Exotic Birthday Cake

So this past weekend was my mum's 50th birthday celebrations. She had a grand party in her home with half a million people (okay, so a little over half a hundred) and awesome food. The theme for the party was 'exotic', so people dressed up in togas and saris and all sorts of pretty clothes, and we ate Turkish gozleme and Indian curries (authentic!) and baklava and Turkish apricot cake and REALLY YUMMY STUFF. And of course, we'll be eating it for the next month.

I had the job of designing and making the birthday cake. Mum is a fan of white chocolate and raspberry, so that was a starting point, and I really wanted to try dark chocolate and lavender, just because it sounded fun. Raspberries somehow ended up becoming blackberries - I forget how, but Mum and her husband had picked blackberries earlier in the year and frozen them, so it was cool to use those anyway. And I convinced her in the end to let me use lavender, bwa ha ha, and it came from my garden :o)

SO. Double-layer cake, bottom layer dark chocolate & lavendar mud cake with lavendar buttercream, top layer white chocolate mud cake and blackberry with blackberry buttercream. Only I forgot to put the blackberries in the white choc layer, so it was just white choc mud in the end o.0 :)

As for the exotic theme, the colour scheme was green, pink and purple. After speaking to the lady in the cake shop I decided to buy pre-coloured pink fondant, but I'm kind of sorry I did - the pink wasn't hot pink as advertised, but more of a bright candy/Barbie pink.

I decided to marble the icing, but on reflection I thought two layers of marbling might be too much. We browsed through pictures and decided on stripes:

I layered the cake up, stuck on the gold flowers, and decided it needed a topper - so off I went with the Middle Sisterous One to shop for silk flowers. We determined while at the craft store that buying gold braid would be quicker and easier than making a gold rope out of fondant to go around the bottom of each layer, but the store didn't have anything decent in proper gold. Then I found sequins B-) It was an exotic cake, after all.


And it looked gorgeously rainbow cut up and served :D

Cakey Goodness!

So, recently my hub & I have moved house, and let me just say, our new kitchen is SO. SHINY. I adores it, I do, I do! So lately I've actually been doing a bit of cooking; last week, for example, I made not one, not two, but THREE cakes! Not sure why the sudden spurt in cakeish activity; partially because we had a church fundraising auction on Saturday night, so I volunteered to make a cake for that. But also because cakes are FUN, and I haven't done anything fun with baking in a while.

I learned three new techniques in this latest baking escapade, nearly killed my wrist with the amount of beating required, and totally trashed the kitchen. Several times. Good thing my husband loves me.

So, in order of appearance, here are my latest experiments:

1) Buttercream.

I've made buttercream before, but just your average butter-and-icing-sugar variety, not anything fancy or Proper. This time, I decided to try some recipes out of one of the cake books I got back in (I think) February:

I was going to make one of these recipes with the intent of trying the chocolate painting method - more on that at #3 - but for this cake I thought I'd do something different and try the cream-on-cream method.

So I made the cake - supposedly an orange cake, but given I used one lemon, one mandarin and one tangello, I'm calling it a citrus cake; made the filling - orange mousse, YUM; and then the next night spent ONE HOUR - that's right, a whole hour - making the buttercream. Italian meringue buttercream, to be precise. Quite possibly some of the most decadent stuff EVER. Boy, was my wrist sore after all that beating - I used an electric beater, sure, but it took HALF AN HOUR of constant mixing. So you know.

But the results were worth it, I think:

See? Much pretty :o) And it tasted amazing, though in small pieces. Quite rich.

2) Chocolate Collars.

I've seen chocolate collars before, though perhaps not in real life. So when I knew I'd be taking HALF the orange cake for the auction and needed to pair it with another half cake, and of course knew I wanted to do a choc mud cake, the collar seemed like the best idea to jazz up the choc cake. Although I learned many things - like don't do one end significantly before the other so it starts to dry while the rest is sloppy; and don't try to make the collar too tall because if it's still sloppy when you put it upright the chocolate will all run down onto the cake; and don't bother flooding the top of the cake with ganache until the collar is in place - it was fun and it came out well in the end.

The cake is chocolate mud (though slightly undercooked since it cooked weird - see picture - so more like a fudge cake, very yum) filled with homemade cookies and cream, topped with chocolate ganache.

3) Chocolate painting.

This was perhaps the most fun technique I learned. It's exactly what it says: painting with chocolate. For this first experiment I kept it simple and piped bees to top the plum cake with honey buttercream :)

So, thus my exciting week in baking. Yay!

Labrador Birthday Cake

It occurs to me that even though I made this for my sister's birthday back in February, I'm yet to post any pictures of it! Le gasp!

So, below are some pictures of my awesome (even if I say so myself) Labrador puppy cake. It's a chocolate mud cake, the same recipe I used to make the book cakes, and between the cake and the white (tinted yellow) icing is blood orange buttercream, since the sisterous one suggested jaffa as a flavour. The buttercream recipe is from Cupcake Project :)

Also, he is super shiny because I learned Many Things in making this cake. For example, actually let the cake cook all the way through, even if it IS taking half an hour longer than it should; otherwise, when you sculpt the cake, it will be crumbly. Also things like, do not try to cover the ears with one piece; make them separately and stick them on later. And, when you intend to sculpt the cake so the puppy's head lies on the ground, this is a Good Thing - otherwise the head will spend its life sagging and the dog will be in danger of being de-muzzled.

But the shininess is milk, because I had to coat the whole thing in milk to smooth out the cracks in the icing. Lesson learned, and when I made another cake a month ago, we had no icing cracks, woo hoo! So you know. A considered success, I think B-)

Guest Post: Zebra Cake

Today, we are honoured to have the wonderful Angela, aka Momzilla, join us for some baking fun. Angela is a writer and a mother, with all that that entails :o) She also maintains the fantastic blog, The Bookshelf Muse - a muse-consult resource for any would-be writer! Read on, as Angela walks us through the creation of a fantastic Zebra Cake.

The other day I was trolling the internet for a show stopper dessert that didn’t require a massive effort.  When I tripped upon the Zebra Cake recipe, I knew I had found exactly what I needed.

This cake is deceptively easy to prepare. Once you get the hang of layering the chocolate and white batters, you’ll finish in no time at all, and end up with a cake that everyone will want to know how you made.

INGREDIENTS

4 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup milk, at room temperature
1/2 cup oil (vegetable or canola)

1/2 cup butter, melted
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tb vanilla
1 Tb baking powder
1 square (1oz) of Baker’s unsweetened chocolate *note you can also use a dark, unsweetened cocoa powder, 2-3 Tbs should do it

In a large mixing bowl, combine eggs and sugar. Using an electric mixer or whisk, beat until creamy and light in color. Add milk, vanilla, butter and oil, and continue beating until well blended.

In a separate bowl, mix flour and baking powder. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and beat just until the batter is smooth and the dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed. Do not overbeat or air pockets will form in the batter.

At this point, separate the batter evenly into two bowls. In one, add the chocolate and stir just until mixed. The batter should not be thick and puffy nor too watery. If after adding the chocolate, one of the batters appears thicker than the other, a small amount of milk or flour (as needed) should even things out. Take a round spring form pan, two tablespoons and get ready to make magic.

 You can start with either colored batter. The trick is to drizzle 2 heaping Tablespoonfuls in the center of the pan, always placing the batter on top of each other. You don’t need to shake or tilt the pan to get the batter to spread as it will slowly do this on its own.

By the time you finish both batters, you will end up with something that looks like a bull’s eye! Pop it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes (use a toothpick to judge doneness as ovens differ!) then let it sit for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. 

Cool completely, and serve with some sweetened whipped cream and a chocolate drizzle!

Tips:

--If you don’t want to mess around with spoons, pour batters into Ziploc bags and dispense evenly.

--Try adding a flavoring to the white batter and the whipped cream. I used 1/3 cup of Baileys in mine and then compensated by adding a bit of flour and YUM. Ditto with the whipped cream…a little Caramel Baileys really gave the cake zing.

IC:E Winter Warm Up - Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

This is our first ever Iron Cupcake challenge. Yay! The theme for this month is Winter Warm Up, which is probably fantastic if you're in the northern hemisphere, but hey, I'm sweltering away in a heatwave here! All of which meant it was a little challenging to strain my memory back to those months of coldness and recall what it is that I use to warm up when it's really truly icy.

Mostly I use the central heating. But that didn't really inspire any great cupcake ideas :D

So instead, I opted for hot chocolate, because warming up from the inside out is usually the best course of action. My other alternative when I'm really desperate is washing the dishes, because the hot waters warms up the blood in my hands (because the veins there are closest to the skin, so the blood is most affected by the warm water - also why your hands swell when you're hot, so the blood can try to cool down. End today's biology lesson O:)), and again, washing dishes didn't really inspire anything brilliant for a cupcake, though I really must try sometime. Imagine a cupcake covered in soap-sud look-alikes, for example! So cool!

*ahem*

Right. Hot chocolate it is, because I don't drink coffee (love the smell, hate the taste), and because hot chocolate isn't interesting enough, it has to be the real old-fashioned traditional hot chocolate. And when I say 'traditional', I mean the Aztecs who invented the stuff ;) They drank their chocolate spiced with chili, so I decided I'd add some to the cupcakes :)

The Recipe

1 2-inch chilli, finely chopped

1/3c boiling water
1c butter
1c chopped chocolate (I used dark, I think it gives mud cakes a richer flavour)
1c self raising flour
1/2c cocoa
1/2t bicarb soda
1 1/4c caster sugar
4 eggs
1/2c milk

Preheat oven to 160C. Line the bottoms of two 12-hole muffin pans. Pour the boiling water over the chilli and let it stand for five minutes. Melt the butter and chocolate with the chilli-infused water. Sift the flour, cocoa and bicarb. Stir in the sugar. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and stir in the eggs, milk and chocolate mix until combined. Bake in a cupcake pan for ~20mins, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

To assemble:
Cool cakes in pan for 5 mins then turn out onto wire rack. Once completely cool, break about half the cupcakes in half and put a half cake into the bottom of some tea cups and mugs. Stack whole cupcakes on top until the cake reaches about 1cm (1/3in?) below the rim. Press down firmly.

Whip 150mL of cream with 1t vanilla essence and 1T icing sugar. Spread the cakes liberally with the cream then sprinkle with drinking chocolate or other decorations.

The Results

Can we all say oh my goodness delicious?! I seriously think the aftertaste of these gorgeous critters is EXACTLY like a chocolate milkshake! So much squee!! The chili isn't really strong - if you wanted more spice you could easily double the amount I added - but it's enough to give the cake a warm hint and that delicious aftertaste. Yumyumyum. I'll definitely be making these again :D

The Prizes

Part of the contest rules are that I have to show you the prizes we're competing for. Totally tragic, I know :D So, these are the fantastic prizes/sponsors of the wonderful Iron Cupcake event (yes, I love my adjectives today).

Our Generous IronCupcake:Earth Prize Providers:

• The Demy™ by Key Ingredient
• Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson
• Bella Cupcake Couture
• Cupcake Stackers by Gourmac
• The Cake Mix Doctor Returns! by Anne Byrne
• Beautiful Baking Liners by Vestli House
• Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Bakery & Cupcakey Supply

Voting will open next week. I'll post a link up when it's time, and also put a link right here :) In the mean time, happy cupcaking!

Book Cakes - Day One

Welcome back to our redecorated blog! This month is certainly a time of beginnings and endings for me. However, a lot of the beginnings and ends are meeting nicely in the middle - for example, I recently finished work at my old job. To celebrate, I made book cakes, which are truly awesome B-) And because of that ending, I now have something very shiny to share in this re-beginning of the blog! :D Things balance out in the end. Or the beginning. Whichever. O:)

Anyway, book cakes. I haven't baked in a long while, and I was getting antsy to try something fancy again, and I thought that my last day at work would be the final excuse. I pondered for a while what I should make - clearly a cake, but how, and in what form? And then I came up with the perfect idea: Book cakes! I worked at a library storehouse, you see, so this was the natural choice.



I googled pictures of book cakes, found two that inspired my idea, and armed with my trusty Planet Cake cookbook that I got recently for my birthday, I set off on my cake-making adventure, chronicalled below.

Be warned. This is a loooooooong post. In fact, I might post it in several installments, for the sake of all of our brains :D It took me several days to do, given things need resting overnight, etc, so I'll break it up by days. Today, the recipe.

The Recipe

Step one: Shop for ingredients. Make sure you have consulted the recipe BEFORE you do this, lest you seriously underestimate the amount of chocolate you need and have to visit the supermarket TWICE in one evening before making the cake.

Step two: Make the ganache. Glory in its beauty. Keel over from the sheer insane richness of the smell. Put it in the back of the fridge to set overnight and vow never to eat chocolate again because it is so RICH.

Step three: Make cake. Get cake out of oven late at night (because you had to visit the shops twice, so were late starting the cooking) and cry because it burnt. Give up and go to bed, promising to make it all better in the morning.

Chocolate Ganache*
1.2kg (2lb 10oz) dark chocolate, finely chopped (53-63% cocoa)
600mL pure cream (not thickened; make sure what you're buying has no gelatin in it)

Chop the chocolate. Please, for all our sakes, use something automatic. It took me 40 minutes to finely chop 6 blocks of premium cooking chocolate; I blistered the knuckle of the finger holding the knife from bashing it against the chopping board a thousand times too often, and the first two fingers of my left hand were bruised for the next three days from pushing down in the back of the knife blade.

Bring the cream to boiling point over the stove (don't let it actually boil). Pour it over the chocolate and mix with a balloon whisk until smooth. DON'T use electric, this time, because an electric whisk will incorporate too much air. We want thick and creamy, not fluffy.

Allow to cool completely and leave to set overnight.

* Pfah. DO NOT TRUST RECIPES. They are tricksy beasts. I looked at this and went - wow, 1.2 KILOS of chocolate? That seems like rather a lot. But the book specifically said that it was enough to cover one of their cakes plus a little left over in case of mistakes.

I don't know about you, but I don't think HALF of the ganache is a little. That forty minutes of chopping and bruised fingering? It only needed to be twenty minutes!!!


Chocolate Mud Cake
220g butter

220g dark chocolate, chopped (I used chocolate drops so I didn't need to chop)

25g coffee granules (I skipped this; not a fan of coffee)
125g Self Raising Flour
125g plain (all purpose) flour
50g unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tspn bicarb soda
480g caster (superfine) sugar
4 eggs, lightly beaten
7 tspn vegetable oil (I used canola)
100mL buttermilk (I used plain ordinary milk)

Preheat oven to 160C/315F. Grease 22cm/9in round or 20cm/8in square cake tin. Line the base and sides with a collar that extends 2cm (3/4in) above the top of the tin. (Ha, totally forgot to line the base, but it was all fine). Melt butter, chocolate, coffee and 160mL of water in a saucepan over a low heat.

Sift together the flours, cocoa and bicarb. Stir in sugar and make a well in the centre. Add the combined egg, oil and buttermilk and the chocolate mix. Stir with a large spoon until completely combined. Pour into pan and bake for 1 hr 40 mins** or until skewer comes out clean (though might be still sticky) and leave cake in pan until cold.

** About the baking time. Recall, at this point, that I'd spent an hour making the ganache and had the bruised and blistered fingers to prove it. Recall also that given I'd been at work all day, the cake was set to finish baking at about 11pm. Now come with me to the moment where I went to check the cake, after an hour and a half, just to be safe - and it was charcoal black and smelled ruined. I cried. Gar-stabbity! So. Make sure you know your oven, and check the cake regularly in the last half hour.

And that, dear readers, is day one. Tune in (AT SOME TIME) for the next installment!

Double Chocolate Raspberry Cake

Let's face it, not everyone has time to make a delicious cake from scratch.

I don't!

But that doesn't mean you don't want something that looks gourmet at your table. So here's the quick and easy way to make this deliciously decadent cake.

Chocolate-Raspberry Cake

* 1 box of your favorite chocolate cake mix
-> all ingredients to make cake (usually water, oil, and 2-3 eggs)
* 1 tspn vanilla extract
* 1 box of raspberry jello (gelatin or jelly depending on what country you're in)
* 1 cup boiling water
* 3-4 cups of dark chocolate frosting (premade)
* 1 cup white chocolate chips -or- 4ounces white chocolate (cocoa butter ought to be the main ingredient)
* 1/2 tspn shortening
* 1-2 pints of fresh raspberries


- Mix together cake batter, add the vanilla, and bake according to directions. If you want a layer cake bake in two 9-inch pans, otherwise bake it all together.

- Turn the cake onto serving platter and let cool

- Boil the 1 cup water and mix in the full packet of Jello.

- Stir

- Poke holes in the cake

- Pour 1/3 cup of jello over the cake. You don't want to make it soggy so you aren't going to use it all. If the cake still looks too dry add a little more. If it's too soggy, well, next time add less (it'll taste great either way)

- Set cake in refrigerator to cool and set

- Frost cake. If doing a layer cake frost one layer in dark chocolate, place half the raspberries in, top with the second layer, and frost the top.

- Melt the white chocolate and shortening together for 30 seconds in microwave. Stir until completely melted and put into icing pipe or plastic bag (if using plastic bag snip off the end to make pitpe).

- Pipe the white chocolate over the frosting in pretty pattern.

- Top with whatever raspberries have not been eaten by the kitchen fairies.

-Enjoy!