Pink Cake may sound basic, but this dainty dessert hides a secret ingredient: melon! In STARDEW VALLEY, Pink Cake is a favorite of several villagers. The in-game thumbnail shows a cute pink tube cake topped with red heart sprinkles. The ingredients are listed as flour, sugar, egg, and pink melon (a fruit unique to the game, which looks like a pink cantaloupe). I was intrigued by the idea of a melon-based baked good, so I chose this cake for my STARDEW VALLEY dessert!

For my sponge, I used a variation on a recipe for melon chiffon cake I found on Singapore Shiok. My favorite part about this recipe is that, in addition to melon flavoring, it also uses real cantaloupe. I topped it with my go-to vanilla buttercream, since I felt like adding melon flavor to the frosting would make the recipe too “one note.” And how lucky was I to find these jumbo pixelated heart sprinkles from Nerdy Nummies for my decorations? They’re just the right size, and the 8-bit look is just right for a recipe based on a computer game.

This was my first time making chiffon, and it took me two tries to get it right. Chiffon can be finicky—the key to success is to fully incorporate the flour without over mixing. Doing too much or too little can lead to a deflated cake. Keep folding until you really don’t see any more bits of flour. The final result is worth it: fluffy, delicately sweet, and packed with melon flavor.

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Pink Cake

“There’s little heart candies on top.”

— Stardew Valley

 

INGREDIENTS:

• FOR THE CAKE
  • 1 cup plus 3-4 Tbsp (or 150 g) cake flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 6 cold eggs
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3/4 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1 1/2 tsp melon flavoring
  • 10 drops pastel pink gel food coloring
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/2 cup plus 1 Tbsp pureed very ripe cantaloupe flesh
    • This is 120 g, approx. 1/4 of a small de-seeded cantaloupe
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• FOR THE FROSTING
  • 7 drops pastel pink gel food coloring
  • 3 Tbsp milk, divided
  • 3/4 cup butter, softened
  • 3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • large heart sprinkles

 

Makes 1 8-inch tube pan cake

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. FOR THE CAKE. Preheat oven to 350°. Coat the inside of a tube pan with shortening and coat it with flour, tapping out the excess. Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a standing mixer, combine the eggs, sugar, cream of tartar, melon flavoring, food coloring, and salt. Whisk together, gradually increasing speed to medium-high. Whisk for 10 minutes. The mixture should be thick and foamy, and you should be able to use the whisk to drip a figure 8 in the batter that stands for several seconds before disappearing.
4. Gently fold half the flour mix into the egg mix, then fold in the other half. Don’t over mix, but make sure there is no more unincorporated flour before moving to the next step. Since there will be a large amount of batter in the bowl, it can be hard to see the bottom, so I recommend tilting the bowl sometimes to make sure you’re scraping up all the flour from the bottom as you fold.
5. In a small bowl, whisk together the melon puree and vegetable oil. Pour it around the edge of the batter in the bowl and gently fold in until fully combined (do not over mix). Pour the batter into the prepared tube pan and tap firmly on the counter 2 times to break any large air bubbles.
6. Bake for 25 minutes. Lower the oven temp to 330°. Continue to bake for 25-30 minutes or until cake pulls away from the sides of the pan. Immediately after removing from the oven, tap the pan firmly on the counter to stop it shrinking. Flip pan over onto a wire rack and allow to completely cool. Then loosen the sides with a knife and flip the cake out onto a serving plate.
7. FOR THE FROSTING. Whisk the food coloring thoroughly into the milk with a fork and set aside. In the bowl of standing mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth. Beat in 1 cup powdered sugar until combined. Beat in the vanilla and 1 Tbsp milk until combined, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl if needed. Alternate beating in remaining powdered sugar and milk until fully combined, stopping to scrape if needed. Spread the frosting onto the cooled cake in an even layer. Top with large pixelated heart sprinkles.
8. Enjoy on a warm summer’s day in Pelican Town!

   

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Check out my other Stardew Valley recipes!

Strange Bun

Spicy Eel

Pepper Poppers