A Birthday Cake

Baked a small birthday cake for my niece a few days ago. Apparently, I didn't do a good job at decorating it :(

I find it so difficult to make the cake surface smooth. Although I do not have a cake decorating stand, I could still manage to get the sides quite smooth and even (by placing the cake on a cooling rack and turn it, while holding the palette knife at the side). However, I have no luck for the top surface...no matter how hard I tried, there was still the impression of the palette knife all over :'(



My niece loves this Cinnamoroll, one of the many Sanrio characters. I tried piping some melted chocolate over a Cinnamoroll picture with the intention of using it as a chocolate transfer. Well it didn't work, even though I have chilled the chocolate to let it set, it refused to stick onto the cake surface. As I didn't have the patience and time to make another one, I piped the character free-hand! Quite a daring act, hehe! As a result, Cinnamoroll appeared to have over eaten, hence, the puffy looking chins, and his ears were totally off!

I guess the girl wouldn't mind, and proceed to pipe the words. It was only after piping the word 'happy', I realised that there wasn't enough space for the word 'birthday'! No choice, I got to settle with a short-form! I was only a little cheered up after I managed to pipe on the little blue stars...I would love to make those weaving patterns, but as of now, I can only do the stars. The stars really helped dress up the cake a little.


This time, I used another sponge cake recipe as I only wanted to make a 18cm cake. The sponge layer tasted good...soft and fluffy.


The only thing I could console myself was that the middle layer was filled quite nicely this time.


The cake certainly tasted good, judging by the fact that 1 adult and 3 kids could finish half the cake in a set!


Ingredients:
(make a 18cm round cake)

3 eggs, bring to room temperature
90g caster sugar
100g cake flour
20g unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons fresh milk (I used low-fat fresh milk)
2 ~ 3 drops of vanilla extract

filling & frosting:
1 cup non-dairy whipping cream
1 can peach slices

Method:

1. Sift cake flour, set aside. Melt butter, set aside. Grease and line a 18cm round pan. Position rack at the lower bottom of the oven. Pre-heat oven to 170degC.


2. With an electric mixer, whisk eggs and sugar on HIGH speed for about 5 to 7mins, until the batter double in volume and is ribbon-like (the batter should leave a ribbon-like texture when the beater is lifted up). Turn to LOW speed and whisk for another 1 to 2 mins. Whisking at low speed helps to stabilise the air bubbles in the batter.


3. Sieve over the sifted cake flour in 3 separate additions, into the batter. With a spatula, gently fold in the flour each time the flour is added. Take care not to deflate the batter.


4. With a spatula, mix about 1/3 of the batter with the melted butter in a separate bowl. Fold in this mixture into the remaining batter. This method will help to ensure the butter will be fully blended and at the same time will not deflate the batter.


5. Add in fresh milk and vanilla extract, and fold in gently with spatula, until well blended.


6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Gently give the pan a few bangs on a work surface to release air bubbles that are trapped in the batter. Bake for 30 ~ 35 mins, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Unmold, invert the cake on cooling rack and cool completely.

Assemble the cake

1. With an electric mixer, whip the non-dairy whipping cream still stiff.


2. Slice the cake horizontally into 2 layers. Brush the surface of the sponge layers with the syrup from the canned peach slices. This helps to keep the sponge layers moist.


3. Place one layer of the sponge cake on a cake plate/board. With a palette knife, spread some whipped cream evenly over the layer. Arrange 2 concentric rings of peach slices on the sponge layer. Fill with some more whipped cream and spread it evenly all over. Top with the second cake layer.


4. Spread the whipped cream over the top and side of the cake. Decorate as desired.

Recipe source: adapted from 点心达人, 轻松学 /小川智美著