Erupting Volcano Cake

Make six 8″ round cakes using your favorite mix or buy cakes from a bakery.

Buy two or three dollars worth of dry ice from an ice cream store the day
you will need it. Keep the dry ice in freezer. Be sure to handle the dry
ice with gloves or tongs just to be safe. f your ice cream store doesn’t
have dry ice just look in your local Yellow Pages telephone directory under
“Dry Ice”. It’s wasy to find everywhere.

Now use your juice glass or cookie cutter and cut out a hole in the center
or the top two layers of cake. This hole will form a well in the center of
the cake and hide the special effect.

Now construct the Volcano cake, round pyramid style, on a cake platter or
large dish. Trim each layer into seccessively smaller rounds and stack and
frost them into mountain shape using the last two layers with the holes as
its top.

With a small piece of aluminum foil, line the well in the center of the
volcano cake. Use the juice glass as a mold and form foil around the glass.

Now frost the cake, smoothing out the small step-like ledges. Use chocolate
frosting for the whole cake first. Then use green frosting as highlights
around the mountain to resemble vegetation.

When you are ready to serve the cake, make the “lava”. Separate the cleaned
egg and discard the yolk. Put the egg white in a small mixing bowl with 1
1/2 teaspoons sugar and 2-3 drops red food coloring. Beat until the egg
white starts to thicken. You don’t want stiff peaks to form, just a thick,
foamy texture.

Now place two or three small chunks of the dry ice into the foil-lined well
of the cake and pour in the red egg mixture. Nothing much will happen yet.
Now fill your juice glass with hot tap water and take the Volcano Cake and
water to the table where yyour guests are. When you are ready to produce
the Special Effect, simply pour one or two ounces of the hot water into the
egg and dry ice mixture and your realistic Volcano Cake will erupt large
quantities or orange, foamy “lava” and white “smoke” for several minutes
while you serve your delighted guests pieces of genuine Erupting Volcano
Cake.

Alternate Foam Generating Technique: If you can’t find dry ice in your
area, you can still produce the foaming “Lava” effect. There will be no
smoke, but you will have plenty of foamy lava. You will need a small, short
juice glass or a shot glass that will fit snugly in the center of the
Volcano Cake (a glass 3″ tall and 1 1/2″ in diameter would be perfect). You
will also need one small box of Jell-o, one small bottle lemon juice and 1
tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda. Make Jell-o according to package
directions. Let cool 15 minutes. When jello is still (not hot), fill juice
glass 1/2 full with the warm jello. Pour in enough lemon juice so that the
glass is almost full, or about 1/2″ from the top. Place glass down into
hole in the cake so lip of glass is flush with top of cake. You are now
ready to produce the effect. When ready, put 1 tablespoon of bicarbonate of
soda into the glass and briefly stir (1-2 seconds). Jello foam will
immediately pour out the top of the glass and flow down the sides of the
cake.