Twilight Cake/Cookies and Party!

Last fall, one of my co-workers, Cindy, began reading the Twilight series. She eventually talked the 3 of us into reading the series, and we were all hooked. For about 2 months, we were talking about Twilight 24/7!

Cindy's birthday was December 31, and Vickie wanted to get a carboard cutout of Edward to put in the office, but it wasn't going to be shipped on time. Vickie told me about it, and I said how about we do it on Valentine's Day.

Well the ideas snowballed, and we decided to have an all out Twilight themed Valentine's Day party. We surprised Cindy with it, and it was so much fun.

In this post, I'm going to have directions to make the Twilight cake, which has many elements, and took me all week to make (but could probably be made in one marathon day)!

To plan the perfect Twilight party, we had the cutout, a cake, cookies, apples with caramel and chocolate dip, "Blood" punch, then for decorations we had red, black and white balloons, red and while tulips (like the New Moon cover), banners with the Twilight font, and we listened to the Twilight soundtrack all day.

So here is how to make the cake, with the cookie decorations, fondant, icings, cake, filling, and assembly.

This post will be LONG, with lots of photos!

Twilight Cake!

I made this cake over 4 days, each day I did a part of it, taking about 3 hours each day.

Day 1 was making the sugar cookies and royal icing.

Step #1 - Cookie Decorations

My Famous Sugar Cookies!
1 1/2 cups butter
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup powdered sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 tbsp. lemon zest
5 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
Powdered sugar, for rolling

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Cream butter and sugars in a mixer for 5 minutes.
Add in eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly.
Add in vanilla, almond, and lemon zest.
Beat for 10 seconds.
Add in baking powder and salt, beat again.
Add in flour 1 c. at a time, mix for 15 seconds between each addition.
Do not over mix, this process should take about one minute.
Chill dough for up to a week in the fridge, or roll out and cut right away.
Bake on a parchment lined cookie sheet for about 7 minutes, or until golden brown on the bottom.

This recipe made about 50 cookies - I made 6 small sized of each cover icon (3 total cookies, on sticks, sandwiched), and 4 large to give away to my co-workers. Then I also made 16 skinny hearts (8 total cookes on sticks)

To make the sugar cookies, I used the following

Twilight Apple - pumpkin cookie cutter, bottom pinched in to make it apple shaped

New Moon Tulip - upside down tulip cookie cutter

Eclipse Ribbon - cancer ribbon cookie cutter

Breaking Dawn Chess Piece - I used a baby bottle cookie cutter with the sides cut out

To make the cookies on sticks, I rolled them out really thin, brushed warm water on the top, then pressed the other cookie on top. These baked for about 9 minutes.

I made 3 (only used 2 though) in case one broke or the icing was messed up.

I made a large batch of Royal Icing to ice the cookies, and to pipe on the cake:

Wilton Royal Icing:
3 tablespoons Meringue Powder
4 cups (about 1 lb.) confectioners' sugar
6 tablespoons warm water

Beat all ingredients until icing forms peaks (7-10 minutes at low speed with a heavy-duty mixer, 10-12 minutes at high speed with a hand-held mixer).
NOTE: Keep all utensils completely grease-free for proper icing consistency.

I put half the icing in one container, left white, and the other half in another container, and dyed it red with Christmas Red gel food coloring.

I filled bags with each icing, then piped the outside edges of each cookie.
I made sure the bags still had lots of icing in them, then I added a few TBSP of water to the containers holding the icing so I could use it to flood the cookies. You want it to be like maple syrup in consistency.

I like to use squeeze bottles to fill my cookies, it's easier to control the flow.

To make the tulips, I filled them with white, then made 3 stripes of red with the flooded red in a squeeze bottle. I used a toothpick to make the red run like feathers.

Since the apples and tulips have a few elements, I left them with just the icing. With the ribbon and chess pieces, since they're somewhat plain, I used sanding sugars to give them a bit more dimension. Make sure you sprinkle them right away or the icing will dry and it won't stick.

It's optional to pipe leaves on the apples, they don't need it, but it does add some color. Use folled fondant to make the stem (which we'll make later...) Here are the final cookies with the cooresponding books. Let the cookies dry overnight to harden.

I made Chocolate Frosting for the cake on night 2, here is the recipe:

Chocolate Frosting
1 cup butter
3/4 c. Dutch process cocoa
6 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt

Cream Butter, add in cocoa powder and mix together on low. Add vanilla.
Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency.

Keep refrigerated until use.

I covered this cake in Chocolate Rolled Fondant. I used my white chocolate recipe, but subbed in dark chocolate candy melts and some cocoa powder. It cracked much easier than the white chocolate fondant, but it tasted much better!

Chocolate Rolled Fondant: (For photos of steps, see this post)

1 lb. dark chocolate candy coating
3/4 c. corn syrup
1 c. Cocoa Powder

3.5 lbs. powdered sugar
8 tbsp. hot water
1 c. glucose (I get this at cake/candy supply stores)
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
4 tbsp. white crisco

Step 1: Melt the chocoalte chips in the microwave or over a double boiler, stir in the corn syrup, set aside so it cools. It should form a pasty dough.

Step 2: Put 3/4 of powdered sugar and cocoa powder in the bowl of a mixer, make a well in the center. Set Aside.
Step 3: Mix water, glucose, vanilla, salt, and shortening together in a saucepan. Heat until shortening is almost melted.

Step 4: Pour into the well of powdered sugar, use dough hook and mix until incorporated, about 4 minutes. Add white chocolate mixture to mixing bowl a tablespoon full at a time, until incorporated.

Step 5: When mixture is too hard to mix, take it out and turn on a powder sugar dusted surface, knead in the remaining powdered sugar.

Wrap very tightly in plastic wrap, then place in a ziplock bag. It will get somewhat hard, but kneading it will loosen it up. Use within a month. (Do not refrigerate)

I made a Red Velvet cake with creamcheese filling for the Twilight cake. I used this recipe.

Red Velvet Cake (original recipe for cupcakes):

15 1/2 ounces all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
13 ounces granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
3 eggs
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons red food coloring
1 1/4 teaspoons vinegar (white or apple cider can both work)
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/8 cup water

Preheat oven 350 degrees F.
Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder into a bowl and set aside.
In a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix oil, sugar, and buttermilk until combined. Add eggs, food coloring, vinegar, vanilla and water and mix well. Add the dry ingredients a little bit at a time and mix on low, scraping down sides occasionally, and mix until just combined. Be sure not to over mix, or the batter will come out tough.

Line 2 8" and 2 10" cake pans with parchment and spray with nonstick spray.

Pour batter into 1 8" and 1 10" pan. Make another batch and fill other pans.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Cool for 10 minutes, invert and cool until room temperature.

Cream Cheese Filling:

1 8oz. brick of cream cheese

1 c. powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 c. milk

Cream together all ingredients, beat until smooth.

Use a serrated knife to level out cakes. Fill with creamcheese filling, then ice with chocolate buttercream.

Roll out fondant, cover cakes.

Decorate cake with icing and cookies!

For conversation heart cookies, see recipe and instructions HERE!