Grandmother Alice Munro wows thousands with her sponge cake that looks just like a household item

A creative grandmother-of-10 has wowed thousands of home bakers after creating optical-illusion ‘sponge’ cakes that look just like a household cleaning item. 

Alice Munro, from Tasmania, carefully constructed a vanilla cake to make it look identical to dishwashing sponges – all while ensuring her dessert tasted delicious despite what it may look like.

The 52-year-old said she used a $4 cake mix, buttercream and green, yellow and black food colourings to replicate the everyday object.

‘I like to make look-a-like [object] cakes and I love trying different things. I got the idea in a Facebook group so I googled “dishwashing sponge cake”, watched a few tutorials and decided I’d give it a go,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.

A creative grandmother-of-10 has wowed thousands of home bakers after creating optical-illusion ‘sponge’ cakes that look just like an everyday object

Dishwashing sponge cake recipe

INGREDIENTS (creates six sponges)

Vanilla cake mix (any)

Green, yellow and black food colourings

Buttercream

Oreo and chocolate to create a ‘dirty plate’ 

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180 degrees, or according to the cake mix instruction. Grease and line two cake tins.

Empty the cake mix into a bowl, add eggs, milk and butter and combine with a wooden spoon or an electric mixer. Mix one third of the batter with yellow colouring, and the rest with green and a tiny drop of black. Pour the batter into two prepared tins.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool on a wire rack. Whip buttercream with yellow colouring.

Trim the sponges into the size of a real dishwashing sponge. Spread the buttercream on one side of the green and yellow pieces and glue them lightly together, creating the sponge.

Serve the sponge cakes with Oreo crumbs, and smear chocolate on the plate to create a ‘dirty’ dish.

Alice Munro (pictured with her husband Mick), constructed a vanilla cake to make it look identical to a dishwashing sponge

Alice Munro (pictured with her husband Mick), constructed a vanilla cake to make it look identical to a dishwashing sponge

‘It wasn’t complicated at all. I just used a vanilla sponge cake mix, and poured it into two cake tins – coloured one yellow and the other green. I added yellow colouring to the buttercream so I could use to stick the sponges together.’

The mother-of-three said she even surprised herself after she managed to match the same shades of green and yellow to the actual kitchen sponge.

‘I fluked it,’ she said, laughing, ‘I really did.

‘I just used a lemon yellow colouring, then added a few drops of forest green. At first, I thought it was a little bit light, so I added a tiny bit of black and stirred that in.’

Ms Munro said she mixed about one third of the batter with yellow colouring and the rest with green.

‘You only need a small layer for the green, you don’t want it to be thick,’ she said. 

Once the cake was baked in the oven, she trimmed the sponges into the size of a real dishing washing sponge.

‘I was surprised when I saw the aerated bubbles after I cut them, I thought “this is actually working”,’ she said, laughing.

The 52-year-old said she used a $4 cake mix, buttercream and green, yellow and black food colourings to replicate the household cleaning item

The 52-year-old said she used a $4 cake mix, buttercream and green, yellow and black food colourings to replicate the household cleaning item

She used three food colourings (pictured)

She used three food colourings (pictured)

‘I used an original, new sponge as a template. Once I cut my sides off, I level the top so it was even. I managed to get six sponges out of the cake.

‘I decorated it to make it look exactly like a dish sponge. It wasn’t tricky, you’re not mucking around with fondant, it was just a cake mix and everything else was already in my cupboard.’

To assemble the sponges, she used buttercream to glue the pieces together.

‘I whipped up buttercream so I could use it to stick the layers together,’ she said.

Ms Munro said she even added props to her picture to make it look like the ‘real deal’ such as strategically placing a pair of gloves next to the plate of sponges, a bottle of dishwashing detergent in the background and even crushing up Oreo and chocolate to create a ‘dirty dish’.

‘I used finely crushed chocolate Oreo, which I mixed roughly in white buttercream. It’s the chocolate cream between the Oreo that I smudged on the plate,’ she said.

‘It was so funny, my husband walked in and his eyes were just like “oh my God” before saying “that looks real, it looks like a sponge”.’

After sharing her spectacular creation in a Facebook group, Ms Munro said many people didn’t believe her it was actually cake, while others were amazed with her realistic looking dessert.

‘I’m so confused. Is this actual cake or just some sponges on a plate as a joke? They look too real to be cake,’ one woman said, while another added: ‘Get out of here! I actually thought they were sponges! I freaking love this so much.’

The mother-of-three constructed a vanilla cake to make it look identical to dishwashing sponges - all while ensuring her dessert tasted delicious despite what it may look like

She was inspired to transform the dishwashing sponge into a delicious cake (pictured of a real kitchen sponge)

The mother-of-three  constructed a vanilla cake to make it look identical to dishwashing sponges – all while ensuring her dessert tasted delicious despite what it may look like

Some assumed it was ‘some sort of homemade mixture of cleaning products’, while one said: ‘ I just looked and thought why did she take a photo of so many sponges.’

Another added: ‘Is this a real cake? The colour looks like an actual dish sponge but I’ve never seen the scourer part that thick before. The colours look spot on if it is a real cake. This is awesome.’

Ms Munro credits Google for teaching her how to get creative in the kitchen.

‘I love Google. I already knew how to bake a cake but I needed to see how the sponges were assembled so I looked up the tutorials,’ she said. 

‘I didn’t bake it for any occasion, I was only mucking around with a cake mix. I love decorating so it was just something fun to do.’

For amateur bakers keen to give the sponge cakes a go, Ms Munro said: ‘Just Google it. Give it a go, that’s how I’ve done it. I just look up tutorials and turned four different recipes into my own. You learn so much. The more you watch it, the better you’ll get.’

She added: ‘You can use any vanilla cake mix to make the sponges.’

And it isn’t the first time Ms Munro has impressed home bakers with her realistic looking cake. In February 2019, she baked a cake to make it look exactly like a KFC bucket meal with fries.

In February 2019, Ms Munro wowed thousands of people after sharing a seemingly innocent snap of a 'KFC meal' (pictured) on social media. It was actually a carefully constructed cake - only the chip box, Pepsi label and sauce packets are real

In February 2019, Ms Munro wowed thousands of people after sharing a seemingly innocent snap of a ‘KFC meal’ (pictured) on social media. It was actually a carefully constructed cake – only the chip box, Pepsi label and sauce packets are real

She said the impressive creation took her five to six hours to make to ensure it looked like the real deal.

‘The chicken pieces are mud cake dipped in white chocolate and rolled in crushed cornflakes,’ she previously told FEMAIL.

‘The bucket is made of vanilla sponge cake. I used Bakels white fondant to cover the cake and attached an edible image around the cake as I have my own edible printer.’

To make the chips as realistic as possible, Ms Munro used an original chip box from the fast food chain.

She then stuffed it with paper towel so that she could position the yellow fondant fries which have been airbrushed with a light dusting of yellow/brown colouring.

‘For the Pepsi bottle I used an actual bottle as a chocolate mould and used the Pepsi wrapper to go back around it,’ she said.

She used three vanilla cakes placed on top of each other with chocolate icing acting as the glue to keep them together.

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