Cakes, birthdays and more cakes

I have been busy last couple of days that I didn't have actually time to write about it. It all happened last weekend, all of the cakes had to be ready and delivered.

These small individual cakes are actually square bars from basic vanilla sponge (I will post its recipe soon), filled in the middle by blueberry jam and covered with bittersweet chocolate with 55% of cocoa content. There was 50 of these and the most tiresome was wring the boy's name all and all over again by piping melted white chocolate, all together 50 times.

This cake is just bigger brother of squares with some toys. That boy was happy to have his little party at school with his classmates.

When this was done, I had to focus on yet another task. Double birthday cake for Libby. I was warned by her dad, that those cakes must serve 30 hungry kids and their parents. And also that Libby likes elegance and simplicity.

Her personal choice was dark chocolate Sacher torte variation, and because on her party were supposed to be some kids who can't eat chocolate, the other cake was vanilla sponge cake with butter cream and fresh fruits

Butter cream is always problem in our Balinese hot weather. I had to put the cake to the freezer for a while, before we took it to the Libby's birthday party. I was so happy to see that both cakes survived the transport. Sometimes I have to freeze old towel and then wrap it around cake box. especially if I am using butter cream or whipped cream cheese topping for the cake.

Finally, I had to do cake for my daughter's 9th birthday. We did agree, that we will fully celebrate her birthday when her Czech aunty will come to visit us later this month, but at least I had to do something symbolic for the day.

The cake itself is vanilla pound cake, two layers baked separately is sandwich  pans. Because of the strawberry main motive, I've mixed some fresh strawberries with cream cheese and spread it in the middle between layers and also around the cake.

The cake was gone so quickly that I didn't have time to take any detail pictures. There is a lot of kids in our neighborhood who helped to finish the cake.

I know that for Sharon's big party I have to make something out of ordinary. Especially when she sees what creations I am doing for others.

The FROZEN ELSA & FRIENDS cake

I have been busy last two days making cakes for children birthdays. This one is the first with The Frozen movie theme.
Sometimes it takes days to get the exact idea from my customers of how the cake should looks and sometime they give me just a general idea and leave the details to me. We were negotiating about this one whole 3 days, with googled pictures of various samples going back and forth between our Blackerries. The budget is also a nasty thing and can go in a way of some good ideas. Not that I wouldn't try to do my best, he he.
For this kind of cakes I always require at lest 3 days. One has to find the right accessories, which quite often means looking around many toys shops.

This cake is made of vanilla sponge and is covered by colored butter cream with small addition of shortening and milk powder to keep the cream in stable form even in our tropical climate.

As you can see, this one is finished. I hope the kid will like it. But you know what, kids usually do. They are very grateful.

But no time for rest. There must be four more cakes ready before Sunday.
Let's bake, let's decorate and let's enjoy it.
Stay connected, there is more to come...

Very lemony lemon drizzle cake

Did I say I want to start with my archive first? Well…being quite busy this week, why not post something fresh. And I mean it - really fresh from my oven. Can you smell lemon? Yes, lemon inside and lemon outside. I smell LEMON DRIZZLE CAKE.

I say, why not start with something for beginners. This cake is soooo easy to make and I will show you how. Look at these beautiful lemons.

I use both lemon zest and lemon juice for this recipe. Here is little advice how to pick up the best lemons: skin should be bright yellow without any brown spots. Look for firm, but not too hard nor too soft fruit which feels quite heavy for its size. Smaller lemons have more juice; bigger tend to be dryer with thicker skin. Before grating zest, wash lemons very thoroughly and then dry them with a kitchen towel.

Before we jump to the recipe, let me tell you I like very lemony cake and not very sweet. I use quite a lot lemon zest in the batter and I drizzle the cake while it is still hot so it gets soaked with lemon juice.

INGREDIENTS

CAKE

butter (softened)..................................................230 g

caster sugar.........................................................200 g

eggs (large).............................................................4

vanilla extract......................................................1 tsp

all purpose flour..................................................260 g

baking powder.....................................................2 tsp

salt.......................................................................1/4 tsp

lemon zest...........................................................2 lemons

lemon juice..........................................................60 ml

LEMON FROSTING

icing sugar.........................................................130 g

lemon juice.....................................................3 - 4 tbs

- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C

- Grease bottom and sides of a round cake pan diameter 22 cm and line the bottom with baking paper.

- Sift together flour with baking powder and mix in lemon zest and salt.

- Using your mixer beat the butter with sugar until fluffy, beat in the vanilla and then add eggs one at a time.

- Using batter spatula fold the flour mix to the wet batter in three additions and lemon juice in two additions, starting and finishing with flour. Mix until smooth, but gently and don't over beat.

- Bake 35 to 45 minutes (time depends on your oven). Try insert toothpick to the middle of cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is done. If some batter sticks to it, give the cake more time in the oven. Don't overbake, or the cake will be too dry.

See on that picture above, how the cake is pulling slightly from pan sides. It is sign that the cake is done.

After removing from the oven, let the cake cool slightly (about 15 minutes) in the pan, and the gently remove it.

Now you have two options. Let the cake cool completely before frosting it to get dryer cake with thicker frosting. Or apply the frosting why the cake is still warm to get moister lemony cake thinner sugar crust. I am fan of the second option.

To make the frosting, sift icing sugar to small bowl and gradually tablespoons of lemon juice to get creamy and smooth sugar paste, the pour it over the top of the cake. Let it drizzle from the sides - thus drizzle cake :)

Try to use good quality icing sugar (not "gula donut" please) which will stay dry even in our tropical weather.

Let the frosting dry and harden in refrigerator, before cutting into the cake. It is best to left it overnight in the fridge. In air tight container in refrigerator, the cake keeps well for 5 days.

Here you can actually see how moist my cake is. I cut it too early just to make a picture for this blog. The cake was still warm and got squashed in the center.

(My husband quietly finished whole slice while I was uploading pictures).

Hello...let's start

It is for real and I finally did it. To create my own blog. I am so full of ideas which I would like to share. Hopefully someone out there on the WEB could find it interesting.
It will be all about food. YUM...I am addicted to cooking and baking. Can't wait to go through my archive first and do some real post. Just a moment...what should be the first entry? It should be something TASTYLICIOUS !
It all has started with this cake. (BTW those are my girls Sharon and Nicole).

In that time I was desperate to find some nicely tasting cake for Nicole's birthday in our little Balinese town. In the end I simply made one.  You see I am writing "made" and not "baked". I had only small toaster oven so I had to steam the sponge. Buttercream is my mother-in-law recipe.
It tasted FANTASTIC. Soon I will post that recipe here.