Chicago Fire Party: The Cake and the Pinata

My boy wanted a Chicago Fire Party, so why not? another fun cake to make. Here you will find instructions for the cake and the pinata.

Let's start with the Chicago Fire cake.

Ingredients:

• Cakes
• Buttercream icing: 5 cups white, 3-4 cups dark blue, 1/4 cup red, 1/4 cup grey and 1/4 cup black - 2.5 batches of my recipe (see recipe)
• Icing tips stars #16, #18 and a flat one #

The logo of the Chicago Fire Soccer team is square, so you can bake a couple of square cakes or in my case I baked 3 rectangular 9x13 inches cakes (I do not have a square pan).

I cut one rectangular cake in half and placed one full cake (flat side down) and a 3 inches slide of the cut cake at the bottom of my square glass.

I made a strawberry filling and covered the cake with it.

Then you put the other cake on top of the small square and then the other 3 inches cake (flat side up) - so you end up with a 12X12 inches square cake.

To make the strawberry filling, put about 1/4 cup of strawberry jam, 1/4 cup of water and 1 can of condensed milk in a pot. Heat it all up until it is all mixed together.

Make one recipe of thin buttercream (see my recipe here) and leave it white. You will use the buttercream to cover the whole cake as a crumb coat. Reserve - keep covered with damp towel or cling film.

From your square cake, you will need to cut each side on the shape of the Chicago Fire logo - cut it with a sharp knife in the shape of an "S" on each side. I keep the sides of the glass clean at all times - you can use wet paper towels to clean.

Once you have the shape you want, you need to put the crumb coat around the cake before you frost it. The coat will keep the cake from crumbling. Take your thin buttercream and spread it around the cake with a spatula. This will also level the cake and seal the edges. If you want you can cool the cake a little before applying the buttercream. If you do not cool it, you need to work carefully and slowly so it does not fall into pieces.

Put the cake on the fridge for at least 1 hour before icing so the crumb coat hardens. This will make the rest of the process so much easier. Once the cake is cold and the crumb coat hard, you will start by covering the cake with blue icing. Make one recipe of thin blue icing. Always remember that the color in the icing intensifies as it dries, so do not use too much blue coloring.

Once your icing is done, cover the top of the cake first, use a big spatula to make sure the top is as smooth as you can. Then do the sides with a small spatula, again trying to spread it as smooth as you can. A nice trick is to get your spatula in hot water, pat it dry and quickly smooth with it.

I have printed a Chicago Fire logo to help me with the design. I used a a piece of paper and cut a circle with the right dimensions and placed it on top of the cake. With a tooth pick I drew the circle in the cake, I repeated with a smaller circle for the middle. Once I had the 2 circles, I drew the rest of the details in the cake with the toothpick. These will be my guidelines in where to put the frosting later. Remember to keep cleaning the glass as you go.

Now you are ready to put the other colors. I started with the black icing and the flat tip. Put a straight line in your 4 diagonals and then do small triangles in every corner. Continue the triangles with 3 straight lines down the side of the cake.

Then you will do white. Start with tip #18 and do a line around the black lines as well as the borders of the Chicago Fire cake. Keep looking at your print out of the Chicago Fire logo so you know what you are doing. You will also do the outside circle with one line of stars and the little triangles pointing out from the circle.

Then I did the middle C in red with the star tip #16 and with the same number tip do the grey circle.

The cake is almost done. With gray and start tip #16 write Chicago on the top and Fire at the bottom, making sure the words are centered.

With red and tip# 16 do the red inside lines following the same shape as your white lines. With white and star  tip #18. Do a star border at the bottom of the cake. Please make sure that your glass is clean all around it as once the border is done you will not be able to clean it without smudging the border.

And that is it, your Chicago Fire cake is done!!

For the Chicago Fire pinata I sort of cheated. I bought a boy pinata and did some remodeling. I took away all the paper and cover it again with the colors from the Chicago Fire Juniors team. I used white crepe paper for the socks, and red crepe paper for the uniform. I cut small strips of white and red to make the lines on the socks and uniform. I printed the Chicago Fire logo in 2 sizes, one for the shirt and one for the socks.

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