A mastic cake for the New Year will become a real table decoration. After all, this is truly a work of art - individual and in the theme of the holiday. You can do this with your own hands.
Mastic cake is one of the most popular options in cooking today. Indeed, with the help of such a sweet material, you can make an original and interesting dessert. Anyone, even a classic cake, takes on a special sound with such a decor. Especially many decoration options can be thought up for the New Year. An ordinary cake for a festive feast is boring, and decorated with mastic is almost a masterpiece. Moreover, mastering the wisdom of decorating baked goods in this way is not particularly difficult.
What should be the cake
The recipe for a cake for mastic can be varied - easy. Heavy, with a few cakes, with a combination of various layers. But, however, there are a number of nuances that should be taken into account so as not to spoil the homemade dessert. So, experienced chefs recommend adhering to the following rules:
- Any cakes can be used for the cake - biscuit, shortcrust pastry, waffles and even soufflé; the cream can also be varied - sour cream, yogurt, cottage cheese, berries, condensed milk. But at the same time, the cake should not be soaked on top, because the mastic may melt on contact with them. Directly under the mastic, you can grease the cake with butter cream, ganache, marzipan or boiled condensed milk. After smearing the cake, be sure to leave it until it hardens completely.
- The top layer must be leveled so that the mastic lies flat
- It remains to choose a theme and you can start decorating
Cake recipe
You can prepare different versions of the dessert. But biscuit is still considered classic - they have a high calorie content, and this should be taken into account by those who are on a diet. The advantage of this option is that you don't need any special products to make a delicious biscuit. So, it is enough to take:
- Chicken egg - 8 pieces
- Sugar in the form of sand - 220 grams
- Wheat flour - 250 grams
- Butter - 80 grams
The step-by-step recipe is as follows. First, break the eggs into a suitable deep bowl, add sugar there and actively beat them together with a mixer - the mass should increase significantly. Wheat flour should first be sieved - this will give it the opportunity to be saturated with oxygen and be more airy, baked goods with such flour turn out to be more fluffy and spongy.
The flour should be added to the egg-sugar mixture and mixed well until smooth. Next is the turn for butter - it should be melted and added to the dough, after which everything is mixed well again.
It remains only to be divided into parts and you can bake. The oven should be moderately preheated - about 180 degrees. Baking time is about 30 minutes. You can check the readiness of the biscuit by piercing it with a toothpick or a match. If not even a trace of dough remains on it, then the biscuit is ready. It remains to take it out of the oven and cool. Then it remains to collect the cake and prepare it for decorating with mastic.
Mastic recipes
Making mastic at home is easy. The step-by-step recipe is available on the Internet in large quantities. You can use different options - many of them are fairly light. So, for example, the recipe for marshmallow mastic is popular. In dishes designed for use in a microwave oven, you need to put marshmallows, pour them with juice or water and add a little butter.
In the microwave, heat the mixture at maximum power until the marshmallows increase in size and begin to thaw slightly. Alternatively, marshmallows can also be heated in a water bath.
You can add any food coloring to melted marshmallows and stir everything well. You need to add powdered sugar to the mixture and stir everything again. When it becomes difficult to stir with a spoon, put the mixture on the table and continue kneading with powdered sugar until the dough stops sticking to your hands. The recipe is clear and simple, many even call it good options, because minimum ingredients required.
You can also make mastic from condensed milk. It is from this that good stucco elements are obtained. For such a mastic you will need:
- Powdered milk - 200 grams
- Condensed milk - 1 can
- Powdered sugar - 200 grams
- Lemon juice - 1 tablespoon
The powder should be mixed with milk powder, lemon juice, and then pour condensed milk into them and mix everything well. Look at the resulting mass. If it is very dry and crumbles, then add more lemon juice.
How to work with mastic
Then it remains to collect the cake. After preparing it, you can start decorating. Since the cake goes for the New Year, then the color scheme, as well as the decor options, should be suitable for this particular holiday. Accordingly, dyes such as blue, green, silver, white, red are required.
First, roll out the main layer of mastic, which will be wrapped around the whole cake. It will become a platform for further decoration. Think about what exactly you will do on the cake, how to decorate it, should be in advance - this will help you choose the right dye for the base. The cake wrapped in mastic becomes even and smooth if it is applied correctly. It is necessary to roll out the layer of mastic so that it is generally one and a half to two times larger than the surface of the baking - this is the only way to distribute it accurately and accurately.
To smooth the mastic on the cake, you need a special mastic iron - you can easily align the entire composition with it. Then you can start sculpting figures from mastic and creating decor - snowflakes, ribbons, twigs, etc. It all depends on the skills and taste of the pastry chef.
New Year's decor options
To decorate the cake, you can not limit yourself in anything. So, you can arrange a cake in the form of a New Year's gift wrapped in packaging and decorated with ribbons. You can make a special New Year's composition, for example, a landscape with a Christmas tree. All this will give the atmosphere and character.
Figures should be fastened together in detail using a hearth (it must be warmed up) or melted mastic. They are also attached to the cake.
Neatly and jewelry can be cut out of mastic snowflakes. This will require special stacks with which you can work with the sculpting mass. To make it easier to do this, you first need to cut the workpiece out of plastic, and then press it down on the mastic. Then it remains only to carefully cut everything.
New Year's mastic cakes can look very different - represent Santa Claus or Santa Claus, be in the form of a bag with gifts, the gift itself, etc.
As additional decorations, you can use different options - a real bottle of champagne, almond petals, chocolate products and much more, which only your imagination allows. The main thing here is not to be afraid to experiment. Then everything will turn out perfect.
