Make a fun Avocado Toast Cake for the avocado lover in your life! It’s easy to assemble with a single layer 8×8 cake and buttercream.
Sometimes inspiration comes from the most unexpected places. I recently ordered my dogs ‘Totally ‘Grammable Toast‘ toys from Bark Shop, and when they arrived I couldn’t get over how cute and funny they were. I decided to cake-ify the toy, even though I hear the avocado toast trend is sooo 2017. Well. According to people who keep up with that kind of thing.
Here’s a peek at the inspiration toasts!
Do a little cake carving (just a little!).
The recipe begins with a square cake trimmed to the shape of a bread slice. I didn’t have a template for this, I just winged it with a serrated knife. I think most anyone will be able to manage this without a guide, but if you need extra help, see my video tutorial at the end of this blog post.
And now, the fun part! Okay. The entire project is pretty fun, but turning the bread slice into toast is really simple and oddly gratifying.
- Place a wire cooling rack over the toast.
- Sprinkle with ground cinnamon.
- Lift away the wire rack.
So easy!
The avocado lookalike is buttercream tinted with moss green and neon yellow food color. Drag the tines of a fork through the frosting to give it a mashed avocado appearance.
A little more white buttercream piped on top of the green ‘avocado’ creates the mock egg white. Use an offset spatula dipped in hot water and wiped dry to create a perfectly smooth surface.
The ‘yolk’ comes from a tin of apricot halves. Be sure to drain the apricot on paper towels before you add it to the white buttercream. My apricot seeped liquid and caused some of the color to run from the black ‘pepper’ nonpareils . You can see a little of that in the picture below.
This cake is fairly simple to make. Practiced fondant users will have no trouble trimming the chocolate fondant ‘crust’ that surrounds the cake, but those less experienced may find it challenging. If you’d rather not fuss with fondant, then you could load a small dry art brush with ground cinnamon and coat the white edges of the cake to give it some toasty crust color.
Avocado Toast Cake
Equipment
- 8×8 inch cake pan, square
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 1/2 teaspoons plus 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 2/3 cup whole milk
- 3 large egg whites
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Frosting
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened
- 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 2-4 tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoon moss green gel food color
- 1 teaspoon neon yellow food color
- 1/4 lb. chocolate fondant
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon for sprinkling
- 1 apricot half from a can well-drained
- 1/2 teaspoon black nonpareils
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F/175C.
- Make the cake: Grease and flour a square 8×8 or 9×9 baking pan.
- Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add butter and milk; mix on low speed with an electric mixer. Add vanilla and raise speed to medium, beat for 2 minutes.
- Reduce speed to medium-low and gradually add the egg whites in two additions. Beat at medium speed for 2 minutes. Scrape batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface with a rubber spatula.
- Bake the cake for 35-45 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a toothpick tester comes out clean. Let cake cool in the pan before turning it out onto a wire rack to cool completely. When cake is cool, place on a cake board or serving platter. Designate the top of the cake and round those two corners using a serrated knife. Carve away cake pieces a little at a time until a bread slice shape is achieved (see pictures).
- Make the frosting: combine the butter and confectioners’ sugar in a large bowl. Beat on medium speed until combined. Add milk 1 tablespoon at a time until a spreadable consistency is achieved. Beat at high speed for 2 minutes until fluffy. Remove 2/3 cup of frosting to a bowl and tint with the green and yellow gel food colors. Leave the remaining portion white.
- Frost the edges of the cake with some of the white buttercream. Knead the fondant until pliable. Roughly shape it into a rope between your palms, then roll it out flat with a rolling pin. Cut one32-inch long x 1 1/2-inch wide strip. Apply fondant strips to the sides of the cake. Trim away excess with a small plain-edge knife or kitchen-dedicated X-acto knife.
- Pipe or spread green frosting onto the middle of the cooled cake; use as much or as little ‘avocado’ as you wish. Drag the tines of a fork through the frosting to create the appearance of mashed avocado.
- Pipe or spread the remaining white buttercream over the green frosting in the shape of a fried egg white. Smooth the surface as much as possible using an offset spatula. Add the apricot half slightly off-center in the middle of the white frosting. Sprinkle cake with black nonpareils. Avoid sprinkling the apricot ‘yolk’ area, because the acid from the fruit will break down the sprinkles and make the color run – I learned this the hard way!
- Store cake in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before serving.
Too cute. Love your creativity!
so clever!! hard to reconcile that it's cake….
and the "pepper" running just makes it look even more real. the whites are never perfectly white.
just love it!
This is amazing! I love this!