Number cakes made with pastry, piped icing and decorations on top look amazing and I have had my eye on for a while… just waiting for the right occasion to make one. We recently celebrated a 40th Birthday for a chocoholic and I spent weeks online trying to find the perfect recipe. When I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for I just made my own!
I had no intention of making my own pastry and rolling it out perfectly on multiple occasion to cut out the numbers so I bought the best quality pre-rolled pastry I could find in a freezer. I ended up with three rolls of Carême’s premium range of all-butter, French-style vanilla bean shortcrust pastry. I printed out numbers on A4 paper to be roughly the same size as the pastry. I defrosted the pastry in the fridge overnight and then cut and baked three of each number. I let these cool overnight, storing them at room temperature and then next day made the mousse filling and put together the cake and decorations. The cake was stored in a fridge and there was about 7 hours between making and serving the cake. I was concerned how the cake would cut but the pastry retained its crispness.
The mousse filling needed to be thick enough to hold its shape, have a layer of pastry on top of it and not easily melt into the pastry on a hot day. I was hoping for a cheesecake flavour that was easy to pipe and of course delicious! I decorated the top with lindt chocolate, Baci’s, Kinder chocolate bar, Kinder Bueno bar, Oreos, macarons, chocolate chips and lindt dark cholate fruit sensations.
ingredients
3x pre-rolled short crust pastry boxes (approx 435g each 47cm x 27cm x 3mm)
600ml whipping cream
150g icing sugar
50g cocoa
500g Philadelphia cheese at room temperature.
Chocolate decorations of your choice
directions
1. Defrost your pre-rolled pastry and bake according to instructions. Allow to cool completely (preferably overnight) before decorating.
2. Beat cream until thick using electric beater. I used my Kenwood with whisk attachment and watched the mixture to ensure it was thick but not turning into butter. There is no right amount of time for this task – you need to trust your judgment. The cream should be thick and form stiff peaks.
3. In another bowl mix sifted icing sugar, cocoa, and Philadelphia cheese. I used my Kenwood machine and the K beater attachment. Once all combined add the cream in 3 batches mixing on a low speed. The mixture should have a mousse texture.
4. Move mixture into piping bag with 9mm piping tube. Make 2-3cm domes of mixture touching each other along first layer of pastry.
5. Gently add second layer of pastry to the mousse mixture and repeat piping on top of the pastry for second and third layer.
6. Decorate top layer with preferred chocolates.
7. Store cake in the fridge until time to serve.
For other Birthday themed cakes try my go to chocolate carrot cake which tastes delicious, has hidden vegetable inside and holds it own for any molding or decorating.
For other cheesecake ideas have a look at our other recipes.
