Jakes Pizza Cake Recipe

How to make it

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• Prepare the cake mix as directed making on a a time. Pour half the batter into a greased/floured 12" round cake pan (or smaller, depending on how large you want the cake to be) and bake it for about 20 min or until a toothpick comes out clear from the center. Repeat with the rest of the batter. Cool.
• Cover a large oven proof cutting board or the bottom of a large cookie sheet with tinfoil or wax paper. Place one layer of the cake on top of the tin-foil. Frost the top of the bottom layer and place the top layer on top.
• Over medium heat, simmer the preserves until runny. Add several drops of red food coloring (if desired) to make the color closer to that of tomato sauce. .
• Spread the warm preserves over the cake, covering the top thoroughly but not so much that the cake is saturated. Chill the cake again for at least an hour so that the preserves re-congeal.
• Now for the fun part - decorating!
• - Sausage/Meatballs - with a very sharp knife, cut the malt balls in half, set aside
• - Green Peppers - I am sure there's lots of great ways to do this but I bought Wilton's green icing and piped it onto a greased plate into small squares and rectangles. I then placed it into the freezer to firm-up.
• - Pepperoni - Grease a small muffin tin and put one red candy-melt into each cup. Sprinkle about 1/2 teaspoon of grated brown candy-melts into each well. (I used a handheld cheese-grater to grate the candy-melts. See "cheese below for more details). Put the muffin tin under the broiler to melt the candies (only takes a minute or two). Once they are melted, mix the red and brown candy-melts together using a toothpick. Place into the freezer for about 10 minutes or until set. Once they are hard, flip the muffin pan over to release the "pepperoni" (I ended up hitting the back of the tin with knife to free the candy).
• - Olives - get the dried blueberries ready, set aside.
• - Cheese - I used a handheld cheese grater like this one to grate the white candy-melts over the top of the pizza. I worked my way over the top of the pizza until it had a good coating of cheese, but not so much that the "tomato sauce" didn't peek through. Then I used the brown candy melts around the perimeter the the "crust" -- I thought it looked more crust and slightly burnt, like a real pizza would. Finally I put the entire pizza in the oven under the broiler and watched it very closely. It only took 3 minutes for the "cheese" to melt - it even browned slightly!
• After you take it out of the oven and while it is still warm, put your toppings on the pizza. I started with the sausage/meatballs, then the green pepper, followed by the olives and the pepperoni and then a little more cheese. Put it into the fridge to set again. For fun, put the pizza cake in a pizza box for a cute visual effect. Use a pizza cutter to slice it!