Friday, March 30, 2007

1st Birthday Cake

A relative's children will be celebrating their birthdays tomorrow. They asked me if I could help with preparing the birthday cake so I quickly said ok. And because my skills are limited, plus this will also be a chance for me to try if I do have a bit of skill in cake-making, I offered them to do it for free.

I started baking the cake (I baked two), using the Moist Orange Butter Cake. Here's the recipe (for 1 cake)..
Moist Orange Butter Cake
250 g salted butter
8 oz cake flour
7 oz caster sugar
4 eggs
orange cordial (I used Sunquick)
grated peel of 1 orange
vanilla essence
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup water
1. Beat the butter with sugar in a bowl until fluffy.
2. Add in the eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition.
3. In another small bowl mix baking sodas, baking powders, orange cordial and water. Let stand for a minute.
4. Add in the flour alternately with the soda mixture into the butter batter in three parts.
5. Mix well after each addition to ensure proper folding of flour into batter.
6. Pour into lined cake tin and bake for 45 minutes at 350 F. Always check doneness with cake tester.
After cooling the cake on the grid for at least an hour, I levelled off the top so it'll be easier for me to ice the cake. I glazed the tops and the sides of the cake with some apricot glaze, ready to be decorated.

I prepared some white buttercream icing, coloured some piping gel in red and yellow, and mixed some melted dark chocolate with glycerine. Recipe for buttercream icing below based on Wilton's recipe.
White Buttercream Icing
1 cup shortening
4 cups confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
4-6 tablespoons milk (depending on the consistency needed to ice the cake)

1. Beat the shortening until slightly fluffy.
2. Add in the vanilla essence and mix thoroughly.
3. Then, add the sugar, one cup at a time and beat it well. Make sure you scrape the side and bottom of the bowl frequently to ensure proper mixing.
4. Icing will appear dry after adding in the fourth cup, but don't panic. It's time to add in the milk. For icing cakes you will need a thin consistency icing but for decorating and making shapes and flowers, you will need stiffer icing.

Decorating Phase

Spread some buttercream on the top of one cake first and arrange some fruit cocktails on the icing layer. Place the second cake on top the first one. Start icing the whole cake, from top to its side. I found this very tedious as it is quite difficult to spread the icing smoothly onto the cake. I had to dip the spatula over and over again into a glass of hot water. I then combed the sides of the cake so it won't look so messy. I piped star border all around the bottom edge and top edge. I also imprinted the words and shape of flowers and heart on the cake top.

With the melted chocolate, I piped out the words and the lining of the decorative shapes. I then filled in the shapes with coloured piping gel. I have made some chocolate flowers last week, from melted chocolate. This chocolate could last for months and came in handy at times like this. So I simply place the chocolate flowers on the sides and a few scattered on top. And here's the final product.

Pretty ugly I'd say but quite alright for someone who doesn't go for baking nor decorating classes. I'll definitely try this again. But at the meantime, I kinda miss baking cupcakes. I'm gonna do that next. They're much easier to handle.