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Slide Notes

This presentation will take you through the mysterious and unusual steps which eventually lead to delicious Buffer cake (AKA Chocolate Mandarin Cake with Exploding Candy Frosting).

For the bakers of the world, for the Buffer team, and most of all for Danny, for coming up with this crazy delicious, crazy cake flavor idea (which is a little crazy).

Made with Love,
@AmandasAbroad
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How to make Buffer Cake

Published on Nov 18, 2015

A step-by-step recipe adventure for baking a most unusual and unique cake. Made with love and chocolate by @AmandasAbroad, for Danny, the entire team at Buffer.com, and crazy exploding cake lovers everywhere. :)

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1.

How to make Buffer Cake

aka Chocolate Mandarin Cake w/ Exploding candy frosting
This presentation will take you through the mysterious and unusual steps which eventually lead to delicious Buffer cake (AKA Chocolate Mandarin Cake with Exploding Candy Frosting).

For the bakers of the world, for the Buffer team, and most of all for Danny, for coming up with this crazy delicious, crazy cake flavor idea (which is a little crazy).

Made with Love,
@AmandasAbroad
2.

What you will need

  • Mixing bowl.
  • Spoon (or a fork, whisk, I'm not particular).
  • Metal baking pan (cupcake pan, pie pan, any clean metal that you can fill & stick into an oven).
  • Chopsticks
  • Small pot
You're also going to need an oven :)
3.

Ingredients for the cake

  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 can (about 3/4 cup drained) mandarin segments (save juice & set aside)
  • 3 tbsp cocoa powder & extra for dusting
4.

Ingredients for cake dressing

  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp milk
  • 1 tbsp juice from the canned mandarins.
  • 1 tbsp of butter
Cake dressing, what?! Intrigued? You'll see soon enough. It's delicious, I promise.
5.

Ingredients for Frosting

  • Store bought frosting. Flavor = Dealer's choice.
  • Orange Pop Rocks
  • If you want frosting from scratch, see the notes for a URL to a fantastic recipe :)
The frosting can be whatever flavor you enjoy the most.

I chose cream cheese because of the neat color contrast between the cake and pop rocks (and because it's tasty). I will not judge you for choosing chocolate, though.

As for the pop rocks, the Orange flavor is a special edition flavor. If you cannot find them around town, you can buy them on Amazon.

Note: If you don't want to buy pop rocks from Amazon, you can attempt making your own. Though, without some serious machinery, your pop rocks will be more like fizzy rocks. Recipe here: http://bit.ly/1J1qsiy

If you want to make frosting from scratch, I recommend following this delectable recipe: http://fd.cm/1J1qebf
6.

-- Prep Steps --
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Grease baking pan lightly with butter, oil, or cooking spray. Dust pan with cocoa powder.

7.

Step #1
In your mixing bowl, combine the flour, white sugar, salt, cocoa powder, and baking soda.
Mix 'em up.

8.

Step #2
Add egg & mandarin pieces to bowl.
Mix it up.

9.

Step #3
Mix everything up until it is well combined.
Pour the mixture into your baking pan.

If your mix is a little too dry add in some of the juice from the mandarin can. Start with 1 tbsp at a time, mix thoroughly. Continue until all dry ingredients are mixed well into a consistent batter.
10.

Step #4
Bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes. Baking time will vary according to pan type.
Check on your cake periodically by poking the center with a chopstick.
If the chopstick comes out cleanly (with no batter on the tip) your cake is done! :)

An excellent step-by-step guide to the toothpick test can be found here: http://bit.ly/1FydeFi
11.

Step #5
While your cake is baking, combine milk, juice from the mandarin can and brown sugar in a small pot on the stove over medium-low heat.
Stir constantly until the mixture becomes caramelly. Turn the heat down to low and stir occasionally until your cake is done.

I don't care what spell check says, caramelly should be a word.
12.

Step #6
When your cake is done, carefully take it out of the oven and turn the oven off. With your chopsticks, poke holes all around the cake.
Pour the caramelly mixture all over the cake and let it soak up the caramelly deliciousness.

Spell check may try and strike fear into my language loving heart by placing a red line underneath the word caramelly, but this does not deter me. In fact it makes me feel a little rebellious, so I've continued to use the word caramelly more than what could be considered necessary.
13.

Step #7
Allow the cake to cool as much as you can bear to wait. Then, apply your frosting of choice.

You can use your frosting to write or draw silly things, or apply it all over in an even layer. The choice is yours.
14.

Step #8
Top the frosted cake by sprinkling orange pop rocks to your heart's content.

Fun fact: Pop Rocks contain bubbles that "pop" at 600 psi. More info about how the candy is made can be found here: http://bit.ly/1FxWQoj
15.

Step #9 BOOM! Celebrate, you made Buffer Cake with exploding candy frosting.

I admit, I alas did not have pop rocks myself when I created the cake in this photo. But it was my birthday when I made it, and in the spirit of birthdays everywhere: "It's my party, and I'll bake without pop rocks if I want to. Bake without pop rocks if I want to. You would bake too if it happened to be you." -- I don't care how much more lame I might seem for having typed that, hahaha. :P
16.

enjoy! :)

If you would like a printer-friendly .PDF copy of this recipe, feel free to grab it here: http://bit.ly/1e3HdyN It's publicly available via my Google Drive, so there is no newsletter opt-in or tit for tat required, just take it, take it, take it! :)

Amanda Tiffany

http://amandasabroad.com