Mario 1UP Mushroom Cake for Valentine's Day

Check out this cake that I made my fiance, Paul for Valentine's Day!  It is a 1UP mushroom from the Super Mario games.  We're both huge Nintendo and video game geeks, and we both have been mourning the loss of the Ace of Cakes TV show on Food Network, so it seemed appropriate to try to make an Ace of Cakes-esque cake!

It was my first time using fondant ever, and now I can truly understand how difficult it is to decorate a cake!  Sometimes they make it look so easy on TV!

The cake inside is a red velvet double-layer cake with vanilla frosting, topped with buttercream fondant and then decorated with the colored fondant "pixels".  I cut each square out of the fondant to represent the pixels in the mushroom.

I even found Chef Duff / Charm City Cakes brand fondant to decorate the cake, making it a true Ace of Cakes cake!

The Red Velvet Cake recipe is as follows:

• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 ounces red food coloring (I didn't add the food coloring - didn't care if this cake was truly red or not!)
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup oil
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar

Directions:

1. Grease two 9 inch round pans. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Make a paste of cocoa and food coloring. Set aside.
2. Combine the buttermilk, salt and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream together the oil and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the cocoa mixture. Beat in the buttermilk mixture alternately with the flour, mixing just until incorporated. Stir together baking soda and vinegar, then gently fold into the cake batter.
3. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting. Refrigerate until ready to serve. 

For the frosting, I took this recipe from Martha Stewart's website and doubled it.

After the cakes have cooled, be sure to apply the frosting between the layers.  Then, you can cut it into a mushroom shape - I baked this cake with two 8" circular cake pans, and after they were placed one on top of the other with icing in between, I trimmed down the bottom left and right sides with a knife.  Then, frost all over the top and sides of the rest of the cake.  Roll out your white fondant in one big piece, and carefully apply it over the cake.  Then, roll out the black and green fondant (I bought green and black fondant colors separately) and cut into tiny squares.  Place them in the appropriate spots on the cake and taa-daa - you've got a Mario 1UP Mushroom Cake!

Paul totally loved his super special surprise Valentine's Day cake - what says "I love you" more than a Nintendo cake!?  :)