A Very Wicked, Very Popular Pink And Green Layer Cake Recipe

The ever popular and superbly catchy musical "Wicked" has been gracing stages worldwide for over two decades. This year, it will debut on the big screen with the first installment of a two-part movie adaption starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. If you are a musical theater afficionado (like some of us at Tasting Table), you'll likely have the date down in your calendar and you'll want to mark the occasion with a spectacular culinary creation befitting the combined powers of all the students at dear old Shiz itself.

This very wicked, very popular pink and green layer cake recipe, from the kitchen of recipe developer Jennine Rye, is an exuberant homage to the beloved musical, one sweet, soft sponge cake at a time. Not only is this "swankified" layer cake a colorful extravaganza, but the sponge cakes are also soaked in rosé Prosecco and green Chartreuse, helping the cake to stay extra moist whilst adding a delightful, surprising, and thematic contrast of flavors. The rosé Prosecco adds a delightful dash of fruity effervescence and elegance, while the green Chartreuse has an herbaceous, elixir-like taste, evoking the characters of Glinda and Elphaba themselves. While this layer cake may take a little (well, a lot of) work, it's sure to be pop-u-lar with a crowd. It's perfect for a celebration throughout Oz!

To begin this "Wicked" layer cake recipe, first you will need to gather the ingredients. To make the pink and green sponge cakes you will need all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt, butter, granulated sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, and pink and green gel food coloring. To make the cake soaks, you will want more granulated sugar as well as rosé Prosecco and Green Chartreuse. To make the buttercream you will need more butter, vanilla extract, plenty of confectioners' sugar, and the pink and green gel food coloring. Finally, you will need a variety of ingredients for the decorations: Vietnamese spring roll wrappers (they're the ones made with rice paper), white fondant icing, black fondant icing, white candy melts, black candy melts, pink and green sprinkles, edible glitter, and of course, more pink and green gel food coloring. To complete assembling the cakes you will also want a few cocktail sticks and a wooden skewer.

Start by prepping the rice paper sails: Add approximately ⅓ cup water to a plate, along with a few drops of pink or green food coloring. Place a spring roll wrapper into the colored water and let it soften for 1 minute. Transfer the soft spring roll wrapper to a silicone baking mat, shaping it as desired.

Repeat this process with the remaining spring roll wrappers, dying each a shade of pink and green. Mixing some black into the green will result in darker green rice paper sails.

Once the sails have been formed, slide wooden cocktail sticks or toothpicks into the base of each sail, and then place them in an oven preheated to "warm" or the lowest possible setting for 30 minutes to 1 hour, until the sails have hardened. Keep an eye on them to prevent them from browning.

To form the witches' hats and broom, roll 1 ½ ounces each of the white and black fondants into two separate balls. Using your hands, taper one end of each ball into a cone and pinch out the base to form your hats.

To form the broom, wrap the remaining 1 ounce of black fondant icing around the base of a wooden skewer, and use a knife to draw lines in the broom base. Set hats and broom aside to dry.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease four round 6-inch cake pans. (Alternatively, bake cakes in batches and grease two.)

In a bowl, combine the flour with the baking powder and salt.

In a stand mixer, beat together 1½ cups butter with 1 ½ cups granulated sugar for 3 to 4 minutes until the mixture is pale and creamy.

Beat in the eggs one at a time, followed by the 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, until smooth. Mix the flour into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients to form a thick cake batter.

Divide the cake batter evenly into two separate bowls. Mix one portion of the cake batter pink and the other green, using the gel food colorings. Be careful to only mix the batter until the food coloring is just combined; you don't want to over mix the cake batter.

Divide the cake batter into the prepared cake tins (2 of each color). Bake them for 25 minutes in the oven, until they are risen and spring back to the touch. Repeat if baking in batches. Set aside cakes to cool while preparing the remaining elements. 

To make the pink cake soak, add 1 cup granulated sugar and rosé Prosecco to a small saucepan. Heat the saucepan to a medium-high temperature and allow the mixture to simmer until the sugar has fully dissolved and the liquid has reduced by half. Set the soak to one side to cool completely.

To make the chartreuse cake soak, add 1 cup of sugar, the chartreuse, and ⅔ cup water to a saucepan. Heat the chartreuse mixture over a medium-high temperature and simmer until the sugar has fully dissolved and the liquid is reduced by half. Set the chartreuse soak aside to cool completely.

For the buttercream, beat 2 cups of butter in a stand mixer for 1 minute, or until it has paled in color. Sift in the confectioner's sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing until combined. Add the remaining teaspoon of vanilla extract and mix once more.

Divide the buttercream icing into two bowls, setting one aside. Divide the remaining portion (one half) of buttercream into two more halves (a fourth of your total buttercream). Use gel coloring to dye one pink and the other green.

To begin assembling your layer cake, use a knife or wire cutter to level the tops of the sponges.

Using a pastry brush, brush the green sponges with the chartreuse cake soak and the pink sponges with the Prosecco soak.

Using a cake board or cake stand, place one of the green sponges into the center. Spread a spoonful or two of the neutral-colored buttercream on top of the sponge. Place a pink sponge on top of the first sponge and top with more buttercream.

Repeat the process, alternating the green and pink sponges between the neutral buttercream until all the sponges are used up.

Using the remaining plain buttercream, coat the entire cake in a thin layer and smooth it out to form a crumb coating. Transfer the cake to the fridge for at least 20 minutes for the crumb coating to harden.

Cut a piece of parchment paper to cover half of the cake and carefully wrap it around the outside of the hardened crumb coating.

Pipe the pink buttercream onto the exposed half of the cake, using a cake knife to smooth it out. Place the cake back in the fridge for at least 20 minutes for the pink buttercream to harden.

Remove the cake from the fridge and carefully peel off the baking paper to reveal the other side of the cake. Using a clean piece of baking paper, cover the hardened pink buttercream, leaving the other side of the cake exposed.

Pipe the green buttercream onto the exposed half of the cake, using a cake knife to smooth it out. Place the cake in the fridge for another 20 minutes to allow the green buttercream to harden.

Remove the cake from the fridge and carefully peel off the baking paper to reveal the pink side of the cake.

Add the white candy melts to a bowl, and heat them in the microwave on a medium setting until completely melted.

Transfer the mixture to a squeeze bottle, or alternatively use a spoon, and drip the white mixture down the pink side of the cake.

Repeat this process using the black candy melts, using them to form drips on the green side of the cake.

Finish the cake by topping it with the white and black witch hats, the broomstick, the colored rice paper sails, sprinkles, and edible glitter.

Honestly, the pink and green elements of this "Wicked"-themed layer cake are pretty much non-negotiable. As Galinda tells Elphaba, "pink goes good with green." But there are plenty of other ways you might like to adapt this cake to suit your own needs. It goes without saying that this cake can be adapted to be gluten-free and dairy-free with the appropriate ingredient swaps, but how else can this towering dessert be changed for good?

If you still want to keep the cake soaks but know that you'll be indulging a wide variety of ages and tastes with your baking, the rosé Prosecco and Green Chartreuse can be swapped for less complex, non-alcoholic flavors. Alternately, you can also bake flavors into the sponges themselves — perhaps a strawberry or raspberry flavoring to suit the pink Glinda sponges and mint or lime for the Elphaba cakes. For even more flavor and drama, it is also possible to add flavorings between each layer of the cake; your imagination is the limit with this one. A simple layer of strawberry jam or passion fruit curd will give the cake even more punch, or these can be used to flavor the innermost layer of buttercream that is used for layering and crumb coating the cake. Finally, you may wish to switch out the buttercream for equally delicious cream cheese frosting, to help you create a cake that will make you very, very pop-u-lar!

Unless you are a big fan of cocktails and mixology, you may well not have encountered Chartreuse before. Chartreuse is an aperitif that comes in both yellow and green varieties. The recipe for this rather mysterious alcohol has been honed over many centuries by a group of Carthusian monks in the French alps, who are today still solely responsible for its production and distribution. Chartreuse was originally developed as a medicinal tonic, with early documented versions dating back to the beginning of the 17th century, the exact ingredients used to produce Chartreuse are still a closely guarded secret. In fact, very few people knowing the entire 130-ingredient recipe used in its creation. If you are struggling to get your hands on a bottle, French herbal liqueur Génépy is the closest substitution for Chartreuse .

The mystery surrounding this liqueur only adds to its allure, but what does it taste like? Well, Green Chartreuse has a uniquely herbaceous flavor with strong notes of fennel and star anise, cooling peppermint, pine, and citrus peel, as well as an earthy undertone and a slightly sweet finish. Its unique qualities are precisely what makes it a perfect inclusion to this special cake, with its deeply botanical flavor and green coloring giving off brilliantly witchy vibes to make your layer cake very wicked indeed.