My son was having a Mad Science Birthday party and I wanted to make a Brain cake that really went along with the theme. I started by baking two 14″ wide 3″ deep round layers of red velvet cake. After cooling I leveled them and put them together with a layer of the lime green icing I chose for the cake. Then frost the rest of the cake.
The Brain cake: I found a brain jelly mold online. You can make the brain jelly with peach jelly and you use 1 cup of boiling water and 1/2 cup nonfat condensed milk to make the jelly. Then you have to add a few drops of blue, red and yellow food coloring to get the right shade of gray. It is important to start out with light jelly (peach or champagne…something like that).
I tried out the brain thing before doing the cake to make sure I could get it right. I would advise anyone to do that. After the jelly was the right color gray I poured it into a lightly greased mold (use cooking spray and then wipe out excess with a paper towel). Chill until set. Gently turn the jelly out onto a large plate. If it won’t come out you may need to fill the sink with warm water and hold the jelly mold in the water for a few seconds being careful not to get water into the mold or jelly.
Then I took a fine paint brush and brushed veins onto the brain using Wilton paste in NO Taste Red. The candles are wrapped in beading wire from the craft department to look like electrodes. It is just a spiral. Then I cut 2 lengths of new air hose from a fish tank aerator and spiraled more craft wire around them. In between I made the wire spell out “Happy Birthday” in cursive letters…this doesn’t show up very well in the picture but it looked very cool in person. The hardest part was moving the jelly-brain from the plate to the top of the cake. I had my husband hold the plate at an angle over the cake and then I very carefully and quickly made the transfer using a very wide spatula and my hand. I then used a star tip & purple icing to pipe a simple border around the brain & the edges of the cake. Lastly I placed the “Happy Birthday” electrodes over top of the brain & the candles in front.
This was one of the most successful cakes I ever made. The kids were crazy over it. They were daring each other to eat a slice of the brain and they let out a chorus of gasps when I cut the cake and they saw the bright red cake against the lime green icing. A huge success!
Thanks for sharing all the fun cake designs and brain cake ideas on this site!
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