With bright colors, fun decorations, and lots of sprinkles, drip cakes create showstopping moments which is why I chose them as my April baking bucket list challenge.
This post is way overdue because drip cakes were my April baking challenge and here we are nearing the end of May. And, while I did complete this bucket list item in April, I’ve been a bit tied up with work and life to get a blog post up.
Since April’s my birthday month, I thought it was only appropriate to choose a cake for my April baking challenge and chose to knock out this challenge by making the drip cake as my own birthday cake. I love drip cakes because they are so over the top. They’re typically made with bright colors, fun topper decor, and lots of sprinkles (my favorite!) making them perfect for a birthday celebration while creating real ‘wow’ moments when others see them.
What I really enjoyed about this challenge was that a few weeks after completing my own birthday drip cake, my friend Vanessa asked me to make her a 30th birthday cake giving me another opportunity to practice my drip technique — which is now something I believe I’ve truly mastered.
White Chocolate Ganache Drip
What I learned about drip cakes is that the ‘drip’ part is really the simplest and quickest part about the entire decor. It’s really nothing more than a chocolate ganache that’s been cooled to room temperature then spread over the top and slowly pushed over the edge of the cake. I then used a piping bag to make additional drips along the edge of the cake.
Chocolate cake with mocha filling & vanilla Swiss buttercream
For a drip cake’s chocolate ganache, you can use either white chocolate chips and heavy cream then tint the ganache to a color of your choosing with food coloring (be sure to choose chocolate food coloring or add color-flo to your chocolate before adding gel or you may seize up your chocolate) or you can use colored melting chocolate, like Candy Melts. The key to the drip though is ensuring it’s cooled to room temperature. If it’s not properly cooled, the ganache will melt the frosting on the cake and cause your colors to bleed.
Below I share my ganache recipe!
Swiss Meringue Buttercream
This drip cakes challenge also gave me the opportunity to practice my Swiss meringue buttercream recipe. I love Swiss meringue buttercream because it’s so light and silky smooth. However, it intimidated me because it involved cooking egg whites and sugar over a double boiler then whipping that into a meringue before finally adding in the butter.
What I learned while making Swiss meringue buttercream is, much like the ganache, the importance of cooling the meringue before adding the butter. If the whipped meringue is too warm when the butter is added, the butter ends up melting which result in either frosting that’s more like soup or frosting that tastes like straight up butter.
The trick I learned here is to chill the bowl of my stand mixer in the fridge which helps quicken the cooling process. I use a different bowl for the double boiler then transfer the cooked egg whites & sugar into the chilled bowl to whip into a meringue. Once the meringue forms stiff peaks and the meringue & bowl are both no warmer than room temperature, I begin to add the butter which forms into the deliciously light buttercream.
Below I share my Swiss buttercream recipe!
Cake Toppers
Since cakes take a ton of work, I chose to keep my cake toppers simple. For my own birthday cake, I created striped meringue cookies which, like the Swiss buttercream, is cooked egg whites & sugar whipped to stiff peaks. I then striped a piping bag with gel food coloring and used a 1M frosting tip to make tall swirls. Later, I colored the remaining meringue and made little dots all of which dried in the oven for 2-hours until set. (Find the meringue cookie recipe here!)
For added height on my cake, I used white candy melts to make thin sheets of chocolate and added colorful sprinkles on top. Once hardened, I broke the chocolate into pieces to add dimension to the cake.
My friend requested a specific cake for her birthday so I made cactus cookies out of my go-to sugar cookie dough and decorated them with flood frosting, created royal frosting cacti flowers, and added cactus ‘tines’ using food decorating pens.
Overall, I’m so happy I chose drip cakes as my April baking bucket list challenge. I love the end results and they’re cakes I’m very proud of. However, after creating two complicated cakes back to back, I’m sure glad my May baking challenge is simple, just classic lemon bars and homemade raspberry sauce.
Vanessa’s drip cake: lemon poppyseed cake with cream cheese filling & vanilla Swiss buttercream
Have you ever made a drip cake? What would you use as cake toppers on top of your drip cake?
Check out the full Baking Bucket List here.
- 1 cup white chocolate chips or 1 cup candy melts
- ⅓ cup heavy cream
- Place the chocolate into a medium sized bowl and set aside.
- In a small saucepan, heat the heavy cream until it just begins to boil with tiny bubbles around the edges.
- Pour the heavy cream over the white chocolate and let it sit for 1 minute.
- Using a whisk, mix together the chocolate and cream until it's fully blended. Then mix in your coloring.
- Let the ganache cool to room temperature for about 15 minutes before creating the drip onto the cake.
- Pour a small portion of the ganache onto the top of the cake and using an offset spatula gently smooth it over the top and over the edge.
- Put the remaining ganache into a piping bag and cut a small piece off the tip. Use the piping bag to add more drips along the edge of the cake or to elongate drips that have already started.
- Place in the fridge to set completely before adding topper decorations.
- 4 ounces egg whites (fresh, not packaged)
- 8 ounces granulated sugar
- 12 ounces unsalted butter, softened to room temperature and cut into 1-2 tablespoon-size pieces
- a pinch of salt
- 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
- Place the bowl of your stand mixer in the fridge to chill for 15-20 minutes while you cook the egg whites & sugar.
- In another large bowl, whisk together the egg whites and sugar until foamy.
- Create a double boiler on the stove with the large bowl your egg whites are mixed into until the water is just simmering (ensure the water doesn't touch the bowl on top of the double boiler).
- Whisk the egg whites and sugar together on top of the double boiler constantly until the mixture reaches 165°F to 180°F -- this is when the egg whites will be cooked and the sugar melted.
- Remove the bowl from the double boil and transfer the egg white mixture to the chilled bowl of your stand mixer.
- Whip the egg whites in the bowl of your stand mixer on high using the whisk attachment until stiff peaks form, about 10-minutes. Once stiff peaks form, check to ensure both the bowl and egg whites are at room temperature. If they are too warm, you will melt the butter. If still too warm, place in the fridge to cool or use ice packs on the bottom of the bowl to cool the meringue and bowl.
- Once the meringue and bowl are cooled, switch to the paddle attachment and begin adding your butter with the mixer on low speed. Do this gradually over 5-7 minutes. If the mixture begins to break, just keep mixing. Once the butter is fully added, increase the mixer speed to high for 2-3 minutes until the frosting is light and fluffy. At this point, you can add the pinch of salt, extract and if desired, food coloring.
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