It is a big affair for Kieran turning 3! Weeks leading to his actual day he kept asking when is his birthday, where will we be going, he wanted a rainbow cake, will we sing to him etc etc etc...imagine me having to answer the same questions over and over again. At least a hundred times.. haha
I promised him that I will bake him a rainbow cake but since it is for kids at school, I rather they not eat too much food coloring. Instead, I baked him a Chocolate Fudge Cake - which kids do not like chocolates? So I set out to work with fondant, creating a rainbow, cutting out the letters on Wednesday so that it can dry up properly by Friday. I am quite satisfied with the outcome of the fondant this time round except when covering the cake. I never seem to be able to roll out a big piece of fondant to cover the cake properly. Boo..
Kieran is as usual very forgiving when it comes to mummy. The cake is not very satisfactory, the rainbow broke (my guess is that it is too big and thin), the covering of cake was messy, because of the humid weather, the buttercream melted faster than usual, creating a mess. Another boo boo
See how I have to 'pou' those area that cannot be covered fully by the fondant. And because the buttercream created such a mess at the bottom of the cake, I put in pearl pops (bought from Candylicious). Kids love it..haha
My vision for the cake was like the above but but but the rainbow broke. So I had to improvise by placing the rainbow flat on the cake.. ok lar, still look good. I especially love the white clouds. Personally felt adding some tylose into fondant makes it so much easier to shape.
Joy to Kieran during birthday is the singing, blowing of candle and cake cutting. Poor rainbow was 'mutilated'. Well, as long as he is happy, what else matters?
I did not manage to capture a picture of the cake after it was cut. It was chaotic with the kids hoarding the balloonist. Special mention to Balloon Blasters for such awesome arrangement.
The cake was awesome, fudgy and moist. Yummy! Kieran ate them all.. which is pretty rare for him.
Chocolate Fudge Cake (recipe from Nigella's site)
400g plain flour
250g* golden castor sugar (I do not know what is this so I used white castor sugar)
100g light muscovado sugar
50g best-quality cocoa powder (Valrhona is the best imo)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 large eggs
142ml sour cream (I used light sour cream)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
175g unsalted butter (melted and cooled)
125g corn oil
300ml chilled water
How?
- Preheat oven to 180C, butter and line 2 8" round pan. I used 1 8" round pan and slice the cake into 3 layers. Whichever suit your preferences.
- In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients, flour, castor sugar, muscovado sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Set aside.
- Using a measuring jug, whisk together eggs, vanilla extract and sour cream until well mixed.
- Beat cooled melted butter with corn oil until blended. Add in chilled water. Give it a quick stir.
- Add in the dry ingredients all at once and mix at low speed. Finally, add in the egg mixture and mix until all combined.
- Pour into the prepared tin.
- Bake for 55 - 60 minutes or until skewers comes out clean.
- Once baked, cool the cake for 15 minutes before removing it to cool completely.
- Decorate as per your liking.
*I reduce sugar from 250g to 180g
p/s: I did not use mixer be it machine or handheld for this cake. Everything is done using a whisk which I felt is good enough. This prevents us from over mixing the batter. Also I am lazy in washing so I only used minimum utensils - 1 mixing bowl, 2 small bowls, whisk and a measuring scoop. Lazy me..
We continued Kieran's birthday celebration at USS - and this time round we make it a point to go for all rides which are applicable for the kids of course! The boys enjoyed themselves tremendously.
To celebrate with family members and close friends, we had a BBQ session on Saturday night. Food was great.. I ordered majority cooked food so that everyone get to eat quickly. Just heat it up and good to go. Chicken wings were good too. Yummy yummy..I must say this BBQ session is the best I had so far.
Using the same recipe above, I made them into cupcakes (original intention was rainbow cake but unfortunately the cake flopped big time). I used Sally's Baking Addiction's White Chocolate Buttercream as frosting. Yummilicious..
I find that using 1M tip for frosting really makes a lot of difference on the cupcakes. So beautiful..
This is the cake I made as a trial for Kieran's birthday. Spiderman themed which I think was really nice but Kieran insisted that he wanted a rainbow cake. Pretty adamant about it. Plan changed hence the cake shown above.
