"Fireworks" Vasilopita New Year's Day Cake
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 30 minutes plus 60 minutes cake decorating time
Cooking time: 80 minutes
- 250g/8.8ozs butter, softened
- 1.5 cups caster or superfine sugar
- 5 eggs, at room temperature
- 3 cups cake flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- Finely grated zest of 2 large oranges
- 1.5 cups orange juice
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 50g flaked almonds
- 2 tablespoons raw sugar
For decoration
- 250g/8.8ozs butter, softened
- 125g/4ozs. caster or superfine sugar (not powdered or icing sugar)
- 75ml/2.7ozs. water, room temperature
- Orange, red, yellow and green food colouring gels
- 1 tablespoon edible charcoal powder
Step 1 - Preheat oven to 160C/320F and line the base and sides of a 20cm/8inch cake tin. Beat the butter and sugar until white and fluffy-about 5 minutes or so. Then add eggs one at a time beating well between additions.
Step 2 - On the lowest speed add in the flour, baking powder, orange zest, juice, vanilla and cinnamon and beat until just combined (do not overbeat). Spoon half of this batter into the prepared tin and cover with almonds and sugar. Then spoon the remaining half into the tin. Bake for 80 minutes or until the centre springs back when touched. Cool completely. Then slide a chocolate coin into the cake.
Step 3 - To make the buttercream, beat the butter on low to medium speed until white in colour - about 4-5 minutes. Then add the sugar and water and beat on same speed for another 5-8 minutes or until the icing is smooth and you can feel any sugar between your fingers.
Step 4 - Place two tablespoons of the white buttercream in five bowls and tint them orange, yellow, blue, red or pink and leave one white. With the remaining buttercream beat this with the charcoal until you get a black buttercream. Spread this all over the cake on the top and sides. If you have time you can place this in the fridge to harden as it will make piping the fireworks easier.
Step 5 - Place in small piping bags fitted with plain tips. I only had one tiny plain tip so I didn't add a tip. Start with white at the centre and pipe five small dots. Then branch out to create the fireworks using different colour combinations. It is easier to do this on a tilted cake turntable so that you can draw the patterns on the sides. Sprinkle with gold balls and sparkly sprinkles.