This St Patrick’s Day Piñata Cake is full of surprises. From the green and yellow marbled cake and the hidden gold coin centre. I decided to decorate this cake with a green ombré effect, a chocolate drip and of course some gold sprinkles. I absolutely love how this cake turned out.
Reasons to Love This St Patrick’s Day Cakes
Ombre Cake – I decided to go a bit OTT with this cake. I ummed and ahhed for a while about what design to go with on the outside. I thought about Rainbows but thought it might end up too similar to my Rainbow Cake. Then I realised I have never posted an Ombre style cake.
Pinata Centre – So, this is the same idea as my M&M Pinata Cake. So when you cut into the cake you get lots of delicious chocolate coins falling out of the centre instead of M&Ms.
Perfect For Celebrating – I always find the best sweet treat for celebrations such as St. Patricks Day is cake and this one is full of surprises.
Before you Start Baking
So, before you start baking this St Patricks Day Pinata Cake preheat your oven, to ensure the cakes all bake at the same time.
I would also recommend lining all your tins before you start too. You don’t have to, but it just means once your cake batter is ready you can pop it into the tins and straight into the oven.
To Make the Marbled Cake
I decided to go with a simple vanilla cake, it is such a classic and super easy to make. Start by creaming together the butter and sugar, in this cake I used Stork, as I find it makes such a lovely and light sponge. You could also use unsalted butter instead.
Add in the remaining ingredients and mix until it is fully incorporated and smooth. The cake mixture doesn’t usually take too long to mix. If you are using a stand mixer just keep an eye on it, it shouldn’t take any longer than a minute or so.
Split the mixture into two separate bowls. Add the green food colouring to one and the yellow food colouring to the other.
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With the food colouring, you just need to add a little at a time. Mixing in between each addition and adding the food colouring little by little. If you add too much, to begin with you are stuck with that colour, adding it little by little means you have more control over the final colour.
I would recommend using a gel or oil-based food colouring, rather than a water-based one. The main reason for this is because you only need a tiny bit of gel or oil food colouring, whereas water ones don’t tend to be as vibrant.
Once you have the desired colour start by adding tablespoons of the mixture to your cake tins. I found it easiest to do one tablespoon of yellow, then one of green and alternate it. Once you have split the mixtures equally between the tins using a skewer and swirl them together.
How Do I Know the Cakes Are Baked?
You will know the cakes are baked because they will be golden brown in colour. It might also be quite difficult to see the colours in the cake.
Another way to tell if they are ready is to gently press your finger on the cake. If it springs back to its original position when you remove your finger then they are ready.
You could also use a cake tester to test the thickest part of the cake. If it comes out clean then the cake is ready.
If there is still batter on the cake, or if the cake doesn’t spring back when you remove your finger then pop it back into the oven for 3-4 minutes and test again. Repeat until the cake springs back, or the cake skewer comes out clean.
Making the Buttercream
To make the buttercream start by beating the butter in your mixer for 5-10 minutes. It should start to become soft and pale in colour. Add in the icing sugar and vanilla extract and mix until smooth.
If you find the buttercream is too thick you can add a tablespoon of milk one at a time mixing in between each addition until it becomes the perfect consistency.
Split the mixture between three bowls. One bowl should have 400g and the remaining should have around 250g.
To the bowl with 400g, you want to make this the lightest colour of green. Start by adding a tiny amount and mixing.
For the next two bowls, you want to add green food colouring too but you want them to be slightly darker in colour compared.
Making the Pinata
Once your cakes have cooled using a cookie cutter, remove the centre from two of your cakes. I used a 6cm round cutter.
Place the first cake onto your cake board or serving plate and add buttercream on top. You want to use the lightest colour of green, the one you made 400g of. Just remember though this needs to fill the cake, crumb coat it and be used for part of the ombre effect. I found the easiest way to do this was using an angled palette knife but you could pop the buttercream into a piping bag and pipe it on.
Don’t get any buttercream in the centre of the cake. If it splodges out the outside edges this is totally fine.
Add the second cake with the centre removed and place it on top. Again, add the buttercream to the cake.
Before you add the final layer of cake, fill the centre with your gold coins. I used ones I had leftover from Christmas but you could use these.
Once you have added all the coins, pop the final cake on top.
Crumb Coating the Cake
Using a palette knife or a piping bag depending on what you find easiest, go around the cake and fill in any gaps. There are normally some gaps between each layer of the cake.
You don’t need to put too much buttercream on the cake, as this is just your crumb coat. We just want to seal in all the crumbs before we start decorating. Smooth the buttercream using your cake smoother.
Once all the gaps are filled pop the cake into the fridge for half an hour or so for the buttercream to firm up.
Ombre Effect
To create the ombre effect I used a palette knife but you could pop all three green buttercreams into separate piping bags.
Pipe the lightest or spread the lightest buttercream around the bottom of the cake. I used each cake as a guide.
Next pipe or spread the slightly darker green around the middle and then the darkest green above that and on the top of the cake.
Don’t worry if they start to merge together slightly or mix. Using your cake smoother go around the cake and smooth the buttercream. Pop any buttercream that comes off into a bowl.
If there are any gaps fill these in using the buttercream that has come from the cake or that you have in your bowls/piping bag.
Once the cake is completely smooth add the drip.
Adding the Drip
Making the drip is super easy. I made a chocolate ganache by adding chocolate and double cream to a heatproof bowl and melting them in the microwave in 20-second bursts. Stirring in between each addition until the chocolate is completely melted and mixed with the double cream.
Pop the chocolate ganache into a piping bag and cut the tip of the piping bag off and go around the edge of the cake. I normally hold the tip of the piping bag ever so slightly from the side of the cake to encourage it to drip. Now I pop the cake back into the fridge to let the chocolate drip set.
Once the chocolate drip has set add any leftover buttercream to a piping bag and pipe some swirls on top.
Finish with some gold sprinkles. I used these Metallic Gold Pearl sprinkle mix from Shire Bakery.
Alternatives
You don’t need to use green and yellow on the inside of the cake. You can leave it plain or add different colours.
You can also add different colours to the buttercream, again it doesn’t need to be green.
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St Patrick’s Day Piñata Cake
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 400 g Unsalted Butter or Stork
- 400 g Caster Sugar
- 400 g Self-Raising Flour
- 8 Large Eggs
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- Green Food Colouring
- Yellow Food Colouring
For the Buttercream
- 300 g Unsalted Butter
- 600 g Icing Sugar
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 3-4 tbsp Whole Milk (optional)
- Green Food Colouring
For the Chocolate Drip
- 100 ml Double Cream
- 100 ml Dark Chocolate
For the Decoration
- Chocolate Coins
- Gold Sprinkles
Instructions
To Make the Cake
- Preheat the oven to 180C (160C Fan). Line three 8” cake tins with greaseproof paper and leave to one side.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
- Add in the flour, eggs, baking powder and vanilla and whisk until all combined.
- Split the mixture between two bowls. To one bowl add green food colouring a little at a time mixing in between each addition until reaching the desired colour.
- To the second bowl add in the yellow food colouring a little at a time. Mixing in between each addition until reaching the desired colour.
- Add a tablespoon of green cake mixture, and a tablespoon of yellow cake mixture to the cake tins. Alternating until the mixture is split between the three tins.
- Using a skewer swirl the two colours together and bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes. You will know they are ready when they are golden brown and springy to touch.
- Leave them to cool in the cake tin for 15-20 minutes and then remove and put them on a wire rack to cool fully.
To Make the Buttercream
- Beat the butter for around 5-10 minutes until soft and pale in colour.
- Add in the icing sugar and vanilla extract and mix until completley combined. If you find the buttercream is too thick add a tablespoon of milk and mix again. Repeat until the buttercream is the desired consistency.
- Split the mixture into three bowls. One bowl should have 400g, the other two around 250g.
- Add a little green food colouring to the bowl with the 400g of buttercream. Now add green food colouring to the other two bowls. You want the buttercream in each bowl to be a slighly darker shade of green.
- Leave the two 250g bowls to one side.
Putting it all Together
- Using a 6" cookie cutter cut a hole in the centre of 2 of the 3 cakes and leave to one side.
- Place one of the cakes with the centre removed on your serving plate and pipe the buttercream on top. Smooth using a spatula, don’t worry is any of the buttercream splodges out the side.
- Place the second cake with the missing centre on top and pipe the buttercream on top and smooth. Fill the hole in the centre with gold chocolate coins until it is full.
- Finally stack the final cake on top.
- Pipe or spread the buttercream onto the sides of the cake to fill in any gaps.
- Using your cake smoother smooth the sides of the cake. Don’t worry if you can see the cake through the buttercream, this is just the crumb coat. We will cover the cake soon.
- When there are no gaps in your cake pop it into the fridge until the buttercream has hardened.
- Once the buttercream has hardened, pipe or spread the lightest green buttercream around the bottom of the cake. Spread or pipe the middle shade of green in the middle and the darkest shade of green on the top of hte cake. I used each cake as a guide.
- Using your smoother, smooth around the sides, if there are any gaps fill these with the buttercream and continue to smooth around the sides until the cake is smooth. You will most likely take some of the buttercream off the cake if you do pop this back into your bowl.
- To smooth the top edges of the cake, use a palette knife and smooth any buttercream into the top of the cake.
- Leave the cake to one side.
To Make the Chocolate Drip
- Add the cream and chocolate to a heatproof bowl and melt in the microwave in 20-second bursts until it has completely melted. Pop it into a piping bag and snip of the end.
- Put the edge of the piping bag on the side of the cakeand squeeze gently. To get the drip I hold the piping bag ever so slightly awayfrom the cake. If you have any left-over chocolate pipe it onto the top of yourcake and smooth.
- Put the cake back into the fridge until the chocolate has set.
To Decorate
- Once the chocolate has set, add the remaining buttercream to a piping bag and pipe swirl onto the top of the cake. Finish with some sprinkles and any leftover gold coins.
