a m y m c c r a c k e n

Occasion: Steve’s Dads weddding

Recipe: red velvet with cream cheese icing

Decoration: black & white fondant moulded into leaves, roses & rabbits

Occasion: Emma BrenBren’s B’day

Recipe: red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing

For Michael’s (Steve’s Brothers) birthday I decided to make a cake around something he loves – dinosaurs! I didn’t want to make a shaped cake but instead little dinosaurs like the ones that I found on http://www.abakedcreation.com/2009/06/dinosaur-birthday-cupcakes.html.

To make these I used a packed of white icing / fondant from the supermarket. Broke it up into batches, then dyed them different colours for each type of dinosaur.

This was my first time making fondant models. I found that once I kneaded in the colours in it had softened way too much from the heat of my hands so I popped them back in the freezer for a few mins so they could harden up so they were more clay like to play with.

Here’s the t-rex…

Here’s the spikey dinosaur…

here’s the spotty dinosaur…

& here they all are…

With the left over fondant I made some dinosaur eggs that also worked as candle holders – cute!

On top of making something that looks real cool, I still wanted to make something that tasted yum so I made the same cake I made for his dad last year – a Lemon Sour Cream Cake from the Edmond’s cook book. I’ve made this a few times now and I knew I wanted it to be bigger so I doubled the following recipe.

lemon sour cream cake

Ingredients

• 125g butter, softened
• 2 tsp grated lemon rind
• 1 C sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 C plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ C sour cream

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C
2. Cream butter, lemon rind, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy
3. Sift flour and baking powder together
4. Fold sifted mixture into egg mixture alternatively with sour cream, mixing until smooth
5. Spoon mixture evenly into a greased and lined 20cm round cake tin
6. Bake for 45 mins, or until the cake springs back when lightly touched
7. Leave in tin for 5-10 mins then transfer to a wire tack to cool down before decorating

As I doubled the recipe I cooked the cake longer, it took approx. 1 hour and checked on it every 5 mins till ready. I think next time I’ll cook each batch separately and do this as a double layer cake as it wasn’t as light as it usually turns out – but in saying that it was still SO delicious.

If you ever want to use this recipe, instead of icing it, it’s really nice just squeeze some lemon juice over the top while it’s still warm. Then once cooled just sprinkle over a light dusting of icing sugar, mmmmmmm!!!! BUT for this time, I iced it with a lemon butter icing.

lemon butter icing

Ingredients

• 100g butter
• 2 T lemon juice
• 1 ½ C icing sugar
• 2 T water

1. Cream butter and lemon juice
2. Add icing sugar and water and beat until you get the consistency that you desire

I dyed the lemon butter icing green so it was like ‘grass’ that the dinosaurs were walking around on. Before placing the dinosaurs on the cake i brushed them with edible glitter (it’s called rainbow dust) just to give them an extra touch – and because I just ordered a pack of the edible glitter and i REALLY wanted to use it.

So here it is, my (well Michael’s) dinosaur cake!! Rar!

I popped the candels by the ’28′ when it came time to serve…

For Steve’s Dads birthday I decided to make a cake version of the cupcakes I made on Steve’s birthday.

I doubled my basic chocolate cake recipe:

chocolate cake

Ingredients

• 175g butter, softened
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 ¾ C sugar
• 3 eggs
• ½ C cocoa
• 2 C plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 C milk

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a muffin pan with paper cases.
2. Combine flour, cocoa powder, choc chips and caster sugar in a bowl. Make a well in the centre.
3. Add milk, butter, eggs and vanilla essence to flour mixture.
4. Using a large metal spoon, stir gently to combine.
5. Spoon mixture into prepared muffin pan.
6. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
7. Stand in pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

runny chocolate icing

• 1 T butter
• 2 T cocoa, sifted
• 1 C icing sugar, sifted
• Splash hot water

Mix the butter, cocoa and icing sugar together. Add hot water until you get a runny consistency

peanut butter icing

Ingredients

• ½ C peanut butter
• ½ C cream cheese
• 1 ½ icing sugar

Cream the peanut butter and icing sugar together then sift in icing sugar to get the consistency that you like.

assembly

• Cut the cake in half
• Cover both the base and top of the cake with a thin layer of runny chocolate icing
• Spread on half of the peanut butter icing on top over the base. I piped around the edge so that it had a nice finish.
• Place the top of the cake over the iced base
• Spread on the remaining icing on the top of the cake
• Place chocolate covered peanuts around the edge

I wasn’t quite sure what to make Athina (aka Teeny) for her birthday other than something to do with her favourite animal, owls. I searched heeeeeeaps of images for cake or cupcake decoration ideas but nothing seemed to grab me but I had been subscribed to www.bakerella.com for a while and had always been keen to try the cake pops from there. So I looked into how to make them and looked up different examples for owls – I was quite surprised how many were out there to choose from.

Step 1 = bake a cake

I just went for the standard butter cake recipe from the Edmonds cookbook. I decided it would be real cool to make the inside red – so when you bite into the owl, it’s like you’re biting into its insides (hehe kinda gross but cool at the same time).  

Ingredients

• 150g butter, softened
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• ¾ C sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 ½ C plain flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• ¾ C milk
• 1 tsp food colouring

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C
2. Cream butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy
3. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition
4. Sift flour and baking powder together
5. Fold into creamed mixture
6. Stir in milk and food colouring to give a soft dropping consistency
7. Pour mixture into a greased and lined deep 20cm round cake tin
8. Bake for 35-40 mins or until cakes spring back when lightly touched
9. Leave in tin for 10 mins before transferring to a wire tack to cool down

Step 2 = crumble cake & mix with icing

The best way to crumble the cake is to cut it into quarters then you rub them together.

Once it’s crumbled up mix it with a good qty of icing (go with ½ cup then add more as needed). Go till you have almost a cookie dough consistency and it sticks together

For the icing I made a standard butter icing with a touch of cinnamon for extra flavour

Ingredients

• 2 T butter
• 2 tsp cinnamon powder
• 1 C icing sugar, sifted

Beat all of the above ingredients together until smooth

Step 3 = roll mixture into balls

Roll the mixture into balls, so that they’re in a size that you can work with. Put them on a lined baking tray, then place in the freezer for at least half an hour so they go hard.

Step 4 = decorate

To make these owls, I put ears on them. The ears were choc drops that I stuck onto the now cooled and hardened balls with left over icing. It was a hot day so by the time all ears were on they needed to go back into the freezer for about 10 mins to cool down again. While they were in the freezer I melted choc in a double boiler.

I then skewered each ball at the bottom (dip the skewer into icing before poking the ball so it holds into place) then quickly dip into the melted choc. Hold the skewer in one hand, then with your other hand tap the holding hand to tap off the excess choc. Put the skewer in a block of foam to stand then before the choc hardens, pop on the eyes (pebbles/smarties with a black food colouring dot drawn on) and the beaks (a heart sprinkle, pokey side out). Once all completed I transferred all cake pops to a new block of foam that I’d wrapped in wrapping paper

We were meeting Athina for dinner so we got to the restaurant first so the staff could hide them till desert time. Once they came out she was very surprised and they tasted DELICIOUS!!

Haha I love this pic, Leith just reminds me of a puppy dog that can see a treat but isn’t allowed to eat it yet

I’d been eyeing up a giant cupcake mould after I saw it on www.catchoftheday.com.au and I hunted around and finally got one for $10 – bargain!

Teeny came around to help me try it out. We made this sponge cake mix from the Edmonds cookbook:

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 ½ C caster sugar
• 2 C plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 100g butter, melted
• Food colouring

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190°C and grease cupcake mould with butter
2. Beat eggs and salt
3. Add sugar and beat until thick
4. Sift flour and baking powder, then add to egg mixture
5. Fold in butter
6. Divide into thirds then gently fold in food colouring as desired (we chose red, purple & blue)
7. Pour mixture into mould
8. Bake for 20 mins or until cake springs back when lightly touched
9. Leave in mould for 10 mins before turning out onto a wire rack

Assembly

The top & bottom of the cupcake bake separately so before we put the top on we decided to put a secret surprise in the middle. We scooped out a hollow for the base of the cupcake, melted white choc around the scooped section then filled it with cream (we put the choc on to stop the cake from going soggy, plus it tastes good too). Then we placed the top on and covered the cake with cream and decorated with choc sprinkes & silver balls so it looked like a cupcake