Boston Bruins Black And Gold Hockey Puck-Cakes

The Boston Bruins are hitting the ice tonight for the first game of the season! What better way to celebrate than with some Bruins-themed treats?! If you're a Bruins fan, these are a must-make this season.

After I made those Boston Bruins cupcakes last year, I started to think about what other black and gold treats I could make, and I came up with some really delicious ideas. The first of which is these hockey puck-cakes -- really homemade Ring Dings, but I think they look like hockey pucks.

I found a recipe in Art & Soul of Baking and made some changes to it to fit the theme. I used double-Dutch dark cocoa to darken the cake, added black food coloring to the glaze, added yellow and red food coloring to make a gold filling, and ordered edible Bruins cupcake toppers to decorate the "pucks."

You can order the double-dutch dark cocoa from King Arthur Flour and the edible cupcake toppers from Fun Toppers 4 Cakes.

The cupcake toppers come with a white border because they are meant to top white-frosted cupcakes. We decided to trim the white border off so they would look better on the black glaze. Jeff used a circle cutter and traced around it with a razor. Then he used the razor to lift the decals off the paper and a baby offset to help place them on the puck-cakes.

Boston Bruins Black And Gold Hockey Puck-Cakes (adapted from Art & Soul of Baking)
Printable version
Makes 8 puck-cakes

Ingredients

Cake
1/2 cup double-Dutch dark cocoa
1 1/2 cups water
2 cups cake flour

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

Filling
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Yellow food coloring paste or gel
Red food coloring paste or gel

Glaze
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips (preferably Ghirardelli)
1 cup heavy cream
Black food coloring gel or paste
Boston Bruins edible cupcake toppers

Preparation

To make the cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9- by 13- by 2-inch pan and line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.

Heat 1/2 cup of the water in the microwave in a 2 cup-capacity measuring cup (or bowl) on high for 1 minute. Whisk cocoa into water.

Add the remaining 1 cup water, and stir until smooth. Let cool to room temperature.

Sift flours, baking powder, and salt together into a medium bowl, and set aside.

Mix the eggs and vanilla together in a small bowl, and set aside.

In bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light in color, 4 to 5 minutes.

With mixer on medium speed, add the egg-vanilla mixture to the butter-sugar mixture about 1 tablespoon at time. About halfway through, turn off mixer, and scrape down bowl. Then resume adding eggs, and scrape down bowl again.

With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture and cocoa water alternately, starting with one-third of the flour mixture and half the cocoa water, finishing with the flour mixture. Scrape down bowl, and finish mixing batter by hand if necessary.

Scrape batter into prepared pan, spreading evenly.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until firm to the touch and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Transfer to rack to cool completely.

Make the puck-cakes: Use a 3-inch (or similar-sized) cutter to cut eight rounds from the cake. (Save scraps for another use or for snacking.)

Place a wooden spoon next to a cake round, and slide a paring knife over it partway into the cake horizontally.

Push a 2-inch (or similar-sized) cutter into the center of the cake round until it hits the knife. Twist the cutter (and wiggle the knife) to loosen the circle of cake.

Remove knife and cutter with cake in it. Pop the piece of cake out of the cutter, and slice off a 1/4-inch-thick round. (Save scrap for snacking.)

Repeat with remaining cake rounds.

Make the filling: In bowl of stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, whip cream, sugar, and vanilla on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add a couple squeezes of yellow food coloring and just a touch of red to make the Bruins gold, and continue whipping until stiff peaks form.

Transfer filling to pastry bag fitted with round tip, and pipe filling in center of each cake round.

Press reserved cake circles on top.

Place the cakes on a wire rack set inside a sheet pan.

Make the glaze: Place chocolate chips in large measuring cup. Warm cream in saucepan, and remove from heat as soon as it starts to bubble. Pour the cream over the chocolate, and let stand 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk cream and chocolate together until smooth. Whisk in two generous squeezes of black food coloring to darken the glaze. Let glaze cool for about 5 to 10 minutes, until it is the consistency of heavy cream or honey but is still pourable.

Pour the glaze over each cake, using a baby offset spatula to smooth the glaze off the top and around the sides of the cakes. (If you run out of glaze, you can scoop it out of the baking sheet, reheat it, strain it, and reuse it.)

Let glazed cakes stand for about 5 minutes, and then apply the edible toppers using a baby offset spatula. (You can transfer the cakes to a parchment-lined sheet pan first if you like.) Refrigerate until ready to serve. (Puck-cakes can be stored on parchment paper in airtight container in refrigerator.)

Serve to Bruins fans.

Go B's!