SC - Wanted: Recipe to make 'bricks'

[Huette von Ahrens]

I have been making castle cakes for over twenty years,
but I have never gone the route of making bricks and
mortaring them together.  I prefer a solid cake
castle.

I usually use a from-scratch pound cake recipe,
because pound cake is easier to cut and form, and has
less crumbs to contend with.  I have used several
different recipes.  If you want me to post my favorite
I will, but I don't have it with me, as I am at work. 
Let me know.

What I usually do is this:  

If the event that I am bringing it to is on a
Saturday, I will bake the pound cake on the preceding
Thursday and frost it on the preceding Friday.  I have
never have complaints that the cake is stale, because
pound cake keeps very well and also freezes well.

For the central castle or keep [whatever you are
planning], I bake three 8 1/2 x 11 cake pans that are
exactly the same, with straight-up sides.  When I put
the batter in the pans, I build up the sides as high
as they will stay and the middle as low as it will
stay.  This keeps the cake from forming too much of a
rounded top which would then have to be cut off in
order to have the layers stack properly.  For any
turrets on the central building, I bake some cake into
the flat bottomed ice cream cones. One cone per layer
of cake per turret.  If I want a pointy roof on the
turret, I use an upside-down pointed ice cream cones
on top of the flat bottomed stack of ice cream cones. 
If I want a pointy roof on the castle, I cut the last
layer of cake to look like a pointy roof.

For the bailly walls, I bake the pound cake in
jelly-roll pans, so the cake is about 1 inch thick
when bakes.  For the wall turrets, I use tin cans that
I have saved.  Be sure that they are food grade cans
and have no lead solder.  I have found that large
sized cans that once contained fruit, or pumpkin or
spaghetti sauce, work really great.  For the central
gateway [I forget what it is called], I use a square
6x6 inch loaf pan and cut the entryway out.  The walls
are attached to the turrets and gateway with
toothpicks and frosting.

I have used various kinds of stiff frosting.  I have
even used the canned kind [but only once in an
emergency!].

I have used many different kinds of candies to add to
the "ambiance".  Chocolate necco wafers make great
shingles.  Sugar wafer cookies make great doors and
drawbridges.  Any thick, square chocolate candy makes
great crenellations on the walls and turrets.  I have
occasionally used squares of Hershey bars for windows.
Because candies come and go in and out of fashion, I
usually cruise the candy section of the market and go
to stores that specialize in selling bulk candy and
then decide what candies or cookies would be
appropriate for what feature.

When all is finished, my castle cake usually fills up
the top of a standard-sized card table, and usually
feeds 100 hungry people.

The last one I did, I did a replica of the Craq'
d'Chevallier. [I am not sure if I spelled this
correctly.]  I had several small toy catapaults and
lots of malt balls and let the men "beseige" the
castle.

Huette

- --- Lorix <lorix at trump.net.au> wrote:
> I would crave the List's assistance with my
> current dilemma,
> 
> I am thinking about making a subtlety
> castle.  Now, I don't actually want to make
> the structure out of gingerbread or a moulded
> cake type mix.
> 
> I have been pondering making up some sort of
> 'brick' in a food form which I could then
> make lots of & basically use said 'bricks' to
> form the 4 walls.  To ensure that inadvertent
> knocks to the table don't immediately send
> the structure collapsing, I may 'mortar'
> bricks with something sticky (medieval
> gingerbread springs to mind).  Alternatively,
> I may just use a series of inverted bamboo
> kebab sticks to 'stake' it in place.
> 
> My current problem is what to make the
> 'bricks' out of.  I am anticipating bricks to
> be possibly 5-10cm wide by 10-15cm long by
> 5cm thick.  I want them to be reasonably
> durable but lightish and have been leaning to
> some sort of meringue type mix.  This part of
> the castle would have to be cooked several
> days in advance of feast so whatever I make
> must be able to be stored without going off
> or becoming inedible through staleness.
> 
> Ideally, I would be using a medieval recipe:
> but I am not particularly wedded to this.  I
> have been experimenting with shortbreads &
> meringues, which is why I am currently
> favouring meringues because these have seemed
> slightly more successful for my purposes:
> but still not quite right :-(
> 
> I would appreciate anyone's suggestions (and
> recipes)
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Lorix
> 
> 
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