Hidden chick cake for Easter

I learned two totally unexpected things through these this cakes.

First, there is a spinach cake and it tastes great!
And second - you can twice bake a cake! (well, partly)

Let me tell you more about it!

1.Have you ever believed that spinach can be used for sweet dishes? I personally didn't have even the slightest idea. However making the Ombre cake recently made me think about food colouring and what can be done to use natural dyes - I was thinking particularly about green. It could be done using a lot of matcha of course but I wanted to give the cake to kids and too much green tea seemed inappropriate  so I thought about spinach instead. The idea seemed quite crazy to me but knowing that nothing is really invented and everything new is a well forgotten old thing I thought I should google that crazy idea and check if someone had already done it.  I wanted to specifically check how green the green colour would be.
Well for my enormous surprise - there was that recipe! It's a Turkish cake recipe Ispanakli kek (Spinach cake) and I couldn't be happier. That's the recipe I need. The colour looked pretty intense and the texture seemed great (And in reality it looks exactly as on the photos).
The spinach taste is there only immediately after baking and is completely disappeared a couple of hours ago.  After baking I realised the cake was too sweet to my taste, I could happily go with 1/3 less sugar so I should adjust that next time I bake.
Concerning quantity - it was a bit more than I needed for the specific cake I was making, so for hidden cake probably half should do fine, or it will make two 1 lb loaves.

2.Bake a cake and then bake it some more? How crazy *that* sounds?
Yes, it is possible and trending at the moment and no, the part that is already baked does not go harder.
To make it you need two cakes of different colours and a cookie cutter. You also need some free time.
The possibilities are endless!

With the approaching Easter I thought of a hidden Easter chick cake and a hidden Easter egg cake. I did both!

For the hidden Easter chick I chose to use green and yellow cakes. The green one is a spinach cake and for the second one I did a mango pound cake. (This one was also too sweet - next time maximum 200 g sugar).

Easter green hidden chick cake 

Recipe:

(makes 4 cakes)

for the mango pound cake: (from Parita's World)

makes 2 loaves or one very big and one smaller

3 medium eggs

200 g sugar 

113 g butter - soft at room temperature

1/2 medium sized mango peeled and the pulp pureed 

250 g self-raising flour

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, then add the eggs (I did all at once) and beat with the mixer for about two minutes. Add the mango puree and mix well, then the butter and vanilla. Beat on low speed for 15-20 seconds and finish by hand if not homogeneous.

Fill in paper-lined loaf cake tin(s) or flat tins to 2/3 of the height and bake for 45-50 minutes at 180 degrees C or 160 C fan oven.

Remove from oven, leave to cool on a rack and when well cool slice thickly and cut out forms using a cookie cutter. 

The cut out forms should be aligned one behind the other in the tin like this.

 And then covered with the second cake batter for Spinach cake.

for the Spinach cake: (from Binnur's Turkish Cookbook)

Recipe:

3 medium eggs

200 g sugar

300 g spinach leaves stalks on - blended with 50-70 ml hot water to fine puree
100 ml light olive oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
310 g self-raising flour
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

Method:

Mix the eggs with sugar. Add the spinach puree, lemon juice and olive oil and mix well. Finally add the flour and vanilla and mix until homogeneous.
This mixture pour over the prepared cake centres - a baking paper-lined loaf tin with the arranged cut outs of the previous cake. The amount of spinach cake should be 2/3 of the tin height, but in case the cut out forms are sticking out, spoon some cake batter over them to cover. When the cake rises it will hide the entire  forms underneath.

*These products will be enough to make two cakes. Alternatively, half of the mix can be baked in a flat tin to prepare more hidden cake (as I did).

Bake for 30 minutes 180 C or 160 C fan oven. Leave to cool on a rack and wait until completely cool.

Wait to see the kids surprise when they discover the hidden picture :)