Many like to think that hockey is Canada’s unofficial national sport.
There once was a time when I lived in rinks, and watched hours, upon hours of my brother’s hockey games. All of my teenage girl crushes were on the local hockey players. I used to cut their pictures out of the papers! Hello, stalker! I’m sorry if you were one of those boys 😉 I don’t do that anymore. It wouldn’t really fly with Paul.
When my brother left home to continue his hockey career, I listened to hours of internet radio broadcasts, and drove to every one of his games that was within three hours! Surprisingly, there was limited webcasts at that time (and it was only about 10 years ago). After he finished playing in the States, he went abroad, and I was hooped. There was no way (that I discovered) to get to watch or listen to him.
My love for hockey (and hockey players) stayed strong despite the fact that I no longer had a family member on the ice to root for. Let me tell you, it’s much more relaxing to watch a game when you’re not glued to one particular person the whole time. Every hit meant a grimace, every touch of the puck meant a cheer!
In 2003, I moved to London for a year to teach abroad and travel. Hockey? What is hockey? At the time, they had a London hockey team, but if you know anything about England, you know it’s FOOTBALL (soccer) all the way! So what did I, the dedicated hockey fan that I was, do? I paid 16 GBP to have the one and only channel that played Hockey Night in Canada! At 3 in the morning! It was live in Canada, but not so much in London. One night, I was so desperate to watch it “live” that I stayed up! Oh, the dedication . . . and amount of time on my hands I had then.
I’m telling you this story because I think that it is funny that something I spent hours upon hours doing, I no longer even think about now. I used to have the Vancouver Canucks schedule memorized, and now, I can’t even tell you what their logo looks like.
I’m also giving you this trip down memory lane, and what things used to be like, so I could tell you that I was super excited to get to make a hockey cake! It was for Jackson’s Birthday . . . a “Montreal Canadiens root beer cake”. Your wish is my command sir.
Rootbeer Cake
Cake:
1 cup butter
2 cups granulated sugar
3 cups cake flour
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 teaspoons water
4 eggs
1 tablespoon root beer extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk
Directions:
Make the Cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.
In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter; then add the sugar and continue mixing until light and fluffy.
Meanwhile, sift together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt.
With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the water and eggs to the butter mixture until blended. Mix in the root beer extract and vanilla. Alternately add the flour mixture and milk to form a smooth batter.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake until just set, about 30 to 40 minutes. Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, and then invert onto cooling racks to cool completely before frosting.
Root Beer Frosting
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 cups icing sugar
3 tbsp milk
2 tsp root beer extract
In a large bowl using an electric mixer, or a food processor fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter until very pale and soft, about 2–3 minutes. Gradually add icing sugar, beating on medium speed, until it is fully incorporated. (The icing will seem very thick at this point, but that’s OK.) Beat in milk, 1 tbsp (15 mL) at a time. Beat in root beer. If you feel the icing is still too thick, add an additional 1 tbsp (15 mL) milk.
1. Bake the cake and freeze when fully cooled.
2. Base coat cake in root beer icing.
3. Prepare a new batch of white buttercream (which means you need to leave out the root beer extract as it makes the icing a shade of brown). It is possible to use clear extract, but then you are adding an extra flavour to the cake. I recommend that you use this recipe for the icing decorating.
4. Tint one cup blue, one cup red and leave 3 cups of the icing white.
5. I started with a gel transfer of the logo (remember to trace it with your piping gel onto a backwards image, so it transfers the correct direction onto the cake).
6. I piped,with star tip 16, the white of the logo first, as I thought that it set the image in my mind, and it seemed the easiest place to start.
7. I used star tip 18 to complete the white part of the cake, as it took less time than 16. I continued to use 16 for the red and blue sections.
Go Canucks go! Maybe I still have it in me.
I’m ready to make more hockey cakes people, bring them on!
