Supplies
needed:
·
9x5
bread loaf pan, 2 if you have them
·
2
boxes of cake mix, whatever flavor you want
·
5
wooden dowels, or chopsticks
·
1
piece of cardboard, about 20”x20”
·
1
piece of cardboard, to be cut to fit under lid of treasure chest
·
Tinfoil
to wrap around cardboard under lid of treasure chest
·
Candies
that you want to put into treasure chest
·
Ingredients
for buttercream icing, listed below
1) Mix both boxes of cake
mix, per instructions on the box.
2) Grease bottom of loaf
pan(s) with cooking spray like pam, line bottom of pan with wax paper, then
spray again and coat spray with light coating of flour.
3) Add 4 cups of cake
batter to one loaf pan (for base of treasure chest) and 2 cups of cake batter
to other loaf pan (for treasure chest lid).
4) Bake for 50-60 min @ 325o (check loaf pan with only 2 cups of
batter in it after 20-30 min for doneness.
5) Let cake cool for at
least 30 min before taking out of pan, cool completely on wire rack before
icing.
Buttercream
Icing
(Double icing if icing a larger cake, but one batch should be enough for this
cake):
½
cup Crisco (no substitutes)
½
cup butter
1
tsp clear flavoring extract (vanilla, almond, butter, etc) Clear flavoring keeps the icing bright white, but since you don’t need
a bright white, you can use regular vanilla or almond extract.
4
cups powdered sugar (approx. 1 lb)
2
TBSP milk
*Cocoa
powder to taste and color
Cream
butter and shortening with electric mixer (Bosch, Kitchen Aid, etc.). Add
vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed.
Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing
will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Put
¼ of icing in a separate bowl. To the ¾ of icing still in mixer bowl, add cocoa
powder to taste and color. I recommend 3 TBSP. *You will need to add more milk
as well so that the icing isn’t too dry. If you don’t, it will tear your cake
up when you ice it. Add 1 tsp of milk at a time until it is nice and fluffy. ¼ icing
that you put in a separate bowl, add yellow coloring until it reaches color of
the gold bars on the cake. Keep icing covered with a damp cloth until ready to
use. If you have leftover icing, keep refrigerated in an airtight container,
this icing can be stored 2 weeks. You will need to let come to room temperature
before you can use it. I recommend making the icing while the cakes are
cooling.
·
Take
largest piece of cardboard and cover with treasure chest paper. I did a image
search on Google for "treasure chest" and found the one that is on there. I had
to use 4 pieces of paper to cover the entire piece of cardboard. Tape paper to
cardboard, then cover with plastic wrap. Make sure that the paper and cardboard
are completely covered with plastic wrap. If they are not, then the grease from
the icing and the cake will seep onto it and it won’t look very appealing.
·
Take
the smallest piece of cardboard and place the top of the treasure chest cake on
it. Trace the base of the cake and put cake back on cooling rack. Cut cardboard
out to size of lid. Make three holes in the back of the lid and two in the
front (that don’t go all the way through the cardboard), evenly spaced out for
the dowels to go through. Put cardboard on piece of paper and copy outline and
where the holes are. Make sure that the holes are big enough for the dowel to
go through, but not too big that they don’t drag a bit.
·
Cover
with tinfoil and poke dowels through holes on the back of the lid and make sure
that no spare pieces of tinfoil are loose. It wouldn’t be fun to chew on a
piece of tinfoil :p
·
Larger
cake, level with a serrated knife. Run a serrated knife back and forth in a
sawing motion to remove crown of cake (or curved part). Enjoy snacking on the
round part you just cut off.
·
Put
a little bit of icing on the large decorated piece of cardboard, where you want
to put the cake. The icing will act as glue so the cake isn’t sliding around.
·
Place
cake on icing, push down gently, and make sure it is secure.
·
Put
a little bit of icing on the small tinfoil covered piece of cardboard and place
small cake on top of it and make sure it is secure.
·
Take
a cake decorating spatula, or straight edged butter knife, and ice both cakes
with brown icing. Let iced cake sit for 10-25 min so icing will dry a little bit.
·
Once
they are both iced, you will want to take the piece of paper that you copied
the outline of the lid and lay it on top of the bottom cake. Make sure that you
put it on centered. Push dowels in where the holes are. You will want to take
the dowels that are in the back of the cake out and cut them to be only 1 ½
inches higher than the cake. You can cut the front dowels shorter, depending on
the angle of the lid that you want.
·
Once
dowels are cut and ready, paint the front dowels with brown food coloring, so
they are hidden. Once food coloring is dry, push back into cake. Make sure that
pointed part of dowel is sticking up, so it will go through the lid of the cake
easier.
·
Put
the lid on the cake. This may take two people. Have one person carefully hold
the lid while the second person guides the cake to where the dowels are. If you
are holding the lid, make sure that you are holding it the angle you want your
lid to be at, so when you put the dowels through it the lid of the cake will be
open. The second person can slightly adjust the dowels while they are in the
cake so they fit according to the holes in the lid. First focus on getting the
back three dowels in, then you can align the front two dowels. Now you will
realize why you didn’t cut these holes all the way through. If you did, the lid
will fall and you wouldn’t have a chest. With the front holes only halfway cut
out, you still have a support to hold the cake open.
·
The
rest is easy now!
·
Touch
up fingerprints or indents from putting the lid on the cake with the brown
icing.
·
Take
yellow icing and put in decorating bag. Put a flat tip on bag and pipe the
yellow brackets on cake, from front to back.
o
If
you don’t have a decorating bag, put some icing in the corner of a Ziploc bag.
Twist top of bag so icing doesn’t explode out and hold on to the twist. Cut a
medium sized hole and pipe the yellow bracket. The bigger the hole, the faster the
icing will come out. You may want to cut just a small hole and see how it comes
out. If it’s too small, cut it a little bit bigger.
o
I
did three strands across for each bracket, then two on top of those three.
·
If
using decorating bag, put star tip #21 on bag and pipe stars all along bracket.
Then do star border on bottom of lid and top of chest part of cake.
o
If
you don’t have a decorating bag, then put yellow icing into new Ziploc bag and
cut very small hole and pipe small holes all along bracket. Then do a nice
border on bottom of lid and top of chest part of cake.
·
Now
the fun part, decorate the cake with the candies that you bought. Put them
wherever you want to. If you are making a pile of candy on the ground in front
of the cake, use the leftover brown or yellow icing as glue and stick the
candy and coins into it.
·
You
can also use brown sugar for sand around the treasure chest. Just be careful
that it doesn’t blow everywhere if you have to move the cake.