Wampa Arm Cake

Today is May 4th. MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU. That’s right, it’s Star Wars Day!
I have a lot of Star Wars love so I decided to post some cool recipe ideas for this day! I will be posting more, like  Princess Leia cupcakes, Smores Troopers, and Jawa cupcakes…but nothing, nothing will compare to what I have for you today. To celebrate Star Wars Day 2014 I give you…a severed Wampa arm made out of cake!
A wampa was the ice creature that captured Luke when he was on Hoth. Using the force, the young Jedi gets his lightsaber and slices off the wampa’s arm to make his escape. This is my version…in cake.


Ingredients

• 6 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup cake flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 6 egg whites
• Red gel food coloring
• powdered sugar for dusting
• 1 cup Guava jelly
• Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting
• 2 cups sweetened coconut
• Chocolate bars

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prep a 10×15 inch jellyroll pan with parchment, lightly buttered.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks and sugar until light. Add the vanilla. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt and add it to the yolk mixture. While mixing, add in the red gel food coloring until combined. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the red batter until combined.
4. Pour the batter into the prepped jelly roll pan – using a spatula to even it all out. Bake for 8-10 minutes depending on your oven.
5. Get a CLEAN dishtowel and dust it with powdered sugar. Turn the warm cake onto the towel. Peel back and pull off the parchment paper.
6. Cut about 3” off the end of the cake and slice that into 1” wide pieces – these will be the Wampa fingers. Set aside for later.
7. Roll the cake up with the towel – the LONG way. What you are doing is trying to form the rolled shape. Let cool in the rolled up towel for 20- 30 minutes.
8. Whisk the jelly to get it nice and loosened up, also reserve about 3 Tablespoons for later. Guava jelly is light, almost clear and always makes for good ‘blood’ substitute but a dark jelly will work also.
9. Carefully unroll the cake, and spread the jelly onto the cake. Now roll the cake up again. Quite obviously NOT with the towel. Place the rolled cake seam side down onto a platter.
10. Arrange the Wampa ‘fingers’ you cut at the end of a platter so they look like a hand.
11. Frost the cake arm and ‘fingers’ with the whipped cream cheese frosting.

    12.Getting between the ‘fingers’ can be tricky, just use a small offset spatula and take your time.



   13.Take the coconut and pat it around the frosted cake and fingers, like ‘fur.’
   14.For the fingernails I cut a thick chocolate bar into chunky pieces and placed them on the end of the fingers.
   15.Finally, take the reserved jelly and pour it on the cut end of the ‘arm’. It will look like oozing Wampa blood.

Who’s ready for Wampa? YUM!