Piñata Cake

The piñata cake is named after the Mexican party centrepieces made from papier mache and filled with gifts, has a hollow centre which is used to hold your favourite sweets.

This pretty piñata cake is fantastic for a birthday or a special occasions. It's filled with skittles and smarties.....

For this cake, you will need 4x20cm.8inch sandwich cake tins, large star nozzle to make the swirls that sit on top and a 8-9cm round cutter

Ingredients:

• 400g butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing the tins
• 400g caster sugar
• 8 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 3 tbsp vanilla extract
• 400g self raising flour
• multi-coloured sprinkles for decoration
• smarties and skittles to fill the hole

For buttercream:

• 165g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 750g icing sugar
• 90ml milk
• 1½ tsp vanilla extract
• orange gel food colouring

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170ºC/150ºC for fan assist oven. Grease 4x20cm/8inch sandwich cake tins and line the bottoms with greaseproof paper.

To make the sponge: Beat the butter and sugar together in a stand mixer or with a handheld electric whisk on a high speed until pale and fluffy. Turn the mixer to low speed and add the eggs bit by bit, mixing on high speed after each addition. Add the vanilla then half of the flour mixture. Mix until combined, then add the rest of the flour and mix until you have a smooth cake batter. 

Divide the cake batter between the 4 cake tins, filling each tin up to a three-quarters full. Bake for 30-35 minutes, turning after 20 minutes so they colour evenly. Once baked, cool the cakes on a wire rack. Chilling the cakes will make them sturdier to work with.

To make the buttercream: Beat the butter, icing sugar, milk and vanilla extract together in a bowl until light and fluffy. Add the orange gel colouring to the buttercream until the desired shade is achieved.

Remove the cake from the fridge and trim the domes off so they are flat. Using a 8-9cm round pastry cutter, cut out the centre from two of the cakes. The holes need to be in the same place on each cake to create the cavity which will be filled with smarties and skittles. 

Put a dab of the orange buttercream on a cake board and place one of the sponges on top. Spread a 1cm thick layer of buttercream on the top of the sponge. Place the next sponge with a hole on top and repeat this process with the buttercream. Continue stacking the cake in the same way and a cavity in the centre. Fill the cavity with smarties and skittles and place the final layer of the cake on top. Ensure the sides are straight and the top is flat.

Crumb coat the cake by spreading a thin layer of the buttercream all over the sides and top of the cake, using a large palette knife. The whole cake should be covered in a thin, even layer, but it doesn't need to be perfect at this stage. Chill the cake for 15-20 minutes. This will help to seal on the crumbs and make the top coat of icing easier to apply.

When ready, decorate the cake by spreading the rest of the buttercream all over the cake in a smooth even layer, using a cake smoother or a large pallet knife to get it really smooth. Don't worry too much about the top as it will be covered with swirls of orange buttercream and multi coloured sprinkles later. Arrange the sprinkles around the bottom of the sides of the cake, to come about a quarter way up the sides. Chill for about 30 minutes to set the buttercream.

Add a few drop of the orange gel to the remaining buttercream to make the swirls a deeper colour orange. Place the deeper orange buttercream into a large piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle. Pipe swirls of orange buttercream over the top of the cake. Decorate the top with the multi coloured sprinkles on the centre of the cake.