A Very Dr Seuss 1st Birthday Party

You might remember back in 2011 I blogged about our gorgeous friend Jess and her cake making venture 'Rosy Cakes', since then Jess has been very busy baking and decorating countless cakes, being Mum her nearly 3 year old Molly and Solomon who turned 1 this week - and was the reason for the amazing Dr Seuss themed party Max and I went to last Saturday!

As you can see Jess not only has a flair for making and decorating amazing cakes but for creating fabulous parties! I loved how balanced everything was, the different heights of everything on the table and how the colour scheme of red, white and blue ran through everything from the blue lemonade to the families co-ordinated outfits. The backdrop for the food table was simple but so effective!

Jess made delicious chocolate cupcakes with bright blue buttercream, cake pops and marshmallows (dipped in white chocolate and covered in blue sugar crystal) on gorgeous blue and white paper straws, there were also some healthy choices with popcorn and grapes served in paper cupcake cases with Dr Seuss stickers on the front. I also loved the mini milk bottles which were jazzed up with some bakers twine, paper and more Dr Seuss stickers!

My Max and Jess' Molly will be turning 3 in a few months time and this party has me feeling inspired to get on with planning Max's next party - which I have been informed will be dinosaur themed! What are your favourite kids party themes?

If you want to keep up with what Jess is working on check out her Facebook page, I am constantly blown away with what she comes up with!

If we didn’t have birthdays,
you wouldn’t be you.
If you’d never been born,
well then what would you do?
If you’d never been born,
well then what would you be?
You might be a fish!
Or a toad in a tree!
You might be a doorknob!
Or three baked potatoes!
You might be a bag full of
hard green tomatoes.

Or worse than all that…
Why, you might be a WASN’T!
A Wasn’t has no fun at all.
No, he doesn’t.

A Wasn’t just isn’t.
He just isn’t present.
But you… You ARE YOU!
And, now isn’t that pleasant!

- Dr Seuss

A huge thank you to Jess for sharing her photos with us and a big happy 1st birthday to wee Solomon xox

Rosy Cakes

 
My lovely friend Jess has started her own cake making/decorating venture from home. She started playing around with decorating cakes as a bit of fun after having her daughter Molly earlier this year and realised (with a lot of convincing from friends and family) that she has a real talent.

 
Jess is still refining her art but as you can see she has a real flair for what she does. If you have a party coming up and are based in Auckland Jess may be able to help you out with a cake, cupcakes and simply gorgeous cookies, if you are further a field and haven't been able to find the cake topper you are after Jess can do those too. Click here to see the Rosy Cakes facebook page which also has contact details and remember to hit 'like' so you can keep up to date with her latest creations, remember you can also find us on facebook (if you haven't already) here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Decadent Chocolate Celebration Cake with Swiss Buttercream

The picture above is of a recipe featured in the current issue of ‘Foodtown’ magazine.  Upon seeing it I instantly fell in love and had to make it!  I had the perfect excuse as it was time to make a cake to celebrate Max’s ‘eight month birthday’.  I envisioned a cake just like the one in the magazine except with duck egg blue frosting and a cute mint green teddy bear sitting on top instead of a rose.  However, it didn’t quite work out as I had planned; the frosting was fantastic (albeit a little too sweet/buttery for my palette), the colouring on the other hand was more green than blue (and yes I definitely used blue colouring but as I wanted a soft blue I didn’t use enough) and the cake tasted fantastic but was a wee bit of a disaster – with a collapsed middle :-(

I think I know why that happened and can give you pointers on how to avoid it.  For starters the recipe calls for you to divide your cake batter into three 15cm round cake tins or one 22cm tin, which is what I did.  I would recommend taking the 15cm option as I found using the 22cm tin meant the cake was becoming overcooked on the top and sides.  It also rose a little too high and started to collapse and although my skewer removed cleanly after the recommended cooking time it was a little fudgey in the middle.  This resulted in a two layer cake as opposed to three after levelling it off because of it collapsing.  If I decide to make this again I will get my hands on some 15cm tins.  If you want to use a 22cm tin I would drop the oven temperature by 10°C and cook the cake for 70 minutes.

Ingredients:
Cake:
spray oil
cocoa for dusting
60 grams of 70% dark chocolate, chopped
1 cup hot water
1 ½ cups flour
1 ¼ cups cocoa
1 ½  teaspoons baking soda
½  teaspoon baking powder
½  teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 ¼ cups caster sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
¾ cup butter milk

Swiss Buttercream:
1 ½ cups caster sugar
4 egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
300 grams butter (soft but not runny)
colouring and decorations of your choice

Method:
Preheat your oven to 160°C.  Line and spray the bases of three 15cm tins (or one 22cm tin with baking paper.  Spray with oil and dust with cocoa, tapping off the excess.
Place the chocolate and hot water into a bowl and stir until the chocolate is melted.  Set aside to cool.
Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a separate bowl and set aside.
Place eggs in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on a medium-high speed for 3-4 minutes until pale and thick.  Gradually add in the sugar, oil and vanilla essence.  Beat well.  Add the buttermilk and beat until combined.
Fold in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Add the chocolate and gently fold together, be careful not to over mix.
Place batter into the prepared tin/s.  Bake in a preheated oven for about 40 minutes (or until your skewer removes cleanly) – the recipe recommends baking a 22cm cake for an hour (see my notes in the introduction to this recipe).  Once cooked, set aside to cool in tins.

To make the buttercream, place the sugar and egg whites into a heatproof bowl and place it over a pan of simmering water (do not allow the bottom of the bowl to touch the water).  Stir continuously until the sugar is dissolved, about five minutes.
Remove the bowl from the heat and place the egg white mixture into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on a medium-high speed until the mixture is cool, thick and glossy white.  Add vanilla essence.
Gradually add the butter, mixing well after each addition until it has been absorbed into the egg white mixture.  Add a few drops of colouring and mix until combined.  The buttercream should have a whipped cream consistency of whipped cream.

To assemble, cut each cake into three layers.  Spread or pipe the buttercream between each layer and top of your cakes with decorations of your choice.

The cake batter, my collapsed disaster, the meringue base for the frosting, cake done, teddy bear topper.

My favourite part of the cake was actually the teddy bear topper.  I used this video tutorial to learn, although I made my teddy a little bigger.

And for those who are interested – here is an updated picture of my little monkey, enjoying the spring weather with his Mumma!

Rugby Fever Hits Baking

The Rugby World Cup kicked off in New Zealand on Friday and it seems most of the country has caught rugby fever!  Max turned 7 months old yesterday so as promised here is his (rugby themed) cake.  I really need need to fork out for some gel colourings if I am going to use fondant for things in the future as your standard liquid food colouring from the supermarket only creates pastel type colours.

 
It is quite difficult to get pictures of Max with the cakes at the moment (unless I hold him and his grabby little hands), so here is a picture of him taken right before we left for a trip to the Auckland viaduct (with approximately 200,000 other people) to celebrate the opening of the tournament.

 
Unfortunately there is no new recipe to share today – it is just an ‘Easy Peasy Chocolate Cake’ hiding under there.  But I should have something new for you in the next week.

Baptism Bakes!

Little Max was Baptised over the weekend so I was brave (okay – maybe cheap… Have you seen what cake shops charge for two tier cakes!) and made my first two tier cake covered in fondant.

It’s not perfect but I was happy with it, I loved the colour (I had to colour the fondant myself) and it tasted good which is the most important thing.  It was chocolate cake with a chocolate ganache butter cream.  I used a cookie cutter to make the cross and piped Max’s name with royal icing, which was used to secure the ribbon to the cake as well.  The cake also doubled as Max’s four month cake as part of my on going project to do a cake for him every month to improve my skills so I can make him a really awesome first birthday cake next February.

I also made little thank you favours for our guests, little short bread crosses which I sprinkled with blue and white sugar to jazz them up a bit!

Max’s Cakes

True to my word I have baked my little Max a cake (that Shane and I enjoy on his behalf) on the 10th of the month each month since he was born, I just didn’t post one last month as it wasn’t a new recipe.  Unfortunately due to time constraints I didn’t try a new recipe this month either – but I thought my attempt at cake decoration was worth sharing.

This little guy is one of the little alien critters on the freeze Shane and I created in Max’s room and he tasted delicious I used this excellent easy peasy chocolate cake recipe.  Have a look at the photo below and let me know what you think.

 
Last month I re-made this Marble Cake, I must say second time round the marbling was much improved and to change things up a bit I used ‘boyish’ colours instead of the traditional pink, yellow and brown.

 
I am hoping to get the time over the weekend to try out a new recipe (maybe even two – but I think that would really be pushing it, haha) so hopefully there will be something new to share with you next week!

Nestle New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker: Season 2

The show returns on TV3 and Food TV (channel 9 on SKY) this coming week. According to the Food TV website episode one for 2011 will air at 4pm, Saturday 12 February. What I am looking forward to more than the competition between the bakers (personally I wasn’t that excited by what the home bakers produced last year, with the exception of one or two recipes) are the master classes that accompany each episode, these are hosted by show judges Dean Brettschneider and Jade Lipton (new to the show this year).  Jade appears to be an amazing cake decorator and owns Cake Star in Brisbane, so I am excited to see what tips and tricks I can pick up from her in particular.  The first master class will air at 4pm, Sunday 13 February on Food TV.  Check out the Food TV website for more info on the contestants and upcoming competitions to be featured on the show.