Birthday Cakes: Des the Dinosaur

I was recently honoured with the task of making my good friend’s son a Dinosaur birthday cake.  She had a design in mind that she had picked out from a book – Desmond (fondly nicknamed ‘Des’) so the sometimes challenging task of designing was taking out J

 



Hello - I am Des :)

Instead of using my normal chocolate cake recipe or mud cake, her little boy loves the Betty Crocker cake mix so she had asked that I use that.  I am not a cake mix person so it was all a little foreign to me.  I confirmed that it was better to use my sponge recipe if you are able, as the cake mix rose unevenly and though light and fluffy in texture was difficult to manage when making character cakes like these.  In terms of the frosting, the birthday boy doesn’t like ganache or fondant either so it was covered in peppermint butter cream which obviously complemented the dinosaur’s green complexion.

In terms of the overall process which is outlined below, a friend of mine asked me how long it takes me to make these sorts of cakes.  Obviously it all depends on the difficulty of the design but when she asked me this I couldn’t really give her an accurate answer.  The key to making these sorts of cakes is planning in advanced and doing things step by step but allowing time in between each step for cooling, freezing, butter cream to dry etc.  Patience is definitely the key but the result of seeing a little boy’s face light up is incredibly emazing and it is these sweet memories that make the fights with the butter cream and 37 degree transportation heat, all the worthwhile.

Des ready to be traced to baking paper

Ingredients:

• 1 batch of my family chocolate cake recipe
• 2 quantities of butter cream
• 3 teaspoons of peppermint essence
• Green food colouring (or any other colour you would like)
• Smarties for his spots
• Mini marshmallows for his eyes
• Wilton red food colouring pencil for the border

Method:

1.     Make one quantity of my family chocolate cake recipe in a large baking tray;

2.     Trace the design of the dinosaur onto baking paper;

3.     Make two quantities of butter cream adding the peppermint essence and green food    colouring and put in a container in the fridge to cool;

4.     Once the cake is cooled completely put the design of the dinosaur over the top and hold it in place using toothpicks and cut out (see tips below);

5.     Move the cut out dinosaur to your cake board and cover with butter cream and place it in the fridge to set;
6.     Once the butter cream has set you are able to decorate it.

Tips:

·         It is much easier to cut a frozen cake! So if you have the time put it in the freezer for an hour so that it becomes firm enough to cut without crumbling.
·         I find it is easier to cut out a rough design first and get rid of the excess (which my partner likes to call ‘collateral’ for his belly) and then trim more delicately with a finer knife. 
·         Take the prepared butter cream out of the fridge about ten minutes before use so that it almost gets to room temperature and is easier to spread.



As dodgy as this picture is, I needed to include it as this was the temp as I was transporting Des.  You can imagine the fun had with butter cream melting :)



Tempered chocolate on baking paper in the shape of trees 





Trees :) Tempered chocolate to resemble the bark

Manchester United Birthday Cake

In planning for my brother's upcoming 21st party I thought I should probably dig out and post the cake I made him last year for his birthday (yes I know, a tad late).  Anyway- I decided to make his favourite football teams jersey; Manchester United.  To be honest though, I had no idea what it looked like apart from being red, so I did need to do a little research in order to get the detail right.  I used my basic chocolate cake recipe as I knew this would give me both the quantity of cake I required as well.  This recipe also ensures that the cake rises evenly so that you are not trying to fiddle with trimming the cake and then icing a crumbly cake (this is one of my pet hates).  I baked the cake in a rectangular shallow tin which required less time to bake then if you were to do a normal 20 inch square tin. 

Last year I hadn't really delved into the wonderful world of all things fondant related so the icing is made using a basic butter cream recipe and then tinting it with red food colouring.  If doing this again though and you feel confident in using fondant it would result in a lot cleaner end product though the butter cream recipe was delicious.  In terms of the assembly I downloaded a picture of a football jersey off the internet and printed this on an A3 size piece of paper and transferred the image to baking paper.  I placed the template over the cake and cut it to size.  

I joined the sleeves of the jersey on using additional butter cream however the joins weren't hidden as much as I would have liked (which you can definitely see in the picture but if you were to use fondant it would hide it.  For the labels I cheated (again) and printed them off and laminated them and stuck them on the cake.  Of course you could pipe them on with a royal icing but due to his birthday being mid week I had some time constraints to work with.  Overall I think it turned out fairly well.  If you enjoy vanilla cake just as much as you do chocolate and intend to use butter cream instead of fondant I would recommend using a vanilla base so that you don't have to tint the icing too much in order to cover the rich dark chocolate colour of the cake.  This cake just goes to show how a little creativity and not much time can still result in a reasonable attempt at a fun birthday cake.

Recipe: Wheat, Sugar & Gluten Free Chocolate Cup Cakes

With 'Sugar Free July' coinciding with my birthday this year, my mum went that extra mile to make me an emazingly sweet treat that was sugar free.  They honestly tasted divine and because they were made without flour they were extremely light and delicate.  If you are gluten or wheat intolerant this is the perfect go to recipe for your chocolate cake.  For those who haven't dabbled to the 'other side' or the world without wheat, your body will seriously notice the difference by this cup cake being based on almond meal as it will digest more quickly.  The flavour of honey remains in your mouth after you have finished eating which makes you feel that you are eating something really sweet.  I seriously love this recipe and my mum did such a lovely job in making these for me in cute little cup cake cases - pink of course!!! 

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups (150g) almond meal
• ¼ cup (21 g) cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¼ cup macadamia nut oil
• ¼ cup milk
• 2 tablespoons honey

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160 C fan forced;
2. Combine almond meal, sifted cocoa powder and sifted baking powder;
3. Add the eggs, oil, milk and honey then mix well to form a smooth batter;
4. Spoon into 12 small individual cupcake tins; and
5. Bake for 25 minutes until puffed and cooked through.

Recipes: Snickers Layered Icebox Cake

It was my beautiful partner’s birthday yesterday and so of course here it is another birthday cake.  Not any old birthday CAKE though.  I was given the theme of the Snickers Chocolate bar.  But after a recent heated discussion over what we couldn’t live without if we were to choose between, ice cream, chocolate, cake and lollies last week; I learnt really how passionate he was about his love of ice cream.  (This is a debate that we will have to get into at some point though J ) As he informed, he loves ice cream as you can have the goodness of the lollies and the chocolate in the flavour.  Fair point – but still not enough to convert me J Anyway, armed with Snickers theme and now is proclaimed love of ice cream I set to make out an exceptional cake for him. 

Skydiving Birthday Cake

It was my little brother's birthday this week and though he is not so little anymore (nineteen) I decided to still gift him with a themed birthday cake.  I love the challenge of trying to capture a persons spirit, personality and interests in a cake; and not just any cake, one that symbolizes a significant milestone.  I ran through all my brothers current interests and even asked him what he would like but he was no real help (as you could imagine).  What did spring to mind was his birthday present to himself-a recent Sky Dive over the beautiful Byron Bay.

See - I really am not creative at all!

Now for past Birthday Cakes that I have posted I have used a sponge cake recipe as it bakes evenly in a large rectangle; perfect for cutting designs out of.  But for this creation I really wanted to enjoy a cake that was a slightly more indulgent so I decided on a delicious chocolate mud cake.

I made the cake during the week and froze it so that I could concentrate on my design.  I know it kinda sounds silly, but I am not that creative, so I spent the rest of the week drawing funny men jumping out of planes and the like.  I finally set on a design.

I love to use my palate knife when putting icing or ganache on my cake.  It helps to make sure that the cake  crumbs don't go through the icing.

I covered my mud cake in dark chocolate ganache and put in the fridge to set.  I tinted my fondant blue to represent the sky and tinted a small amount green for the parachute.  I left some plain to create the clouds.  Once I had tinted the fondants, I rolled the blue fondant and covered the cake.  I also rolled out the white fondant and used cookie cutters to cut the clouds out.  Once the cake was covered with the blue fondant i placed musk sticks where I wanted the parachute to be and placed my rolled parachute that I cut via hand over this to give it a three dimensional effect.  I cheated and used string to join my parachute to my figurine which my mum very kindly purchased for me.  I also cheated by making a target/landing pad by printing it out off and laminating it.


And here it is... the finished product....

The edges got damaged slightly in the transportation.

Recipe: Black Forest Chocolate Fudge Cake

This year for my mum's birthday I went for a play on the traditional Black Forest Cake.  Instead of using a basic chocolate cake I decided to use a rich chocolate fudge cake as the base for this emazingly sweet creation.  I felt that my mum really deserved a grand treat and as much as I rely upon my trusted basic chocolate cake recipe this one is that much more indulgent, of which my mum definitely deserves.  When adding this cake recipe with the tartness of the morello cherries and the lightness of the fluffy cream I couldn't really go wrong.  

Balloon Birthday Cup Cakes

I started creating birthday cakes six years ago for my cousins second birthday.  My skills and passion for creating birthday cakes has definitely evolved since this time.  But reflecting on the photos of that cake reminded me that not everything has to be over thought, over the top or overly time consuming!  I was 19 when I made this cake and I don’t even think I had a plan of what I was going to make.  I used packet mix cakes (yes I am human) and after baking cupcakes I just went with my creative vibes.  There were no fancy fondants, butter creams or ganache’s, templates, sketches, or weeks of processes – just me trying to make my little cousin smile.  It is in this and the tradition that followed of me making my cousin’s cake every year, which makes it one of my most favourite emazingly sweet moments. 

Tinkerbell Cake

My wonderful partner offered recently to make his God daughter her 4^th birthday cake. And by him – he meant me. The brief was limited – Tinkerbell & Pink (as my partner reassured me that anything would be fine).

So I set out researching Tinkerbell designs, asking friends if they had figurines I could borrow, and designing my own Tinkerbell cake.  

Rolling Fondant

Tips:
Wear gloves when colouring the fondant.  This will ensure that your hands don't turn bright pink, blue, green etc... unless you are in to that sort of thing :)
Ensure your surface is completely dry before you roll the fondant out.  Water is an enemy!
You can use icing sugar or corn flour on the surface to assist the non-sticking process.  I find that corn flour works best. 
If the fondant is still sticking put the fondant between two sheets of baking paper.
Work quickly and dont leave it out for too long.

Surfboard cake

As a little kid my mother would always let us look through the good old fashioned Women’s Weekly Cake book and pick at our birthday cake.  The state of this book is very well worn with batter dropped throughout, pages turned and some pages even fallingout.  Children’s birthday cakes since this time seem to have grown with the technological age (along with everything else). Women’s Weekly even has an updated version of their Children’s Birthday Cake book.

For me – well I started out by making my cousins birthday cakes six years ago and since then I have tried to keep up the evolving world of cake decorating.  So 6 years on and my cousin just had her 8th birthday.  I gave her the cake books, the internet but she was (for the first time ever) at a loss for ideas of what she actually wanted!  She was having a surfing party with some of her little friends so I decided I would make her a surf board cake.