something a master baker could only achieve until you see step-by-step how easy it actually is. We like to think this tutorial is so easy, that we can all make one to celebrate our favorite lumberjacks.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
