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The Little Mermaid cake
The Little Mermaid cake
I can’t believe how long it has been since I last wrote on my baking blog. Bad Valentina! 😦 BUT, no fear, this doesn’t mean I’ve stopped baking in the meantime :PI have a couple of back-dated entries to write in, with new cake recipes, decorations and occasions. I have dedicated this month to princesses, specifically Disney, who else?! Last week I put up a voting pole on my social media to decide…
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So now I have been asked to make a big one.. or rather a couple of things for a thirtieth birthday. Quite an important age and day as you may all agree so I gladly accepted to make this day great with lots of desserts for a sweet toothed birthday girl.
The request was as follows: cheesecakes in glasses, raspberry cupcakes and chocolate brownie cake with whipped cream and mixed berries all covered with ruffles.
The general theme as you will from the pictures is pink&gold, very elegant combination. The amount and number of items, however, were not the challenge, as she wanted only 10 of each plus the cake. The challenge was the lactose free and nut free everything. I don’t know about you, but it was the first time I had used any of these ingredients and maybe I didn’t use them properly, but they did not work as well as normal milk or cream. I had a couple of issues with the cheesecakes. The thickened cream didn’t whip, so the cheesecake was pretty flat and liquid by the end of it. I still managed to pull it off :) it just meant I had to buy more cream to actually fill the 10 glasses with cookie base.
Given this hiccup, I was not able to make a whipped cream centre for the brownie cake and was asked to make raspberry buttercream instead.
Anyways, the brownie cake took me the longest to make and I am so very proud of it. Being my first ruffled cake I can’t complain too much about how it turned out. Of course it will get better as I practice but I’m still chuffed at the result.
INGREDIENTS: ( I made three layers of this cake, one at the time, so just tripled the quantities)
125 gr butter x3
100gr dark chocolate x3
1 1/2 cups sugar x3
3/4 cups flour x3
3 eggs, lightly whisked x3
1 tsp baking powder x3
1/4 cups cocoa powder x3
For the frosting: (for the whole cake)
300gr butter
4-5 cups icing sugar
100gr raspberry puree
125gr strawberries, fresh
125 gr blueberries, fresh
Decorations:
1kg pink fondant
500gr white fondant
gold spray and glitter
Turn oven on 180°. Grease with butter and flour a 9″ round tin. If you have three tins you can bake them all together or do them one at the time. Melt the butter and the chocolate together either bagnomaria or in the microwave, just make sure it doesn’t burn.
Once that is ready, mix in a bowl with all the other ingredients. Pour into the tin and bake for 25-30 minutes. Let it cool completely.
Make the frosting. Beat the butter and add half of the icing sugar. Add the puree and add the rest of the icing sugar. Put in the fridge until the cake is cool. Cut the strawberries and thin slices or cubes, whatever is your preference.
Now frost the cake. Stack the three layers with buttercream and fruit in the middle then finally ice the whole cake and place in the fridge.
My pink fondant was too pink so I mixed the white and pink together to give it a softer look and touch. Roll out your fondant, big enough to cover the whole cake and cover it.
I made some fondant circles and scrunched them and folded them on the cake to resemble ruffles. Sprayed gold and glitter on the cake and voilà! The ruffles were time consuming, but totally worth it!
I have my house warming in two weeks so I will be making something special for that also :) more experimenting and cake eating!! YAY
Brownies and mixed berries ruffle cake So now I have been asked to make a big one.. or rather a couple of things for a thirtieth birthday.
This cake has been the biggest challenge compared to all the other ones I have made so far. HOWEVER it was such a great honour to make this for my friend’s special day :) I’m flattered she trusted me to make such an important and BIG cake for her wedding fully knowing I have never make a wedding cake before.
All the hard work and the sweat and tears (yes there was lots of both ahah) paid out fully and it turned out to be a delicious, beautiful cake. And the bride and groom loved it, which is the most important thing after all :)
Since it was a Chinese wedding, we negotiated a couple of ideas. The biggest problem, living in Queensland, is the heat and the humidity. The fondant did crack in some points due to these factors and the flowers also gave me some issues but it all worked out.
For the cake the original recipe was for a 8′ cake tin. I found an amazing blog where the lady managed to figure out the perfect algorithm to double or even triple recipes according to the cake tin size. So I followed that and I’m definitely going to use it again.
When I find her again, I will link her here so you can also see her blog!
INGREDIENTS: (8′ pan- 2 layers)
250 gr butter
400sugar
4 eggs
360 flour
1 tsp baking powder
240 milk
Oven on 180°. Grease two tins with butter and flour. Mix butter and sugar until combined, add one egg at the time. Add the flour and baking powder. Finally add the milk a little at the time, or it will splash everywhere. Pour in the tins and bake for 20-30 minutes. It is the fluffiest cake I’ve made so far.
For the cream cheese frosting: (always for 8′)
100 gr butter
200 gr cream cheese
1-2 cups icing sugar
1/2 cups of raspberry puree (you can add more or less of this according to taste)
Beat butter and cream cheese. Add the icing sugar and then the puree little at the time.
Let the cakes cool completely. Take one layer and place on the serving dish. Spread the frosting to cover the top and then place the second layer on top. Cover the whole cake with frosting. Place in the fridge till ready to serve.
For the wedding cake I covered it in white fondant and made cherry blossom flowers, some leaves and used white 26 wires to make branches and give the flowers a sense of movement.
Voilà!
Ciao for now xx
Vanilla-Raspberry cream cheese frosting wedding cake This cake has been the biggest challenge compared to all the other ones I have made so far.
Orange macadamia nut quilt cake
Orange macadamia nut quilt cake
I have been gone for so long! So many things have happened in the past couple of months it seems like a lifetime has come and gone :D moving into my new place, moving IN with my boyfriend (big step I know), going to Europe for the holiday (which was amazing!) and coming back to normal life and reality. That took the longest :P So I am back in action with new challenges: bigger cakes and bigger…
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White Chocolate Xmas Bon Bons
White Chocolate Xmas Bon Bons
I know it’s still early, maybe more like a month to go before Christmas is here. We were having a super early goodbye/Xmas party with Mike’s family before we left for Europe. As per usual, I offered to bring dessert and my oh my, was the family impressed :) I’d seen these as cupcakes, but it wondered if I would make them perfectly round and not necessarily have to bake something due to time…
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Creamy Eclairs
Classic me! I had some thickened cream in the fridge from a previous dessert and honestly didn’t want to waste it, like it usually happens. It was pretty early in the morning also, so what could I make that is quick and still delicious?! ECLAIRS! And yes, it is the easiest and simplest as many of us, more often than not, already have ALL the ingredients for these treats in the fridge.…
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Disney Cake
I’ll be honest.. I wasn’t sure I was going to pull this off! The theme choice of the cake was a bit forced on me. We were organising a double birthday party (a boy and a girl) and already had some Minnie and Mikey mouse cupcakes from a local bakery. I like keeping things consistent, so instead of changing theme and making two cakes, I made it all in one! I hadn’t used my Jumbo Cupcake mould in…
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Chocolate Chili Macarons
Here is Halloween Part 2 of my desserts and baking for the weekend. I will admit these were a bit of a challenge to make and a bit tricky. To make these you really need to know your oven, which I didn’t, in term of temperatures and so on. If it’s too hot they will crack of it’s not hot enough they will obviously take longer to cook. I had taken a macaron class back in the UK with my mom and it…
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Halloween Choc-Cream Roulade
It’s finally halloween again, the time you can dress up as anything you like and nobody can really judge you :) I made a couple of treats, no tricks, this past weekend and all Halloween themed! I’ll start with the Roulade or Swiss Roll. INGREDIENTS: For the roll: 4 eggs (separated) 120 gr sugar 100gr flour 1tsp baking powder 2-3tbsp warm water 60gr soft butter For the filling: 250 gr thickened…
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Coconut Cake Pops
Last week I made a beautiful, soft coconut cake. I used some of it to make mini cakes, decorated with royal icing and fondant. What was leftover was not thrown away. I use everything I can :) You can make your cake from scratch using my coconut cake recipe. INGREDIENTS: Coconut cake Coloured sugar* different food colours (pink, blue, green) 500gr white chocolate white fondant 250 cream cheese 1…
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Zebra Cakes
Another Sunday session gone well! This is the easiest decoration I’ve ever made and it took me five minutes to put together. It still look incredible and creative, but if you are figuring out a last minute dessert and want to make something different this could be the one. INGREDIENTS: mini cakes (3 mini cakes will make one decorated cake) buttercream black and white fondant For the cake you can…
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Sfogliatelle Ricce
Ever since Mike and I started dating, he was always showing off his cooking skills, mainly making fresh pasta to impress the Italian chick! It worked obviously :) He has this Italian Cook Book with the recipe for Sfogliatelle. However, we never got around making them as they take forever to make and they are a bit expensive. Or so we thought. After reading that recipe more carefully, it was clear…
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Beach Theme Cookies
Once again, I am making cookies. It is a long weekend and everyone is excited to finally go to the beach or have a pool party! Being in Australia, long weekends are not only limited to sun bathing but, and most importantly, it means BBQs! Had a couple these past days and wanting to stick to the general felt theme of the weekend, I check out some designs to reflect my beachy mood! INGREDIENTS:…
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Modern Art Ginger Bread Cookies
Modern Art Ginger Bread Cookies
Lately I’ve been seeing and following quite a few baking sites on Instagram and Pinterest and all the possible and wonderful designs and the creativity that goes behind making incredible desserts! This week has been a weird one. Mike had to be rushed to hospital and had surgery… So me being me, I made him his favourite cookies for when he recovers. Apparently the best ones he has ever tasted (he…
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Red Velvet and strawberry cake
Red Velvet and strawberry cake
After two weeks of no baking I HAD TO do something today. Thankfully there is an actual occasion I bring the cake to, instead of me eating the whole thing by myself. It is strawberry season and how glorious it is!!! So cheap to buy and you simply can’t stop eating them when you start. So why not use them to make a cake look pretty and eat them at the same time? :) -Got the recipe from Taste.com…
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Pavlova Cheesecake
As I mentioned in the last post last week, Benedetta and I decided (rather she convinced me) it would be a good idea to participate in “Cook the Cover” competition launched by Taste.com.au. This involves cooking the cover picture of the Taste magazine. I would be lying if I said that I was more stressed about making this than anything. Fortunately it turned out great :) My mom actually requested…
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Cream Puffs Ring Cake
Cream Puffs Ring Cake
Two Saturdays ago had been a whole day of intense baking. Benedetta and I made two very very different cakes for very different reasons. Both cakes have been taken from Taste.com.au site, this one with slight alterations and the other one, the Pavlova Cheesecake, we had to follow word for word… kinda :P This cake was a request from Benedetta her friend’s birthday, so I sadly didn’t try any of the…
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