How to make a Mini "Taco" Cake

So how did I do it?

Start preparing the “Taco Shells” a day or days ahead the cake is needed. (Since I can only work on cakes at night due to my regular work – I prepared the “Taco Shells” 3 days ahead).

TACO SHELLS – What to use to make the shells? I’ve seen two versions – one using a Cookie Dough and another using melted choco-melts. They are great but not what I had in mind. I’d like it to look like a real hard taco shells. I also wanted to prepare the shells ahead of time.

So I decided to use fondant with a little bit of tylose powder. I rolled the fondant with tylose into thin sheets. Not too thin about 1/4" or 0.5 mm thick. Using a 6" round cake pan as your guide cut out 12 discs out of sugarpaste.

In order to get the look of a real taco shells, I colored the white sugar with brown color gel and sprinkled a little on each disc. Press the sprinkled sugar on the fondant to stick.

You are probably thinking, why did I not use brown sugar instead? I find the brown sugar not the right color of what I’m looking for. I also thought of using sanding sugar but I find it is not as fine as granulated sugar and black is too dark.

How to make the disc the shape of a real taco shell? I thought, why not use a real hard taco shell to use as a guide to get the right shape of a taco shell. I placed a real taco shell in the middle of the disc and fold the two sides up. Leave the real taco shell inside while the fondant disc “taco shell” dries. Just like the photo below.

CAKE

I baked a 9 X 13 inch chocolate cake 2 days before the cake is needed. I also prepared a bowl of chocolate ganache enough to cover 12 mini cakes.

ASSEMBLY DAY

I assembled the “Tacos” the night before the cake delivery. I cut twelve mini cakes in the shape of a “Taco Shell”, maybe a little smaller that the shell actually. Frost each cake with chocolate ganache. and put the frosted mini-cakes in the fridge until the frosting hardens a bit.

In the meantime, prepare the “GROUND MEAT” part of the Taco:

Make Chocolate Rice Krispy Treats using 2 cups of Rice Crispy Cereal, 1/2 cup marshmallows and chocolate ganache. Combine the melted marshmallows, Rice Crispy cereal and the ganache. Just eyeball the amount of chocolate ganache until you get the color of a “ground meat”.

Prepare the “TOMATOES, GREEN PEPPER, SOUR CREME, CHEESE”. For the TOMATOES, cut the Twizzlers Tidbits. Use Fruit Loop for the green pepper and to mimic the sour cream use Buttercream icing .

For the “GRATED CHEESE”: Color your fondant (with tylose) golden yellow or GOLD food gel, let it sit for a little to harden a bit. Get your cheese grater (use the part as shown in the pic) and grate the fondant.

Here’s how the grated “cheese” looks like:

Now, it’s time to make the “Taco”

• Get the mini-cakes out of the fridge.
• Place each mini-cake in the prepared “Taco Shells”. Be extra careful in putting the cake so as not to break the “Taco Shell”.
• Put the Chocolate RKT on both ends of the cake.
• Pipe buttercream icing on top to mimic the sour cream.
• Put the “TOMATOES, GREEN PEPPER and CHEESE”

TA-DA! You have a “TACO CAKE” — Isn’t it cool?

Here’s the whole presentation:

Here’s how it looks when one side of the TACO shell was peeled open.

Enjoy! Happy Caking!

Bobie