3 Cakes & a 3rd Birthday

Strawberry & Chocolate Chip Birthday Cake for my sister-in-law's 17th birthday.  Happy Birthday Bea!

Orange & Chocolate Cake (decorated with cars for my daughter Anya's 3rd birthday.  I can't believe she's 3 and starting preschool this week!)

Orange & Chocolate Digger Cake (for my daughter's 3rd birthday party--it was Digger themed; She had a fantastic birthday!)

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Orange Chocolate Birthday Cake Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 2/3 cup plain (all purpose) flour

1 1/3 cup sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1 1/3 cup milk

2 eggs

1/2 cup butter (room temperature)

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1/2 tbsp orange essence

1/2 tbsp orange food coloring

2 bars chopped chocolate or about 1 cup chocolate chips

Instructions:

1. Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer until the batter is smooth and well blended.

2. Pour into greased and floured cake tins (bakes best if you make multiple smaller cakes and stack rather than one large cake)

3. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 F/350 C for about 25 minutes (baking time depends on the size tins used, so check regularly. When a knife can be poked in and comes out clean, it's finished).

4. Let cool then decorate as desired

Birthday Cakes

It seems like there have been a lot of birthdays lately, and so we made several birthday cakes in May. I always think that a cake makes a nice birthday gift that is home-made and yummy.

This cake was a gift for a student of mine for her 14th birthday. She likes doodling, and loves the way that I doodle, so I did some food coloring painting on her cake. The fondant work isn't as nice as I'd like, but she still loved it.

Chocolate Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour
1/3 cup cocoa

1/3 cup white sugar

1/3 cup vanilla sugar (if you don't have it, just use normal sugar)

2 Tsp. baking powder

2/3 cup milk (room temperature)

1 egg (room temperature)

1/4 cup butter (room temperature--it should be soft, but not melted)

1 Tbsp vanilla

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C). Grease and flour a medium sized cake tin.

2. Sift in the dry ingredients, then stir lightly. Add the remaining ingredients and mix into a smooth batter.

3. Bake until a knife comes out clean (about 25 minutes).

To decorate:

1. Either make and roll out fondant icing, or roll out pre-made fondant.

2. Heat jam of choice in a saucepan, stirring constantly, until it starts to boil. (I used home-made rosehip and apple jam.)

3. Paint the jam over the cooled cake. I used a silicone pastry brush.

4. While the jam is still hot, lift the fondant over the cake and smooth.

5. Use a small paint brush or point (the point of a wooden skewer works well for details) to paint the cake with food colouring.

My daughter Miriam celebrated her 4th birthday in May! On one hand she seems so big and grown up, and on the other hand it's hard to believe that my little girl is already four. The only thing that she asked for was a pink bike with a pink helmet, so she was very excited to get a bike for her birthday. (We're still working on learning to ride it...unfortunately her little sister gets a bit jealous and tries to climb on with her, so it's hard for Miriam to really ride it. Also, she has a weird tendency to petal backwards.) She enjoyed some other goodies, like new art supplies, as well.

Miriam's favourite food in the world is strawberries. So it wasn't really a surprise that she asked for a strawberry birthday cake shaped like a butterfly.

Strawberry Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cup flour

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup strawberry milk powder (like strawberry nesquick, only I used Asda's brand)

2 Tsp baking powder

2/3 cup milk (room temperature)

1 egg (room temperature)

1/4 cup butter (room temperature)

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

(if desired: add a handful of chopped dried strawberries)

Instructions:

Follow the same instructions as for the chocolate cake above. (Sift dry ingredients, then blend all of the ingredients. Bake in a greased and floured pan at 350F/180C.)

To decorate:

1. Roll out fondant.

2. Boil strawberry jam. (Do not overboil because it will go too thick and sticky. Bring it to boiling point and then remove from heat.)

3. Paint the cake with the jam, and then cover with fondant.

4. Smooth and cut off any extra fondant.

5. Decorate! I cooked this in a butterfly shaped cake mold, so then I just decorated with coloured icing and candles.

Cupcakes

Miriam wanted to bring cupcakes to preschool to share with her friends. Here's a recipe for easy plain cupcakes.

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cup flour

2/3 cup sugar

2 Tsp baking powder

2/3 cup milk

1 egg

1/4 cup butter

1 tbsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

1. Mix all ingredients with an electric mixer to make a smooth batter.

2. Bake in paper or silicone cupcake cases at 350F/180C for about 17 minutes.

3. Decorate. I piped on a simple chocolate butter cream (butter, icing sugar, vanilla extract, a few drops of milk, and cocoa), and then Miriam added pink sprinkles.

All of the cake recipes are variations on my standard cake recipe that can be adapted to pretty much any flavour and always turns out perfectly. To see the full recipe (adapted for lavender cakes), click here.

Happy Birthday to anyone else who's celebrating birthdays right now!

Let Them Eat Cake Pops...

Probably about a year ago now, my sister sent me a link to the Bakerella website. The ideas were absolutely adorable, and there was one magical phrase that stuck with me: Cake Pop. The basic idea is that it looks like a lollipop, but is made out of cake. Adorable.

I remembered the cake pops, but didn't do anything about the idea until recently. My nephew's birthday is on St. Patrick's Day, so I helped my girls to bake him a birthday cake. They had great fun decorating it with LOTS of sprinkles. I sandwiched two layers
of cake with frosting in the middle as well as on top, so I leveled out the cakes by cutting off the excess cake (super easy by just cutting all of it to the height of the cake pan before removing it from the pan). This left us with some left over cake.

So I rcmembered cake pops, found some sticks, and started rolling the cake into balls. It worked well because the cake was still warm and so took its form easily. Also, the cake was very moist and kind of crumbly, so the consistency worked really well.

I worked loosely from a Betty Crocker recipe. It was easy and one-step though, so here's what I did.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda/bicarbonate of soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
1 cup water (room temperature)
1/2 cup milk (I used whole milk)
1 tbsp vanilla
5 oz dark chocolate, melted and cooled
2 eggs (room temperature)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Grease and flour 2 medium to large cake tins. (This recipe doesn't work well as "sandwich cakes"; it's better as a single, big, tall cake.)

2. Put all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until it is smooth. Pour into cake tin.

3. Bake until an inserted butter knife comes out clean. Let cool, then decorated as desired OR let cool only until it is comfortable to handle, and then shape pieces of cake into balls around lollipop sticks.

I frosted the cake pops with a pretty simple chocolate buttercream. I beat together about 1 cup butter, 4 cups sugar, 2 tbsp vanilla, 2 oz melted and cooled dark chocolate, and 2 tbsp cold water until it made a smooth frosting that was easy to spread (make sure to taste test it and adjust as desired).

After giving the frosting time to stiffen, I covered the cake pops in cling film and then tied securely with ribbon. And voila, cake pops. Bite sized cake on a stick. Fantastic for when you want to be cutesy.

Chocolate Cupcakes!

Chocolate Cupcake Recipe

Ingredients:

170g flour

100g cocoa powder

170g sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

120g butter

1 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

1. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt together. Mix well.

2. Cream together the sugar and wet ingredients in a seperate bowl.

3. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredient mixture. Add a little at a time and mix well.

4. Bake at 180C/350F for about 15 minutes. I used reusable silicone cupcake cases, but you can use the disposable paper ones as well.

To decorate:

I made a chocolate buttercream icing, but added in marshmellow cream and a generous splash of vanilla extract. Pipe onto the cupcakes. I bought sparkly pink sprinkles and sugar hearts to sprinkle over the top.