Recipe for puff pastry cake man
Whether you call it a cake man or cake woman, it is a classic that can delight nearly all birthday celebrants and playful souls. It certainly doesn’t have to be a child’s birthday before a cake man/woman can be served! It’s just that kind of birthday cake that brings back a lot of lovely childhood memories, and it’s perfectly okay to feel a bit like a child again, even when you’re over 30 😉
Cake men and cake women can be made in many different ways and with various types of cakes. Danish pastry, brown sugar cake, or choux pastry are the classics, but you also see many exciting variants like raspberry slice or pastry scraps!
However, we believe that choux pastry has something quite special.
My husband always makes a cake woman for our girls when they have birthdays. And it is always made with choux pastry – the girls love the combination of choux pastry, icing, and candy.
We decorated this cake with a classic white icing and the candy, which the 6-year-old birthday child most loves 🙂
And despite the fact that choux pastry cake woman is a usual tradition at our home, my daughter’s eyes were still full of “Christmas lights,” excitement, and joy when the cake finally made it to the table! That’s something that can sustain you as a parent for a long time.
And as always, the cake was eaten quickly. Therefore, unfortunately, we didn’t manage to get a picture of the entire cake – we just forgot in the midst of the birthday, singing, and celebration 😉 But it looked beautiful and delicious!
Choux Pastry Cake Man Recipe
Puff Pastry Cake Man
Equipment
- Deciliter Measure
- Kitchen Scale
- Large pot
- Hob
- Whisk
- Oven
- Piping Bag
- Glass Bowl
Ingredients
Choux
- 300 gram Water
- 100 gram Butter
- 132.5 gram Wheat Flour
- 37.5 gram Sugar
- 4 pcs. Egg S/M
White glaze
- 200 gram Powdered Sugar
- 50 gram Water
Decoration
- Candy e.g. "licorice laces" for hair, etc.
Instructions
Puff Pastry
- Find a large pot.
- Add water and butter to the pot.
- Bring it to a boil while you mix flour and sugar together in a small bowl.
- Add the flour and sugar mixture to the pot when it boils.
- Whisk while adding.
- Continue whisking until the mixture comes together and begins to pull away from the sides. Then remove the pot from the heat and let it cool.
- In the meantime, find a bowl and add the eggs to it and whisk them together. Add the whisked eggs to the dough when it is cool enough to touch. Add a little bit of egg at a time while whisking to create a homogeneous mass. Continue adding eggs until the dough is thick enough to be piped out into a pattern, but not too thin. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit) (conventional oven, upper and lower heat).
- Find a piping bag and a star nozzle (about 3 centimeters in diameter).
- Attach the nozzle and add the dough to the piping bag.
- Place a piece of baking paper on a baking sheet.
- Now pipe the dough onto the baking paper. It is easiest to first "draw" the outline of the cake man or cake woman with the dough and then fill it in. Note that the dough will rise, so avoid making very small and fine details as they will just blend together. You can also draw the outline of your cake man/cake woman with a pencil or pen on the baking paper before you start piping. This provides guidelines. Just remember to turn the baking paper over afterward so you don’t pipe dough directly on top of the pen or pencil marks 😉
- Place the cake in the preheated oven and let it bake for about half an hour. The baking time depends on your oven, but the puff pastry should be nicely golden and risen. Only open the oven when you think it’s almost done, as the dough may collapse if opened too soon. Remove the baked puff pastry from the oven and let the cake cool on the baking sheet.
White Icing
- Prepare the icing just before you need to apply it to the cake so it does not harden in the bowl.
- Find a small bowl.
- Add powdered sugar and water to the bowl.
- Stir until smooth and lump-free. You can add more powdered sugar for a thicker consistency or more water for a thinner one. You can also add cocoa powder if you prefer chocolate icing.
Decoration
- Spread the icing over the cooled cake woman. I just used a spoon.
- Then arrange candies of your choice and optionally decorate with candy hair—ideally licorice laces: caramel-flavored if the birthday person is blonde, licorice-flavored if they have dark hair, or strawberry-flavored if they are redheaded 🙂
- Now the cake man/woman is ready to serve!