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HELP! Pregnant Belly Cake

post #1 of 9
2/14/12 at 9:37am
Thread Starter 
Ok a co-worker found a cake pic off Pintrest that she wanted me to do for another co-workers baby shower (which is tomorrow). I watched a few YouTube videos, looked at pics & read the forums & thought I was all set. Right up until it came to the baking. I started last night. I purchased a 7qt. stainless steel mixing bowl for the "belly" & am using the Wilton ball pans for the boobs. Ball pan cakes turned out great. The "belly" however, is another story. My first try the cake ended up being mush in the middle. My cake recipe called to bake at 350 & I did for about 45 minutes & then I turned it down to 325. After baking for another hr it still wasn't done! icon_confused.gif Thankfully, my work is flexible so I texted my boss & told them I was going to need to take a vacation day today to fix this cake. No problem. So I started again this morning baking my "belly". I did put a flower nail in the bottom of the bowl, this time only filled the bowl until right above the nail (I'm going to set it on top a 10' round for more cake), turned the oven down to 325 & after almost 2 hrs it STILL wasn't done in the middle! icon_cry.gif WTH am I doing wrong!!? Should I turn the heat down to 300? I know I can do this, but I'm getting real frustrated over here! Any advice would help!
~Shawna
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~Shawna
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post #2 of 9
2/14/12 at 10:19am
I had this happen on my superbowl cake (helmet) I used a 10 inch ball pan and by the time the middle was done, the ends were hard - I had to trim them all the way around and ended up with an 8 inch! Maybe if you used bake even strips? I'm not sure what would help- hopefully someone knows or you are going to be up until 4am decorating it!
I've learned so much from my mistakes..... I'm thinking of making a few more!
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I've learned so much from my mistakes..... I'm thinking of making a few more!
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post #3 of 9
2/14/12 at 11:04am
i did one and for the belly I used the soccer ball pan and for the boobs I used the little bundt cake pans and it turned out perfectly. It wasn't many serving but I also did cupcakes too! You may just have to bake some round cakes, stack them and then carve them to look like a belly.[/quote]
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post #4 of 9
2/14/12 at 11:12am
Thread Starter 
I'm going to give the stainless steel bowl another try, this time w/a little less batter. When I cleaned up the mess from my last attempt I noticed a nice crusted layer of cake on the bottom of my flower nail so I'm not sure it was touching the bottom of the bowl at all. This could have caused the inside to be still raw. I'm going to give the stainless steel bowl 1 more try at 325 & if it doesn't work I'm going to have to go w/2 10' rounds & carve. Wish me luck! thumbs_up.gif
~Shawna
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~Shawna
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post #5 of 9
2/14/12 at 11:15am
I have made several, and I use half of the wilton large egg pan...perfect shape, perfect thickness, and bakes great....

If it is not too late and you have this pan I know it will work.

Sorry, I just saw this post
nancyg
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post #6 of 9
2/14/12 at 11:57am
Thread Starter 
Nancy,
Thanks for the response! I don't have that pan, but if this time doesn't work out. I might be at Hobby Lobby buying it! icon_smile.gif
~Shawna
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~Shawna
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post #7 of 9
2/14/12 at 12:05pm
I used the wilton ball pan for the boobs and the doll mold pan for the belly. i did have to trim off the belly so it wasnt so cone shaped and i also had to make the boobs a bit smaller so everything could be proportion better.
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post #8 of 9
2/14/12 at 5:18pm
You are welcome....Hope it all works out
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post #9 of 9
2/14/12 at 7:44pm
I recently made a pregnant belly cake (see my gallery for pics of my sock monkey baby cake) & had the exact same problem baking my belly. The cake needed to serve 50, so the smaller ball pans weren't an option. But baking in a larger bowl was a huge failure. I tried lower temps, flower nails, wrapping the pans, but nothing worked. Each time, I would get burnt dry edges with a mushy center. After a few failed attempts, I decided the ratio of the depth compared to the curvature of bowl was just too great to get an even bake. My solution: bake three layers of cake (2 12" & 1 8") in standard pans. Tort, fill, stack, & carve. It really wasn't hard to carve the half sphere shape. Then I used my cake scraps & buttercream to make some cake spackle (applied with my hands to get the curves i needed) to smooth out the Imperfections before crumb coating. The spackle worked wonders to create a perfectly smooth sphere!

Hope this helps. Good luck!
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