D322: Ah! Bees!!

There's a buzz, buzz, buzz at the partyyyy...

So I committed to making our new little 2-year old a cake she would recognise and enjoy.  She loves Buzzbee and I'm very glad I chose this option.  It's a character that doesn't change much and I can't very a lot.  He has very few features and only two colours, and is based on a simple shape common to cakes.  He doesn't even have limbs.  Why I deliberated for so long over other options is a mystery.

After watching lots of YouTube videos of people making buttercream, and colouring, rolling and laying down fondant, I decided to dive in.

Two 12" cakes layered with bought ganache.

The cake is one I've previously used and quite like.  Well, love, actually - it's so quick!  I made up a chocolate variation for this cake.
Take one Nigella Lawson Awesome Vanilla Cake recipe; add 3 tbsp of cocoa to the dry ingredients and 1 tspn of instant coffee, dissolved in just enough water, to the liquids.
I used a lined 12" round tin and baked it at 350F for 50-55mins.  See the lighter spots on the top? It's done when those finally appear in the centre.

So I baked one cake during nap, had a shop (of course!) and then baked the second before dinner.

The face was put down first, on a thin layer of buttercream icing.
The features were placed on top afterward.

I did all the decorating and arranging after dinner, which took about 4 hours.

I prepared the buttercream first (a double helping: 800g pure icing sugar to 250g of whipped butter), but didn't colour it.
Then I put the buttercream aside and tackled the construction.

I put down a thin layer of buttercream to help the cake stick to the board, and placed the first cake down.  I took about half a cm off the top of this bottom layer to level it a little.  To flatten it completely would've taken a third of the bulk, which felt like a terrible waste, even though my hovering Hub and MIL felt it would've been very, very worthwhile.  So, while the bottom layer wasn't completely flat, the 500g of ganache did a great job levelling the difference between the layers, and the bottom of the upper layer barely curved at all.

I decided to do the face next, while my brain was still pretty good.  This face used about 750g of fondant and I used gel food colouring for both the fondant and the buttercream.

My post from a few days ago shows the templates I used for this cake.  They were made with a dinner plate for the face and some food containers for the eyes.  I used a Math-o-mat and trial-and-error for the mouth.

I also made a strip of paper that fits inside the top half of the face to help place the eyes.  The strip was a wide as the distance from the edge to the eye (about 15mm) and marked where the top of the eyes should align.

With the yellow band of 'fuzz' on the base.  I patted it with the prongs of a fork
to make it look fuzzy.   The fondant yellow is a richer colour than the bright stripe.

With the black buttercream.  Look at the widdle hand...

I wish I'd made the face features much thinner, instead of the 1/4" of the face.

I asked Hub to stay up with me by this stage, for company and moral support.  He was the one who looked up how to adhere fondant to fondant: with a paste made from melting a bit of fondant in hot water.


Making the black was so much fun.  Doing the two yellows was a careful task, adding a little bit at a time. (Two dips of Lemon yellow plus a little dab of Tulip red.) But with the black... well, you can hardly make it too dark.  That was fun.

The hands and feet were cut without a template.  I flipped the first hand and made the second by cutting around that; ditto with the feet.  I also chickened out of fingers, which Buzzbee normally has.  Midnight brain said no.

...and the widdle feet. 
Hard to see, but the hand on the right side is waving.

We added the antennae on the day - just some 12mm x 30cm black pipe-cleaners curled as you like, stuck into the ganache layer at an angle.

On Sunday morning Bub saw the cake in the kitchen and exclaimed "Wow! Big cake! That's amazing!"  It was a success already!

D320: Guess what's coming?

Bub turns two on Saturday. I'm predicting Sunday's party will be bigger than I expected...

It was a close call between this and a colourful rocket.  But I haven't worked with fondant before so I thought I should take it easy and choose something with just two colours.  It's going to be a 12" cake, sandwiched with ganache. 

Thinking of and choosing cake designs, planning and checking party stuff.  That's how I've spent my creative energy since the Junebug dress. 

Wish me luck.

D239&40: Banana Bread

The pink, yellow and green strips were sewn together yesterday and the top and bottom strips for orange and purple happened today.  We had a cool change come through today and it's apparently going to be quite cool tomorrow.   Pressing stuff tomorrow night will be much nicer than the pressing last night. O_o`

While tonight's dinner cooked*, though, I prepared a banana bread.  I've never made banana bread before - who has two or three bananas that last that long?!  Well, when you have a heat wave or two... you can arrange it.

Banana Bread

I chose a recipe from Plenty of Lesely. I found it on Pinterest (and pinned it!) and am reblogging it here with the weights so that if you've got your mixing bowl on scales you can just keep hitting zero.  It's dead simple.

Best Banana Bread

• 1 3/4 cup Flour - 260g
• 2/3 cup Sugar - 165g
• 1 cup Mashed bananas (around three)
• 1/3 cup Margarine - 75g
• 2 Eggs
• 2 Teaspoons Baking powder - 5g
• 1/4 Teaspoon bicarb soda - uuuh... 0.625g.  Maybe just go with a good pinch.

The instructions say "Grease your loaf dish or spray with pan. Bake for 1 hour 275 degrees. Let sit for half an hour before cutting."

So that's 275°F/135°C.  I used a fork and started by mashing the bananas (only two for us), and adding the very soft butter, then eggs, sugar and flour/powders.  I think Lesley put it all in the mixmaster with a kneading attachment and just mixed till combined.  I also lined my pan with grease proof paper, which works a treat too.

Even though I'm pretty sure my two bananas would've filled a cup, I wish I'd had three.

*Settle down. It was rice in the cooker and reheated curry.

D202: Square Lemon Drizzle Cake

Works so much better in a square tin.  I knocked back the syrup sugar to 75g and it was still light and sweet with a fresh tang.  Something happened in the creaming and the sugar didn't dissolve that well - I can still see little square granules around the edge of the cake.  Maybe that's because it browned so well...

Regardless, I was quite glad to be able to take this along to a Cup Day catch up.

D185-9: Lemon Impatience

While that is an excellent name for a dessert, it's not what this one is called.

This Lemon Drizzle Cake comes from lemons: recipes and remedies ("text by Sara Burford" it says, which is apparently different to being the author). It's the sort of book you'd find at a $5 discount bookstore, and I think that's where I got it, years ago.

This was my first experience at making my own self-raising flour.  According to CTAW, you add 10g (1 tbsp) of baking powder to 300g (2 cups) of plain flour.  It seemed to work out fine - hurrah!

I was surprised at the ingredient measurements as the weights were all less than the amounts suggested.  For instance, it asked for "225g/1 cup of unsalted butter" but I've always counted a cup of butter as 250g.  All the gram measurements were similarly less than expected, and somewhat explained in the back with a conversion table that I'd call just plain wrong.

Density anyone? 225ml what?

Then, after I'd read "4 eggs" I was surprised to see this go into a loaf pan.  I even lined the square tin I've used for all the brownie recipes, which have comparable amounts of flour, butter and eggs, but decided to do as the recipe said as I've never made a syrupy cake before.

In hindsight, I wish I had used the 23cm square tin.  I wasn't sure I'd be able to evenly drizzle the syrup across the size of a square cake but the pastry brush did a very good job and I shouldn't have worried.  It would've also meant that the syrup would've soaked further into the cake, and hopefully the heat would've gotten through the thickness better than on this occasion. 

At 50mins, the cake was beginning to burn on the edge but, eventhough the skewer came out clean, it sunk considerably (more shallow than when it started!) once the syrup was on.  We also cut it while still warm coz Hub and I couldn't wait for supper and as, as he said, you couldn't break it any more!

Here is the recipe, with [my adjustments].

Lemon Drizzle Cake

Ingredients

• Zest of 1 lemon (finely grated)
• 230g / 2 cups self-raising flour [300g]
• 225g / 1 cup sugar [250g]
• 225g / 1 cup of unsalted butter (softened) [250g]
• 4 eggs 

• Topping: juice of 1¹/₂ lemons and 110g / ¹/₂ cup of caster sugar [125g]

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4. Line a loaf tin with grease proof paper. 

Cake:

1. Place the butter and sugar into a bowl and beat together until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each new addition.
2. Add the lemon zest and sift in the flour. Mix together well.
3. Transfer the mixture into the loaf tin and level the top.  Place in the oven and bake for 45-50 mins. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool a little.

Topping:

1. Place the lemon juice and caster sugar in a bowl and mix together to make the topping. [Microwave for three 10sec bursts to help dissolve the sugar, but do not make it warm.]
2. Prick the still-warm cake with a fork and then [use a pastry brush to] drizzle the topping over the cake.  Leave in the loaf tin until completely cooled.
3. Once cooled, remove from the tin and serve.

Obviously, I haven't spent four days making a cake.  I've been chipping away at my secret gift too.

D152: Little Awesomenesses

For Bub's birthday party cake I used Nigella Lawson's Awesome Vanilla Cake recipe.

Tonight I tried out my idea for a chocolate cupcake variation.  The CTAW chocolate variation for butter cake is done by substituting 2tbsp of flour for cocoa.  This being quite a large recipe, I substituted 3tbsp of the plain flour with cocoa.  

After 25 mins at 180°C/350°F the skewer came out clean. 

I filled the cupcake patties a skinny cm short of the rim and got 24 from one batch.

I shall ice them in the morning when they've cooled and use a milk/butter frosting :D

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Ed note: I couldn't wait...

That there is two batches of glacé icing with some cocoa and shaved dark chocolate added.  Oh yeah!

D148-51: oh my goodness gracious me oh my

I

Am writing this

With a tall cup of tea in front of me

And nothing in particular to do

Just for a while.

Here are my Maker wins at the end of our first First Birthday season.

One: The Bunting

I finished the birthday bunting on Friday night, in good time for the in-laws' visit on Saturday.  Even more rewarding was that Bub noticed it as soon as she entered the dining room that morning and made lots of sweet noises and pointing gestures.  *glee!*

Sub-wins include it looking nice and neat and not having to correct any spelling errors.

Two: The Party Favours

Sorry for the poor pics. The colours were rather cool though!

I finished the biscuit icing in good time for the party, though wish I'd been quicker on Saturday morning.  I was finishing them off as family arrived, but it did help explain everything I was doing.

I even chose to 'delegate' in a way.  I had thought 6 biscuits in a bag might be too much for little kids, but two bags for bigger kids makes it clearly unfair.  So I had bags of four and of two, and explained that parents could decide how much was enough for their children, considering how many chocolate crackles, corn chips and pieces of fairy bread they'd already had.  And there was heaps that way, with lots of choice.

Deciding to do bags of twos and fours meant I didn't need to bake and ice more biscuits so that every child would get six.  Yay for brains!

Three-A:  The birthday cake

What was left after the party

I took a risk and used Nigella Lawson's Awesome Vanilla Cake recipe.  The risk was in never having used the recipe before and that it uses oil instead of butter.  I've made cakes with oil before, but not with no butter at all.  Initially I could smell the oil really easily.  However, I think that smell largely left once it cooled and the butter icing made a good difference for the taste.

I chose the recipe because it's ridiculously quick to make and there was a pretty good recommendation on the webpage.  And it is very quick to make.  Seriously.  You couldn't even use it in a race, it's that quick. Beat egg and sugar for 1min, add the rest, beat for another minute. Pour.  See?  Zoom.  Took longer to line the pan.

On Saturday night Hub helped me make it a random rainbow cake, which was fun and successful.  In the end I didn't get a proper shot of the cake.  I thought it looked rather amateurish, but it tasted yum and looked happy, which is all the really matters.

Three-B:  The birthday cake again

By Sunday morning I was worried one cake wasn't enough.  So I did the time calculations and after putting Bub down for her morning nap I made another layer, this time without colour.  It had cooled enough to sandwich the two cakes together with blackberry jam, cover it with butter icing and arrange some Smarties on top (all the pink, red and purple ones in the shape of a 1), all completed mere minutes before we left.  Two helpers made a difference too, which leads me to...

Four: Asking for help

I called on one of my BFFs. She's the kind of person I'd trust with my baby, my keys, my kidneys.  She's that good.  At less than 12hrs notice she came to the party 90mins early, bringing her fiancé, and they helped us chop, slice, scoop, decant, sort, decorate, arrange, glad-wrap, pack, transport, arrange, heat, serve, tidy, clean, wash, vacuum and mop.  It was above and beyond the call.  I sincerely look forward to being able to pay it all back, coz I don't think I can thank her enough to actually match my gratitude.  It could not have happened without them.

And not a Maker aspect but a win nevertheless...

Scoring the venue!

We had hoped to use the park on the day and told our friends a few weeks ago.  Then we realised there was a hot plate there so thought sausage sizzle, yeah? Little casual, whatevs.  Then we got into the week before and knew that we'd been kidding ourselves.  August has been windy. (How windy? More italics please.)  It's been showers and generally random <10°C all over the shop.  Yuck.  And we were going to take our friends to the park?  In the wet wind?  With food that rolls?  Hurrrrrrr...

So long story short, I found that the room my parents' group uses was not only for hire, and not only available for that afternoon, but about 60% the regular cost coz I'm a member.*  Full kitchen, outdoor play area and lots of toys appropriate for my friends' kids?  Yes please. The only downside was the start time being 90mins later, but in reality we needed all the prep time we could get.

And the extra icing on the cake: Bub enjoyed herself and rolled with the day in very fine form.  She was a star.

Our little One Year Old girl!

It was a total success.

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*At this point I knew I was about to do exactly what I said I wouldn't do, which was cater for all our friends at a hired venue.  I was sure panic attacks would ensue and I'd unravel in a pyjamaed, crazy-haired, watery, jittering mess.  Two things saved me: being too tired and busy to actually build up any anxiety, and knowing, in the back of my mind, that all my friends would be absolutely fine if I'd chucked it all and ordered a dozen pizzas.

D103: Mug'goodness!

Tonight I tried this recipe - Five Minute Chocolate Mug Cake -  from Not Quite Nigella.   Please don't think of my pictures when you see her photography. [*cringe*]

Oh so rich and steamy... mmmm.

True to the recipe, we had a good amount of goo in the bottom, which Hub was delighted about but it reminded me of uncooked batter too much.  I did ours on medium for 1min, 30sec and 30sec.  I donated mine to him in defence of a possible sore tummy! (He scoffed it down, licked his lips and said "Yeah, that's prolly gunna give me a tummy ache.")

Ours ended up a little different in the end, and I'm not sure why.  Dividing the dry ingredients between two mugs was easy, but they were different by the time I'd added the milk and butter, and then I'm not sure the egg was divided evenly.  The flavours were comparable though, which is the most important thing.

My changes included replacing the oil with 60g melted butter and using broken choc melts.

I highly recommend it for a quick dessert. :)

D87: Preparations

I'm having people around for an arvo tea tomorrow so thought I'd take advantage of a spare Saturday to get in a few baked items ahead of time.

First, two-tone brownies. I've made them before, but this one isn't as good I think. The dark choc layer was very stiff and I'm not sure why. I clearly remember it pouring last time, but today it needed pushing. At least the white choc layer won't have sunk into it though.
On the down side, I burned an edge in my effort to ensure the middle was cooked. Note the sunken centre. Humph.

Second, double choc cookies, also a reliable go-to. No messing with the recipe today and they look pretty good.

Two containers filled with cookies :D

Third! Apricot slice from Cookery the Australian Way. It's actually a Lemon slice recipe, and the apple variation asks for a cup of apple purée, so I've drained can of apricot halves meant for pie, and puréed it to bits. Oh so yum.

How will I not eat any when I slice this up?

Perfectly breadcrumbed butter & flour

In other news, I discovered something a little awesome.  I don't love breadcrumbing butter and flour.  I usually start with frozen butter, which is preferable to soft butter when breadcrumbing, but still tricky.  So today I cut it up quite small and nuked it on a defrost for while, hoping to get it at least a little manageable.  Of course I got distracted and over did it, melting most of it.
But! If you chill it, whip it with a fork and chill it some more, it becomes a cold, light cream and oh my goodness just mix it all up with a fork and voila! Perfect! So even, so quick and easy to make into a dough. Deeelighted!
Rather pleased with the even end result too.

I would list my plans for tomorrow, but I wouldn't want to tempt fate.

D50: Little Tea Cakes

Fifty days! Woo hoo!*

First batch is lighter as Hub was impatient.
Obviously.

You know those cranberry muffins I raved about?   Well, the oil (I blame you, silver lining!) leached onto the outside of the patty paper, which I found rather unappetising. And my skin did not appreciate it either.  So the last half dozen of them went off with Mum and Dad today who've never had cranberry muffins either and were quite delighted with them, even if they did present poorly on their third day.

So this left the house without a bikkie in sight: little cakes ahoy!

I seriously doubt that, were it not for my breastfeeding and Hub's run/ride commute, we would be able to safely consume so much baking.

* I reserve the right to include my holiday days. It's my blog.

Day 26: Can we fix it?!

No. No we can't.

I have a marvellous chocolate cake recipe. It's from the AWW Microwave Cookbook 2 (Pretty sure its the second one, since that's the feature on the back cover. I left this cook book at my mum's).
Microwave cake? you say. Can it be any good?

Lots of microwave cakes use oil, which carries a flavour I often don't like in cakes. But this melt-and-mix one is oil free. It's butter, sugar and water, done in the microwave for 4mins, then flour, cocoa and bicarb mixed in, with egg and vanilla last. Normally it would go into a ring-shaped cake pan for 8mins in the microwave and it's done! Pro: it's quick to make and soft and yummy. Con: the lack of crust - you just can't get that in a microwave. (Another downside is the lack of ring-shaped cake pans available for microwaves. Apparently no one makes microwave cakes anymore :| ) Anti-con: It's moist and stays moist for a long time.

Anyway, I've been working on this mix going into the oven. We've an old Fahrenheit oven that runs a bit hot (har har). In a 22cm round tin for 35mins at a little under 350F it's done well, even though the top has usually cracked.

Today I tried using a loaf tin and the baking shelf below the one usually used for cakes. I was all done at 40mins, no singeing in sight.

I also tried making it while Bub was awake, letting her potter away in the bouncer or Bumbo while I dashed about for half an hour.  I've been pretending that that’s working just fine, which it generally does even if I have to stop for a bit and have a chat or change over some toys. In the end, I put her down for a nap just before the buzzer went. Misleadingly smooth-going, that was.

I knew the loaf tin would work just fine (thanks teacake, theacake) but, even though I greased the pan with butter, I forgot to line the base.  Huh, how on earth did that happen? After I slid a knife around the sides it felt like it would turn out, but only 90% of it did.

Pro: good excuse to whip out a spoon and scoff some fresh cake

.

I thought: Can I fix this? Does it need fixing? Can I slice it in half horizontally, flip the bottom and sandwich it with a raspberry filling? Would it dry out too much?

And then saw how that wouldn't be happening...

Con: without the portion on the bottom-end, and being so fresh and soft, it broke under its own uneven weight, splitting like the Titanic (sort of).

Not to worry! Can I cut it into squares and make some little chocolate Lamingtons? Do I have time for that before Bub wakes?

It was now that I began to think of different names for this post. Ice the Site from Orbit, Lemonade-flavoured Chocolate Cake (coz I got 'lemons', yeah?), Creative with a capital C and Guess which half is yours, sweetheart?.

But I looked at the clock and imagined trying to get his done with Bub up and about and my approaching need for lunch... Nope.

Just ice the bastard and get the hell out of there.

P.S. I also learned that with glaze icing, dipping the spoon in hot water to smooth the rough patches doesn't work. It just makes it look like melted plastic.

Still yum.

Day 21: OMG TEACAKE!

With teacake I've always thought of store bought tea cakes - rather heavy, dense, dull - and I'm not sure I remember having any other. They're not bad, really, with their creamy, thick lemony icing, but not dazzling either.

This one is from CTAW and I've used a variation of the Cinnamon Teacake. You sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top before baking, and I've added a layer in the middle as well. Inspired, I know. Who knows how that will go but surely it won't suck, right?

The other variation is the actual topping. Someone gave us jar of burnt orange and cinnamon sugar for Christmas. I took it as a sign.

If it tastes half as good as it smells, I'll have to get a serving plate that actually fits.

Day 18: Again!

Another base pair, an upside down pineapple cake and the shell of another cube were made today.

The cake was from Cookery the Australian Way. It's made with 250g of butter, half to go with the brown sugar and pineapple in the bottom, the other half in the cake. Tends to induce a sugar coma.

Day 13: Unnatural food

Today I made Turkish Delight from this marvellous cookbook.

I think I've been looking sideways at this recipe for 18 years, ever since I started making toffees in high school.  So, I finally remembered some rosewater and tartaric acid and got to it.


It uses a surprising amount of cornflower and icing sugar. Well, not that surprising when you think of what the stuff is, but I still forgot to check my stash and almost ran out of both.

Needs lots of icing sugar and cornflower to coat it.

I also forgot to take a pic of the most interesting part, which is the last 30mins of 'boiling'.  It's boiling, technically, but really it is gloriously viscous and blops away like the bog of eternal stench. I suspect it was actually the corporeal form of an evil soul monologuing about my doom. Either way, quite yum.



I also made a chocolate mud cake, from the Donna Hay Chocolate Essentials cookbook. I accidentally made it with milk chocolate instead of dark. By the time I realised the buds had already been melted, so I figured we'd see how that turns out.

Still cooling in the tin.

Both these things are for my sister's 50th arvo tea tomorrow.

So we have the uncomfortable experience of having a whole fresh yummy cake in the house that we will not cut tonight.
Unnatural.

I might have to make another before I go to bed.