Leprechaun Freakshake Cake
My first ever Freakshake cake! This one is a mixture of my delicious vanilla cake, Baileys Irish cream, and a gorgeous stack of rainbow cake donuts on top! Layers of Irish cream-flavored vanilla cake are perfectly paired with peppermint buttercream frosting. But the kicker is what’s happening on top of the cake. Those rainbow cake donuts are so easy and fun to make. This cake is super impressive and the perfect addition to your next St. Patrick Day celebrations!
Nick’s favorite thing…
I really enjoyed making this cake because I took it as a challenge to translate my popular ‘Freakshake Cupcakes’ series into a cake. This cake was semi-inspired by these End Of The Rainbow Freakshake Cupcakes. It’s spiked with baileys Irish cream. It’s colorful, made of my moist Chocolate Cake recipe, and overall a delight to look at!
What does Freakshake cake taste like?
Chocolate and Irish cream infused with the rainbow! Well, the rainbow isn’t a flavor, just like ‘blue cordial’ isn’t a flavor but you can just feel taste the rainbow. The cake donuts on top are vanilla flavored and really yummy. The chocolate sauce paired with the chocolate cake is a perfect pairing.
What are the ingredients I need for the Freakshake cake?
All-purpose flour – also known as plain flour.
Caster sugar – also known as superfine sugar.
Cocoa powder – I used unsweetened cocoa powder.
Bicarb soda – This is used to make the chocolate cake rise.
Fine salt – I used fine salt.
Unsalted butter – Make sure your butter is softened.
Eggs – Make sure your eggs are room temperature.
Milk – I used cows milk but you can use plant based milk. Make sure your milk is room temperature.
Baileys Irish cream – This is optional, but adds great flavour!
Baking powder – This will help the cake donut batter rise.
Vegetable oil – just regular vegetable or sunflower oil.
Greek yoghurt – (or sour cream). Doesn’t add flavor. Makes the cake moist.
Vanilla extract – Always use good quality vanilla extract. It makes a huge difference!
Food Gels – I used Americolor food gel. You can buy these at cake supply stores and online. I buy mine from Spotlight stores in Australia which is a homewares and crafts store with a cake decorating section.
Swiss meringue buttercream frosting – Grab my recipe here! It’s delicious and smooth!
Chocolate sauce – I have a great one bowl recipe here!
Rainbow sprinkles – Wanna make your own? I have a recipe you can check out here!
Gold lustre dust – I used gold lustre dust which can be purchase at cake supply stores. The Fancy Sprinkles ones are great if you can get there in your area.
What’s the donut tin you used Nick?
I used the Wiltshire 12 Hole Donut Tin. It measures: 7.5cm in diameter and is 2.5cm in depth. I don’t think Wiltshire makes these anymore, but any size similar to this will do.
My Top Tips!
- The cake donuts on top are so delicious but they’re made of cake and not covered in anything. So left out, they will dry up. Not a lot, but just be aware of that and if making for an order or a party, put the toppings on up to an hour before it’s going to be served or put in container to slow down the drying out.
Looking for more awesome cake ideas? I have some! Check these out.
- Magic Mushroom Cake – this is where fairies live.
- Classic vanilla Funfetti Cake – perfect for birthdays!
- White Chocolate Mud Cake – A gorgeous celebration of white chocolate!
- Vietnamese Ice Coffee Cake – Cake for breakfast?
- Really Good Birthday Cake – simply ‘really good’!
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Instagram @thescranline, Facebook and watch and subscribe to my videos on YouTube!
I hope you guys enjoyed this simple but delicious Freakshake cake recipe with me. Please comment in the comments section below, or feel free to share with your family and friends on social media.
I’ll see you all on the following recipe. Happy baking!
N x
Leprechaun Freakshake Cake
Serves 30
Ingredients
Chocolate & Baileys (Irish cream) Cake
- 2 cups / 350 g all-purpose flour
- 2 1/4 cups / 450 g caster sugar
- 1/2 cup / 100 g cocoa powder
- 1 tsp bicarb soda
- 1 tsp fine salt
- 1 1/2 cups / 350 g unsalted butter, softened
- 4 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cups / 350 ml milk
- 1/4 cup / 60 ml Baileys Irish cream
Rainbow Donuts
- 1 1/4 cups / 215 g all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup / 132 g caster sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp fine salt
- 1/4 cup / 60 g unsalted butter, softened
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup / 60 ml vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp Greek yogurt (or sour cream)
- 2/3 cup / 165 ml milk, room temperature
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 drops each of yellow, green, teal, blue, purple and pink food gel
Rainbow Frosting
- 2 batches Swiss meringue buttercream frosting
- 8 drops each of yellow, green, teal, blue, purple and pink food gel
Peppermint Frosting
- 2 batches Swiss meringue buttercream frosting
- 8 drops teal colored food gel
- 2 tsp peppermint extract
Decorations
- 1 cup / 250 ml chocolate sauce
- 1/2 cup / 100 g rock sugar candy
- 1 cup / 100 g green and rainbow sprinkles, combined
- 2 tbsp Baileys Irish cream
- 1 tbsp gold lustre dust
Instructions
Rainbow Frosting
- Split the frosting into 6 bowls. Colour each bowl of frosting in each of the 6 rainbow colours using the food gel formulations in the ingredients list.Mix using an electric hand mixer until well combined. Add each one to a separate piping bag and set aside.
Rainbow Donuts
- Preheat a fan-forced oven to 140°C / 275°F or a conventional oven to 160°C / 320°F. Spray a donut cake tin with oil and set aside.
- Add the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt to a large mixing bowl and mix with a hand mixer until well combined.
- Next, add the softened butter and mix on low speed until the mixture reaches a crumbly, sand-like texture.
- Add the eggs, milk, baileys, yoghurt and vanilla, and mix on low speed until all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Scrape down the side of the bowl and mix for a final 20 seconds.
- Split the batter into 6 different bowls and colour each one the colour of the rainbow. Add each coloured batter into separate piping bags.
- Pipe each coloured batter into the donut cake tin. Bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool before turning the tin upside down and gently tapping it to release the cake donuts.
Chocolate & Baileys (Irish cream) Cake
- Please note: to make the six-layered cake in this recipe you’ll need to double the cake mixture. Two batches of the Swiss meringue frosting will be enough to cover this six-layered cake.Preheat a fan-forced oven to 160°C / 320°F or a conventional oven to 180°C / 350°F. Spray three 20 cm (8 inch) cake tins with oil spray and line the bottoms with baking paper. Set aside.
- Add the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt to a large mixing bowl and mix with a hand mixer until well combined.
- Next, add the softened butter and mix on low speed until the batter reaches a crumbly, sand-like texture.
- Add the eggs, baileys and milk and mix again on low speed until all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Scrape down the side of the bowl and mix for another 20 seconds. It’s at this point that you can add any additional flavourings or food-gel colourings to the batter.
- Divide the cake mixture between the three tins. I find that using a nice-cream scoop makes it easy to distribute the batter evenly, ensuring that all three cakes will bake at the same rate.
- Bake for 50–60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle a cake comes out clean. If the toothpick is coated with wet batter, continue baking, for 10 minutes at a time, until fully baked.
- Allow the cakes to cool to room temperature in the tins, then chill them in the fridge overnight. Chilling your cakes overnight makes them easier to trim and decorate, so I always bake my cakes the day before I decorate them.
- To trim your chilled cakes, use a cake leveller or large serrated knife to carefully trim the crust off the top of each cake before you trim each cake in half. You’ll end up with 6 layers of cake.
- To crumb coat your cake, add a dab of green frosting onto an 8” cake board or flat serving plate. Use a small offset spatula to spread the frosting around before adding the first cake layer. Gently press down the centre of the cake layer to make sure it’s stuck to the frosting underneath.
- Add frosting to a piping bag and frost a ring of yellow frosting around the top of the cake. Fill the centre with more frosting. Use your small offset spatula to smoothen out the frosting before you add the next layer of cake. Repeat with the remaining layers and coloured frostings in the order of the rainbow.
- Use the small spatula to smoothen out the top and sides of the excess frosting on the cake, taking care to fill in any gaps in between each layer of cake.
- Use a cake scraper (otherwise known as a bench scraper) to smoothen out the frosting on the sides and top. Get it as neat as you can. This should just be a neat, thin layer of frosting which is aimed at trapping any cake crumbs so that random bits of cake crumbs don’t show up on the final layer of frosting. Chill for 2 hours or overnight.
Peppermint Frosting
- To prepare the peppermint striped frosting add peppermint extract to all of the frosting and mix until well combined. Split the frosting into two bowls. Colour one with the teal food gel and mix using an electric hand mixer until well combined. Leave the other bowl of frosting white. Add each one to a piping bag.
- Pipe a ring of the green frosting around the bottom of the chilled cake then pipe a ring of white on top of that. Continue piping each coloured frosting until you reach the top.
- Use a cake scraper to smoothen out the top and sides of the cake.
- Add sprinkles around the bottom of the cake. Then add some of the candy rocks around the cake too. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Add the baileys and gold lustre dust in a small mixing bowl and mix until well combined. Use a small food safe brush to paint it on the rock candy.
- Drizzle chocolate sauce around the top edges of the cake and then pipe some on top of the cake. Use a small offset spatula to help spread the chocolate sauce evenly on top of the cake and allow the excess to drizzle over the sides of the cake.
- Pick the best side of the cake. That will be the front of the cake. Add the rainbow donuts on top. Begin by adding half of some of the donuts at the front of the cake, then add full donuts behind those. Pipe some frosting behind those and add more donuts on the frosting. The idea is that you’ll make it appear as though there’s a heap of donuts on the cake.
Notes
Nutrition
3 comments
Hi Nick just checking out your mini donut recipe and the ingredients doesnt list Baileys only the cake but in the method there is baileys – is there baileys in donuts and cake or just cake. Im just using the donuts for a cake not actually using the cake recipe 🙂
cheers Dani
Sorry about that Danielle! I’ve updated the recipe. Baileys goes into the cake with the wet ingredients and have added milk into the donuts ingredients list, thanks for pointing that out!. 🙂 N x
also doesnt have milk listed but has milk in method 🙂