i was going to use the epicurious chocolate cake to carve a volcano cake for a 6 year old's birthday party. cake is going to be 12" tall which is a lot of cake...mother is a friend of mine and i got to thinking how expensive the materials for the cake are going to be and was wondering if i could just use a box mix and save her money since 6 year old's are not that discriminating .

will a box mix hold together well enough to carve a volcano? there will be no intricate carved parts, just your basic garden variety volcano .

i don't have a lot of experience carving, so i am not sure if i am borrowing trouble with a cake mix. tried searching the forum and got an overload of results without finding my answer...but i did try before pestering folks with my own post

diane

Hi Diane

There is a recipe on here called Durable Cake for 3D and Wedding Cake. It is made from a mix with some add-ins. Basically, mix, eggs, oil, pudding, sour cream. I would give that one a shot. Un-doctored chocolate cake mix would (in my opinion) be too soft to carve.

I have tried carving a plain box mix before and it just fell apart. It was way to soft. But I just recently made the WASC recipe on here and carved it (which uses a cake mix in it) and it turned out great.

There isn't that much carving with a volcano cake.

Use the Wondermold pan, with an 8" and 9" round underneath them (or 8", 9", and 10" rounds, if you need more height), then just trim the sharp edges off, cut the top the way you want it, ice it, airbrush it, and call it a day.

Theresa

The clown cake in my photos is carved from regular box cake so addins or anything. This was from a class with Bronwen Weber and she provided the cakes. She says that you can carve any kind of cake and I haven't had any problems. I just like them to be really cold but not frozen. They just carve better that way.

Yes, the WASC recipe is fabulous and versatile. I find myself using it more than any other lately.

it sounds like i have two great doctored mixes to use! thank you all!
on the chocolate wasc, i have seen several versions...do you think it matters which one for carving?

unfortunately, no wondermold and no budget to buy one. going to be stacking 10/8/6 rounds and then i have to carve ledges and caves for the "men" to be standing on when they flee the volacano, lol.

thank you again!
dinae

Then just cut the sides smooth and use the icing to create your textures.

When I did the volcano cake in my gallery, all I did was stack the cakes, then I used my icing and spatula to create the textures on the sides of the caldera.

Theresa

theresa,
i love your volcano! piping "shells" is a great idea and it looked perfect!
mine is going to be mud brown with red/orange/yellow lava...and apparently it has to have the dry ice (sigh).
diane