Last year, just before Easter, I heard of something called an Empty Tomb Cake. Somehow, you’re supposed to take a bundt cake, cut it in half, then decorate it to look like Jesus’ empty tomb. For some reason, I couldn’t grasp the concept.
But it’s been hanging around in the back corners of my mind, and I finally realized how it could be done, so this year I wanted to make it.
First, I decided to make a pound cake, since they’re dense and sturdy. Here are my ingredients for a yummy pound cake, from one of my favorite cookbooks: The Best Recipe.
The Best Recipe calls for slowly mixing the liquid ingredients into the creamed butter and sugar. A few years ago, before a very helpful hint from Brad-the-Chemist, I always ended up with wet egg liquid all down the sides of the measuring cup and the mixing bowl, and pooled on the counter. But now I know a trick that those scientists use when mixing potions in the lab!
Take a utensil, like this fork, and rest it in the spout. It provides guidance for the precious liquid, so it goes where it’s supposed to go, instead of all over the place!
This is what it looks like when it comes out of the oven. Brad and I barely had the self-control to not eat it yet! My favorite part is the top… and I love that crack that appears around the edge. Mmmm…. delicious!
Now cut the cake in half from top to bottom. But not exactly in half! You need one half to be bigger than the other.
Now stand the halves up, on their cut ends, like a rainbow. We’re making a cave, or tomb! Can you see it forming? I ended up cutting the bottoms of the “rainbows” at an angle, so the cave would tilt back a little bit.
You can also see that I cut the (former) top off. (That’s OK— like I said, it’s my favorite part. It’s good to have your favorite part in a baggie, to eat whenever you want!) My goal was to have 2 flat sides to “paste” together with icing.
These are the 2 flat sides, covered in icing “paste”.
And now they’re stuck together. Forevermore. They shall never come apart again.
This next step is super important. Find a few kids to help you. If you don’t have any, just grab some off the street to come do this. Because this is really fun for kids!
John and Truman were masters at this project! They sprinkled the “grass” (coconut dyed green), the “rocks” (chocolate candy rocks—they look real, but taste like rocky M&Ms), the “trail” (oatmeal cookie crumbs), and the “big rock” that was the stone that was rolled away from the door of the tomb (it was a big oatmeal cookie).
And here you have it: the finished project, Empty Tomb Cake. Not one of my best cakes in its’ appearance, but it was such fun to make! And the kids and I got to talk about the wonder of Christ’s resurrection. I hope I always remember John and Truman jumping up and down in their chairs, yelling “He’s Alive! He’s Alive! Yay!!! Yayy!!!”
