How to Make an Exploding Volcano Cake

Want to make an exploding volcano cake for your next party? Look no further! Here you'll find simple instructions on how to make an impressive volcano cake for your event. My son is REALLY into volcanoes, so I decided to make him a really special birthday cake which was much easier to put together than anticipated. This cake would be perfect for a dinosaur themed party (just add plastic dinosaurs to the base) or a luau.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• 2 chocolate cake mixes (+ 2 eggs)
• 2 tube/bunt pans (one small, one large)
• frosting (butter, cocoa milk, powdered sugar, vanilla)
• cinnamon disk candy
• whipped cream
• chocolate wafer cookies

1. First mix two chocolate cake mixes as directed on the box. Then fill two tube/bunt cake pans (one 2lb, one 4lb) each 2/3 full and bake as directed. With any leftover mix, fill a small cake pan to make an extra cake to freeze for another occasion. After baking let cake cool 5 minutes, then invert onto decorating surface.
2. When cakes have cooled completely carefully stack the smaller onto the larger, securing with frosting. Then, frost the cakes with chocolate icing of your choice. You may use prepackaged icing or make the sheet cake icing pictured using this recipe:
   
   1/2 cup butter + 1/4 cup cocoa + 1/3 cup milk
   Mix and bring these ingredients to a simmer. Remove from heat and add powdered sugar (about 3/4 of a 1 pound box). Mix well and add 2 teaspoons vanilla extract. To change the flavor, add any flavored extract.
   
   If sheet cake icing is used, layer cake allowing each layer to cool and harden in between. Cake shown used three layers.
3. To decorate, sprinkle red cake sparkles from Wilton or any red sprinkles around the top of the "crater". Next dot the bottom of the cake with crushed chocolate wafer cookies (any Oreo-like cookie will do) resembling lava rock.
4. candy lava Finally, prepare cinnamon disk lava as follows:
   
   Melt hard candy cinnamon disks over medium low heat. Then cool the liquid for one or two minutes before pouring it into spews and puddles onto a foil-covered cookie sheet.
   
   Cool completely. Remove candy lava from foil and finish decorating by inserting candy lava spews into the crater of the cake.
   
   For a final touch before serving, drop a "cloud" of whipped cream around the top of the cake. Voila! Exploding cake equals instant party success!