The Lorax Cake

The Lorax movie looks pretty adorable, judging from the previews. Don't know if I'm going to see it in theaters (I tend to shy away from going to kid-packed movies), but I look forward to borrowing the DVD!

I love the film's soft and colorful animation. The truffula trees look nice and fluffy, like cotton candy, which is what inspired me to make this cake. I thought a multicolored layer cake decorated with cotton candy truffula trees would be cute, with the color of the cake layers matching the colors of the cotton candy. It's a basic white cake tinted pink, blue, and yellow (inspired by Whisk Kid's Rainbow Cake). To finish, I altered one of the posters for The Lorax movie to feature not only the Lorax, but also some Swomee-Swans, Bar-ba-loots, and Humming-fish to make a colorful decoration for the side of the cake.

The Lorax Cake
Classic White Cake
adapted from Baking Bites

1 cup milk, room temperature
6 egg whites
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature
2 1/4 cups flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
pink, blue, yellow gel food coloring

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray three 8-inch diameter round cake pans with nonstick spray and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Set aside for the moment. Mix the milk, egg whites, almond extract, and vanilla extract in a small bowl.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Rub/cut in the butter until the mixture looks like wet sand. Add 1/2 the milk mixture and stir. Then add the second half of the milk mixture and stir.

Divide the cake batter into 3 bowls (about 1 1/2 cups batter per bowl). Add 2 drops pink food coloring to one bowl, add 2 drops yellow food coloring to another bowl, and add 2 drops blue food coloring to the last bowl.

Pour the three cake batters into the three previously prepared cake pans. Place the pans in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cakes cool in the pans about 10 minutes, then flip the cakes onto cooling racks and let totally cool to room temperature.

Easy Vanilla Frosting
adapted from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

1 1/2 cup (3 sticks) butter, room temperature
3-4 cups powdered sugar
3 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
green food coloring

Cream the butter. Mix in 3 cups of powdered sugar. Add the milk, vanilla extract, and almond extract. Then if necessary, mix in more powdered sugar, adding it 1/4 cup at a time until you reach desired consistency. Now frost your cake as indicated in instructions below.

After the cake layers are stacked and the crumb coat is done, tint the remaining frosting with green food coloring and use that for the final layer of frosting.

Frosting the Cake
pink, blue, yellow cake layers
white and green vanilla frosting
cake board

Slice each cake layer in half lengthwise so you end up with two thin pink layers, two thin blue layers, and two thin yellow layers.

Place a blue layer down on a cake board (or like me, use a cardboard circle, cut out from a cereal box, and cover it in foil).

Add a dollop of vanilla frosting.

Smooth out the frosting.

Cover with a yellow cake layer.

Frost.

Add pink layer and frost.

Repeat until last pink layer is stacked.

Cover the whole cake with a thin layer of frosting for the crumb coat. Refrigerate cake 15 minutes for the crumb coat to harden. Then frost the outside of the cake with the green frosting.

Decorate the cake with cotton candy truffula trees and The Lorax decoration (instructions for both below). Bagged cotton candy can harden once exposed to air, so wait until you're ready to serve the cake to make them, or keep each tree top (the cotton candy portion) covered in plastic wrap after making it.

The Lorax Decoration (optional)
white, yellow, orange candy melts
semisweet chocolate
black food coloring pen

Copy and paste "The Lorax" outline image into a word processor and print it out (it should measure 8.5 x 3.5 inches). Place parchment paper on top of "The Lorax" printout. Melt white candy melts (or white chocolate) and use a toothpick to spread out the melted candy in the shape of the letters. Let them dry before adding the animals.

"L"

Melt orange candy melts and use a toothpick to draw out an oval on top of the "L" for the fish bodies. Before the body dries, add the top fin and tail fins. After the orange candy is dry, add a bit of melted yellow candy melt for the face. Once the yellow is dry, add the two remaining fins. Make two dots with melted white candy melts for the eyeballs. Lastly, once the white is dry, use the black food coloring marker to draw on the pupils and mouth.

"O"

Melt orange candy melts and use it to draw a kidney shape on the "O". Add arms and the left leg. Once that is dry, add the right leg which over laps the left. Melt yellow candy melts and add the moustache. When it is almost dry, rub it with a toothpick to add some texture. Add the eyebrows and add texture to them as well. Use melted white candy melts to dot on eyeballs. Once the white is dry, use the black food coloring marker to draw on pupils, a nose, and a mouth.

"R"

Melt semisweet chocolate and draw a part of the barbaloot head in the hold of the "R". Add an arm and a leg which overlap the "R". Melt white candy melts and dot on an eyeball. To finish, once, the white is dry, use the food coloring marker to draw a pupil on the eyeball.

"A"

Melt semisweet chocolate and use it to draw on the head. Add two hands and feet. Melt white candy melts and use it to dot on two eyeballs. Once the white is dry, use the food coloring marker to draw pupils on the eyes and add a nose between the eyes.

"X"

Melt orange candy melts and draw an almond shape for the bird head. Before the head dries, connect it to the "X" with a neck and the upper body. Also before the head dries, add on the head feathers. Then add the tail. Once the head is dry, melt yellow candy melts and add the beak on top of the head. Add the bottom half of the body on either side of the "X". Then use the yellow to create two ruffles on top of the orange half of the body.

Use melted white candy melts to dot on two eyeballs. Melt semisweet chocolate and use it to draw on two legs (don't make them too thin or they will break when you try to remove the "X" later). Finally, use the food coloring marker and draw: pupils, eyelids, eyelashes, nostril, and mouth.

Cotton Candy Truffula Trees
pink, blue, yellow cotton candy
2 sheets white printer paper
brown marker
scotch tape

Take a sheet of printer paper and fold it in half lengthwise. Fold in half again. Open the sheet of paper up and it should be divided into fourths. Keep one half of the paper divided in fourths but divide the other half of the paper again so your get eights. Cut the paper so you get two thicker strips that are 1/4 of the paper and four thinner strips that are 1/8 of the paper. Repeat this with the other sheet of paper so you get 4 thick strips and 8 thin strips.

Take one paper strip and curl it up to form a tight spiral. Pull the paper edge that's in the center of spiral upwards. Keep pulling so you form a tube. Once the tube is tight, stop pulling and tape down the paper edge at the bottom of the tube to keep it from unraveling. Use the brown marker to draw random rings around the tube. Repeat with all the paper strips to form all the tree trunks. Now take a bit of cotton candy and wrap it around the top of a paper tube. Wrap more cotton candy around until satisfied with the size.

Note: I bought my cotton candy at Party City, but I've seen cotton candy being sold at stores like CVS and Walmart as well.