Pink Ombre Cake

As you know it was my sister birthday last week. I made the marsmellow cake for her birthday party and I made made a pink ombre cake for a little gathering we had with the family. I will show you step by step how to make this really simple and pretty cake!

First I started off with 3 round vanilla cakes. I didn't make these as I didn't have time, but I bought them from my local bakery and they were still very nice. They were 18cm round cakes. I then made a batch of butter cream. The recipe is below.

What you will need:

250 grams butter, softened

5 cups of icing sugar sifted

2 teaspoons of vanilla 

3 tablespoons full cream milk (I added 2 tablespoons because I was adding food colouring as well) 

What to do:

1. Blend butter in a large bowl for 5 minutes, until light and fluffy.

2. Sift half the icing sugar into the butter mixture and blend

3. Add vanilla and blend

4. When vanilla is blended through the mixture, add milk

5. Blend milk until fully combined and then sift the rest of the icing sugar in the mixture

6.Blend for another 3-6 minutes.

I used the same round cake board I used for the marsmellow cake. First I place a bit of icing on the cake board. I then place one of the cakes on.

I then added a spoon full of icing on the top of the cake and spread it evenly with my metal spatula.

I then placed the other cake on top and then added some more of the butter cream and spread it evenly.

I then placed the last cake on top, so it was a three cake tier.

I then coated the cake with a layer of butter cream. I put a thin layer around the sides as it will be covered by the blobs of pink icing, and a thicker layer on the top of the cake so it covers the top completely.

Next it is time to dye your different variations of pink.

With you remaining butter cream, add a little pink food colouring and mix. Place a spoonful and a half of that colour in a bowl.

Then add a little more of the pink food colouring and mix. Place a spoonful and a half of that colour in a bowl aswell.

Do this until you have five variations of pink icing.

 

Place each colour in a zip lock bag.

Then fold each end of the ziplock bags and cut the same amount off each one so the blobs are the same size. Sorry I haven't cut the one down the bottom. 

With the lightest colour pipe blobs all around the top of the cake.

Then with the back of a spoon smooth down each blob. Between each blob place your spoon in hot water as it will allow you to have a nicer finish.

Directly under the first layer, pipe the second lightest colour, and spread down. Place the blobs so it covers the rough bits down the bottom of your first line.

And then do the same with the two next colours, so you will have four colours on your cake. Clean your board with a spreading knife and a paper towel.

 

With the darkest colour, pipe blobs at the base of the cake.

 

I then added some candles to the cake as it was my sisters birthday!

This is a really simple cake anyone can make, and it looks so good and pretty.

With Love Angelique xx

Marsmellow Birthday Cake

It was my little sister birthday over the weekend and she had her party at rollerskating. I decided to make her a fun, colourful cake out of marsmellows for her party. I will go through step by step of how I made it!

First I baked two cakes. The bottom cake was chocolate and I baked it in a 23cm round pan. The top was a butter cake and I baked it in a 15cm round cake pan.

The recipe for the chocolate cake I found online here. The cake was super moist but when it came out of the oven, the cake had risen a lot so I had to cut a large portion off the top to make it flat. I also tuned both cakes over to make the tops flat.

The recipe for the butter cake got I got from school when I made the fish birthday cake. This cake isn't as moist as the other one but it is still really nice.

What you need for the butter cake:

125 grams butter, softened.

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

3/4 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

1/2 cup full cream milk.

What to do:

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC. Grease and line tin.

2. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl with electric beaters until light and fluffy.

3. Beat in eggs one at a time until combined.

4. Stir in flour and milk in two batches.

5. Spread mixture into prepared pans.

6. Bake in oven for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

7. Stand cake in pan for 5 minutes

8. Turn onto wire rack and allow to cool

For decorating you will need:

Butter cream icing (recipe below)

Pink Liquid food dye (to colour the butter cream)

Fondant 

Gel food colouring (to colour the fondant pink)

3 packets of pink and white marsmellows

Letter cutters and a heart shape cutter

What you will need:

250 grams butter, softened

5 cups of icing sugar sifted

2 teaspoons of vanilla 

3 tablespoons full cream milk (I added 2 tablespoons because I was adding food colouring as well) 

What to do:

1. Blend butter in a large bowl for 5 minutes, until light and fluffy.

2. Sift half the icing sugar into the butter mixture and blend

3. Add vanilla and blend

4. When vanilla is blended through the mixture, add milk

5. Blend milk until fully combined and then sift the rest of the icing sugar in the mixture

6.Blend for another 3-6 minutes.

7. Add food colouring

I was presenting my cake on a round 32cm silver cake board as you can see below.

With my metal spatula I place a bit of icing on the cake board to help the cake stay and stick on.

I placed the chocolate cake on the board and then on the top of the chocolate cake placed a little bit more icing to allow the butter cake to stick. If I were to do this cake again, I would cover the whole top of the chocolate cake with icing because when we cut the cake only half the top of the chocolate cake had icing.

Then I place the butter cake on top.

I covered both cakes in butter cream icing and smoothed out the edges but placing my spatula in a cup of hot water and then going around the cake.

Sorry for the bad picture. It was half done here! But don't worry too much about making the bottom layer of the cake perfect because you will be covering it in marsmellows. Clean the exes butter cream on the cake board with a damp paper towel. 

Place the marsmellows in a pattern of white, pink, white, pink around the base of the cake.

Place more marsmellows on the top of you first line of marsmellows in the same pattern. But place a white one on top of a pink marsmellow, and a pink on top of a white. Continue the pattern for the next line.

With the remaining marsmellows cut them in half and place the on the top of the chocolate cake in the pattern white, pink, white, pink

Dye your fondant pink and roll it out on a lightly floured surface. I used corn flour. Cut out a heart shape and the name of your birthday girl. 

Place fondant on the top of the butter cake.

And your done! A super easy and cute birthday cake perfect for any party!

Happy Birthday Deanna!

With love Angelique xx

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today I would like to share with you one of my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipes. I was given this recipe from a family friend of mine. They are the best chocolate chip cookies ever and when I make them everybody loves them and they are gone within two days! 

Recipe makes 40 biscuits

What you will need:

250 grams butter, softened, chopped

1/2 cup caster sugar

1/2 of a 395g can of sweetened condensed milk

2 1/2 cups plain flour

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 

375 chocolate chips

What to do:

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC no fan or  170ºC fan-forced. Line 3 baking trays with baking paper.

2. Using a electric mixture, beat butter, sugar and condensed milk until pale and creamy.

3. Sift flour and baking powder together over the butter mixture  and mix until the dough almost comes together.

4. Add chocolate and stir until well distributed.

5. Roll heaped tablespoons of mixture into balls on place onto baking trays , allowing a little room for spreading.

6. Flatten slightly with finger tips or fork.

7. Bake two trays at a time for 9-12 minutes until lightly golden. Stand 5 minutes on trays before transferring them to wired rack to cool.

With love Angelique xx

Karate Birthday Cake

It was my brother birthday a couple of weeks ago and for his birthday I made him a cake that was a karate jacket with a black belt. He loves karate and is a black belt with white stripe so I thought it was suitable idea to make him a cake with a theme of karate!

I baked the cake in a 32cm x 26cm rectangle cake tin and used the recipe I found online. You can find the recipe here.

I made a template of a karate jacket out of A3 paper. I made sure the template fitted the dimensions of the cake tin.

 I placed it on the cake, which was out of the tin and cut around it.

 I then made my butter cream icing which I did a post on for my Icecream sundae cup cake so click here and follow that recipe.

I covered my cake with a thin layer of the butter cream icing with my metal spatula. I iced the cake on the cake board as it makes it easier. I just clean up the side with the exes buttercream  with a paper towel.

I placed a little bit of butter cream aside and dyed it red. I covered it with cling wrap as I was using it later to stick the candles in the board.

Next is fondant time! I used 2kg on white fondant to cover the cake. I first covered my bench in corn flour, so the fondant didn't stick to the bench and rolled it out 2mm thick with  a rolling pin. I got my fondant from my local cake decorating store. You can find white fondant anywhere even in supermarkets. 

I placed the fondant on the cake. There are many YouTube tutorial on how to place fondant on a cake and that is how I learnt. The easiest way for me is to wrap it around the rolling pin and then roll it on.

2kg of fondant was a lot to cover the cake so as I was rolling the fondant out I trimmed a bit off. When I placed it on the cake I also roughly trimmed the edges.

With a fondant smoother I smoothed the edges of the cake and the fondant. You definitely need one of these if you are making a fondant cake. 

I trimmed the edges as close to the cake as I could and then tucked them under the cake with a speading knife. I then added line to define the arms and sleeve. I did this with the back of a knife.

I rolled out a strip of fondant and place a clean ruler on top and cut two strips. These will the the neck lines. I cut my fondant with a pizza cutter. I find them easier to use, but you could always just use a knife.

With my metal spreading knife I added some detail to the line.

I then placed it on the cake and marked a line on the spot I needed to cut it on.

I then placed it on the cake with a dab of water.

The pieces of fondant will be hanging over the sides, like this.

I just cut them off with a knife and then tucked it under.

Next I needed to make the belt. For the belt I used black fondant that was all ready coloured. You can't dye white fondant black or red. So I bought my black fondant from my local cake decorating store. 

For the belt I cut a long black strip and a short black strip using my ruler and my pizza cutter again.

With my metal spreading knife I added some detail to the short strip. I just added two lines at the edges of the strip.  Sorry the picture is of the long strip. I did add the stripes on the long stripes but they were covered by the white stripe, so there is really no point doing them.

I then cut a smaller bit of white fondant and cut it in half. 

 I twisted the black fondant in a 'V' shape as you can see below.

I then placed the white strip of fondant on the black. I tucked the white fondant under the twist and then right around the bend at the top.

With the short strip of black fondant I wrapped it around the twist of the belt and attached it with a little bit of water.

Remember how I dyed the red butter cream red well this was to match the candles. 

I placed the butter cream in a zip lock bag and cut a little off the corner.

I put a blob of butter cream at the bottom of each candle.

And then placed the candle on the cake board. the butter cream with harden up and the candle will stay in place.

This is my second fondant cake I have made. I hope to be doing more birthday cake tutorials soon! I hope you enjoyed this post.

With love Angelique xx