Spaghetti & Meatballs Cake

My dad always says that he doesn’t want cake for his birthday, even though he will happily eat it whenever it’s around. This year I came up with a great idea to make him a cake that doesn’t look like a cake, a cake that looks like Spaghetti & Meatballs!

If you’re looking for a truly impressive birthday cake that’s super simple to make, then this one has to be it. A classic chocolate cake underneath, with buttercream ‘spaghetti’, ferrero rocher ‘meatballs’, raspberry coulis ‘tomato’ sauce, and grated white chocolate ‘parmesan’. From start to finish this literally took about 1 1/2 hrs to make, including cooling time! The assembly itself took only about 20mins so this really is so easy to make, nothing like the princess castle cake that took hours! Give it a try and I’m sure you’ll have one very happy birthday girl or boy.

Spaghetti & Meatballs Cake

Ingredients:

Mum’s Classic Chocolate Cake
– 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
– 1 1/2 cups caster sugar
– 3 eggs
– 3/4 cup milk
– 140g unsalted butter, melted
– 3 tbsp cocoa powder
– 1 tsp vanilla extract

Raspberry Coulis ‘Tomato’ Sauce
– 300g frozen raspberries
– 1/4 cup sugar
– 2 tbsp water
– Approx 1/2 tsp cocoa powder

Vanilla Buttercream ‘Spaghetti’
– 185g unsalted butter, softened
– 2 1/2 cups icing sugar
– 2 tbsp milk
– 1 tsp vanilla extract
– Cocoa powder
– Yellow food colouring

For the ‘Meatballs’ & ‘Parmesan’
– 8-10 ferrero rocher chocolates
– Grated white chocolate

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees c. Line and grease a round baking tin. To make the chocolate cake, place all cake ingredients in the bowl of a mixer, and mix on medium speed for 3mins. Pour into prepared tin and bake for 40-45mins or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

While the cake is cooking prepare the raspberry sauce. Combine the raspberries, sugar and water in a saucepan over a med-high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5-8mins. Stir through a little cocoa to darken the colour of the rasperry coulis until it resembles the colour of tomato sauce. Remove from heat and pop it in the fridge to cool completely, the sauce will thicken once cooled.

To make the buttercream, place the softened butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 5-7mins or until light and fluffy. Add the icing sugar & milk and beat for a further 7mins or until the sugar is all dissolved. To make the buttercream spaghetti coloured, add a little cocoa powder and yellow food colouring. Be careful to add the yellow colouring one drop at a time, you only need a very small amount as you want the buttercream just slightly yellow.

To assemble the spaghetti & meatballs cake place the chocolate cake in a large round pasta serving bowl. Cover the top and sides of the cake with a thin layer of the buttercream, it doesn’t have to be perfect you just want to cover it in the right colour before piping.

Place the remaining buttercream in a piping bag with a small round spaghetti sized tip. Pipe the ‘spaghetti’ all over the cake, covering it completely. There are no rules for this, the more random you are the better it will look. Once the cake is covered pop it in the freezer for 2mins to firm the buttercream a little before continuing.

Next place the ferrero rocher ‘meatballs’ over the top of the cake. Be a little random with them, they will look better if the placement is less perfect.

Cover the ferrero rochers with the rasperry sauce, letting some of the sauce drip down at certain spots. Finally, sprinkle the top with the grated white chocolate ‘parmesan’.

One final note is that I found the tips for getting the raspberry coulis and buttercream the correct colours from Phoodie’s version of the spaghetti & meatballs cake, check it out here.

Enjoy! x