The Birthday Cakes and a recipe for White Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Anushka turned 4 last week and this birthday was extra special as it was the first one we celebrated in India. It was more of a family get-together and Anushka got to play with her favorite cousin and had a fabulous time. Growing up all my birthdays were celebrated this way and this evening brought back such wonderful memories.

This birthday was also very different from her last birthdays as I had so much help getting everything ready, having your parents with you is such a blessing, everything is taken care of. The last year with the Minnie Mouse Party there were so many things to be done and as much as I enjoyed planning and organizing everything I remember having panic attacks every few hours. This time though I felt like I had nothing to do. Dad and made sure the house was clean and organised and looked after Anushka when I was busy, mom took care of the food and all I had to do was bake the cake.

The 4 year old "grown-up" gave me very clear instructions for her cake design. Up until two days before her birthday she wanted a blue cake with lots of flowers and butterflies and then suddenly changed her mind and wanted a pink one instead. I rolled the fondant and let her cut out the flowers and butterflies and she was so excited to see them on the cake.

Her day began with a small celebration at school. I sent a small cake with that she cut with her friends. As cream cakes are not allowed I made a simple chocolate cake with chocolate chips. I had planned to write a message with icing but ended up making a simple fondant topper instead.

The main cake was two layers of chocolate cake and one middle layer of orange cake. I filled the cake with whipped chocolate ganache and frosted with White Chocolate Swiss Meringue Butercream (SMBC).

It was the first time that I made SMBC with home-made butter and while it looked perfect somehow it wasn't sweet at all. I thought of adding some honey or corn syrup but just to be sure I asked the experts on HBG in facebook.  Got some wonderful ideas and ended up adding some white chocolate to the buttercream. I'm not so found of white chocolate but in this case it worked like a charm and the flavor was just delicious! 

White Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ingredients:

3 egg whites

3/4 cup sugar

18 tbs unsalted butter, softened but cool, cut into tablesspoons

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 ounces white chocolate, melted and cooled to room temperature

Method:

Make sure your bowl, whisk and all other tools you use to make the meringue are completely free of any grease.
Take the egg whites and sugar in a big metal bowl and place the bowl over a pot of simmering water. Whisk gently but constantly until the mixture reaches a temperature of 140 degrees F on a candy thermometer, or until the egg whites are hot and you cannot feel the sugar granules when you rub the mixture between your fingers. 

Remove from heat and whip the hot mixture, until it turns thick and glossy and white and and about doubles in volume. The bowl will be neutral and not hot at this point.

Switch to the paddle attachment and add the butter, 2 tablespoons at a time, beating continuously on medium speed until it has a silky smooth texture. The mixture may look curdled at some time, but just keep mixing and it will come together soon!
Mix in the vanilla and the melted white chocolate and whip till smooth and creamy.
Use immidiately or refrigerate in an air-tight container for upto 1 week and whip until creamy before using.

The Minnie Mouse Party - Cakes, Decorations and Games

Anushka turned three a few days ago and this year we celebrated her birthday "Minnie Mouse Style"! It was so exciting planning the party, working with all pink and black and getting all the decorations ready. There were a lot of times when I could involve Anushka, especially when there was glue involved and she so enjoyed messing everything up:)

Then of course there were the cakes and lots of them...(Links to the recipes below the pictures)

Chocolate Cake filled with Ganache and Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting(SMB)

Chocolate cake filled with Strawberry Whipped Cream and frosted with SMB

Vanilla Chiffon Cake with Strawberry Cream filling and SMB frosting

I love tall cakes and attempted a tiered one this time, my first! I kept the top tier short though or else we would have ended up with too much cake. The Minnie Mouse figurines gave me a few sleepless nights, it was not easy getting the face right and I was so relieved when I was done. All in all we had two fun evenings with friends and I still cannot believe that it's been 3 years!!
Just sharing a few more pictures and details from the parties....

Welcome sign on the door...

The banner was designed in paint and then printed and cut into shape. The number 3 is cut out of stiff felt and I glued some pink tissue flowers on it.

Made this out of paper pinwheels, my favorite thing!

I made these Minnie Mouse Ears kind of following the tutorial here. But I took the easy way out and bought black plastic hairbands. I used stiff black felt with the sticker on the back, so all I had to do was cut the ears using this template and then wrap them around the band and stick them together. They were very stiff and stood up straight. I made the bows and hot glued them on the bands. Anushka loved these and still wears them all the time.

Here is a great game for a Minnie mouse party...

The blind-folded birthday girl pinning her bow...

Last but my favorite...the pinata, I was so happy with the way it turned out and the kids always love it. I got the idea from here but made it a pull string one. It's perfect for kids this age especially if you're having an indoor party.

"I want to pull"...the birthday girl goes first and I had my fingers crossed the whole time praying all the kids get a turn.

It was an amazing experience planing the party and Anushka had a great time. Here's the exhausted birthday girl with her favorite gifts...

My First Fondant Cake - A Very Moist Yellow Cake and Swiss Meringue Buttercream

The third course at Wilton is completely focused on fondant. If you liked playing with clay as a kid, or if you still like to, you will have a lot of fun working with fondant! From what I've read, I've realized that there are fondant lovers and haters out there and I believe I belong somewhere in between. I love the things you could do with fondant, but am not very fond of the taste. You could always peel of the fondant and eat the deliciousness under it. I don't think I would  make a fondant cake for myself, but to create something fun and whimsical for kids, fondant is the way to go! It is a little challenging to work with, but it's also a whole lot of fun and the possibilities are endless.

I was busy with a few other things during the week of the final class, so I stuck with a very basic design and made the easiest flowers among the ones we had learned. We had to take a buttercream iced cake to class, which we then covered in fondant. To me covering the cake was the most challenging part and a hundred things went wrong when I was doing it. The good thing is you can cover most of your mistakes with a strategically placed decoration :). I had rolled my fondant way too thick and there were a lot of cracks, you can still see the ones on the top edge of the cake. But for my first time, I think I did OK.

For the cake, I tried this recipe that I've had bookmarked for a long time and its one of the best cakes I've ever made. It was incredibly moist and delicious! Another thing I tried was the Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMB) and its now my favorite frosting! SMB is not cloyingly sweet like the regular buttercream. It builds its structure from the whipped egg whites (don't worry, the egg whites are heated to a point where they are safe  and not raw), instead of sugar, making it just sweet enough for a frosting and it's easy to work with too!

Moist Yellow Cake

Ingredients: 

1 cup butter, at room temperature

2 cups sugar

4 eggs, room temperature

3 cups sifted self raising flour

1 cup whole milk, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp butter flavoring (I skipped this)

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and line (3) 8" pans (I used only 2).

Beat the butter until light and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat for about 7 mins.

Add eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition.

Add flour and milk, alternating, beginning and ending with flour.

Add vanilla and butter flavoring and mix just until combined.

Divide the batter among the pans. Tap the pans on your counter to remove any air bubbles.

Bake for about 30 mins or until done.

Cool in pans for 10 mins.

Remove and immediately wrap each cake in plastic wrap to seal in moisture.

Cool completely on wire racks.

Once cool, remove from plastic and level the cakes. Fill and frost as desired.

Recipe from Bakerella. 

Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ingredients: 

(to fill and crumb coat an 8", 2 layer cake)

2 egg whites

1/2 cup sugar

12 tbs butter, softened but cool

1/2 tsp vanilla

Method:

Make sure your bowl, whisk and all other tools you use to make the meringue are completely free of any grease. Take the egg whites and sugar in a big metal bowl and place the bowl over a pot of simmering water. Whisk gently but constantly until the mixture reaches a temperature of 140 degrees F on a candy thermometer, or until the egg whites are hot and you cannot feel the sugar granules when you rub the mixture between your fingers. 

Remove from heat and whip the hot mixture, until it turns thick and glossy and white and and about doubles in volume. The bowl will be neutral and not hot at this point.

Then add the butter, a few tablespoons at a time, mixing continuously until it has a silky smooth texture. The mixture may look curdled at some time, but just keep mixing and it will come together soon! Mix in the vanilla.

For more details on SMB read this post at Sweetapolita.

Eggless Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream...for Wilton Course 2

Although I bake a lot of cakes, I have never really paid much attention to decorating them. But my daughter's second birthday is coming up soon and I want to make something special for her. I thought it would be great to learn something new, so I finally enrolled for the Wilton course last September.
I made this chocolate cake for the final class of course 2. We worked with royal icing and it was really fun. Royal icing dries up hard and the flowers look lovely! I made about 75 flowers for the final class, couldn't stop myself, that's how much fun I had making them. Another thing I learned was the basket weave design, it takes some patience but so worth it!

The cake had to be covered in buttercream but I did not want to use the wilton buttercream as its made of shortening and I did not like it at all. So I googled and found this amazing recipe for chocolate buttercream at BakedBree and it tasted absolutely divine. This buttercream is great for piping too and you can do all sorts of designs. The only challenge is doing it quickly or the warmth from your hands will make it soft, making it very difficult to work with. One trick is to fill the piping bag with only a little icing at a time and refilling as you go.

This is the cake I made for the final class of course two. It was a small 6" cake. The chocolate cake recipe is from Tarla Dalal. I doubled the below recipe to make two cakes. I had some batter leftover after filling two pans about 2/3's full, so next time I will probably divide the batter among three pans and make a triple layer cake. I filled the cake with a thin layer of buttercream and some strawberry preserves and crumb coated the cake before doing the basket weave. Decorated it with a few royal icing flowers. This was a cake I was really happy with!

Eggless Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

2 tbs cocoa powder
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
200 gms condensed milk
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350F/ 180C. Grease and dust a 6" pan.
Whisk all the dry ingredients together to combine. Whisk all the wet ingredients together in another bowl and add to the dry ingredients.
Stir just until combined. Pour into the prepared pan and bake till done. Check after 25 mins. Mine took a little longer.
Cool in the pan for 10 mins and then remove onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Eggless cakes sometimes are not very moist, so I followed this idea from Bakerella. I wrapped the cake in plastic wrap as soon as I took it out of the pan, when still hot. Then cooled it completely on the wire rack. You won't believe how moist the cake was.


Chocolate Buttercream
Ingredients:
1 cup (two sticks) of unsalted butter at room temperature
2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 tbs heavy cream or milk (cream is better)

Method:
Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
Add the cocoa powder gradually on low speed.
Add just enough cream to get the buttercream to a spreading consistency.
Add the vanilla.
Ice your cake as needed.

The buttercream for the basket weave has to be really stiff so I took some aside before adding the cream to the  rest of it, that I used to fill and crumb coat the cake.


This goes to Let's Cook - Sweet Somethings and Chocolate Mela