A Wee Bit of Cake: birthday cake

A Second Birthday Cake

By A Wee Bit of Cake - March 21, 2018

So last week I posted a letter to my baby boy who is now 2! I'm still in denial about it; looking back I thought his first year went fast but this past year has just flown by!

We didn't have a party as such this year as with being 6 months pregnant the last thing I wanted was a house full of people and stressing about catering and cleaning etc. Instead we had a little playdate with his chums on the Friday and on the Sunday before his birthday (which was on a Wednesday) we invited family over for a slice of birthday cake.

I was working away in Birmingham the day before and I knew I wouldn't have time to create a sugarpaste showstopper so instead opted for a simple chocolate drip cake. Unfortunately we had two mini disasters - one; it snowed that week and the toppers Tom had ordered were sent to his work but school was closed for 3 days so we couldnt get to them and two; I made the ganache too thick so it wasn't as "drippy" as I would have liked. It didn't matter though, the birthday boy loved it and didnt take long to wolf it down.

As always I used my go to chocolate cake recipe for speed and used ganache rather than buttercream to decorate. It really is the easiest of recipes and is always a hit when we have visitors.

A Second Birthday Cake

2.5 cups SR Flour
2 cups soft dark brown sugar (although any sugar will be fine)
1 cup cocoa
1 cup veg/sunflower oil
1.5 cups of milk
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs

Preheat your oven to 160C (fan)
Grease and line two 20cm cake tins
Pop all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth
Divide between the two tins and bake for 40mins or until a skewer inserted comes out clean
Tip onto a wire rack to cool

To Decorate
300g milk chocolate
300ml double cream
100g dark chocolate
100ml double cream
Selection of chocolate chips and shavings

Melt the milk chocolate and double cream together in the microwave in 30 second bursts until melted, smooth and glossy
Repeat in a separate bowl for the dark chocolate and double cream
Pop in the fridge to cool and firm up
Level both cakes and once the milk chocolate ganache is cool sandwich the cakes together and pop back in the fridge for 15 minutes
Take the cake out and cover it in the remaining ganache
Once covered place back in the fridge to firm up
Take the dark chocolate ganache out and if it's too hard give it a 30 second zap in the microwave or until its at a pourable consistency
Pour over the cake and decorate with the chocolate shavings and sprinkles

Enjoy!

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birthday cake

Lemon Confetti Cake

By A Wee Bit of Cake - July 19, 2017

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birthday

Chocolate Dinosaur Cake

By A Wee Bit of Cake - March 15, 2017

I recently shared a post on Ethan's First Birthday and a picture of the cake but I didn't go in to too much detail on it.

After some thought I realised I always share the recipes of the cakes I make so why not this one too?

I used my go to chocolate cake recipe (is there any other to use??), filled it with chocolate ganache and iced it with green coloured vanilla buttercream.

I remember decorating the cake in the kitchen and Tom walked in and I started to cry. My parents and brothers were in the living room and I didn't want them to know I was upset so through silent tears I told Tom I couldn't believe our baby was almost one and I was making his first cake (of many I hope). I found myself reflecting on the past year and remembering how I felt at that point last year when labour had just started.

I let myself have a moment then quickly pulled myself together and go on with the decorating the cake. I did have to modify it slightly as I couldn't find the grass nozzle which I think got lost moving house but thankfully I was able to use one of my more obscure nozzles that still gave a bit of a grass effect. Not exactly what I was after but better than nothing.

A dollop of ganache and some Sainsburys micro eggs gave the illusion of dinosaur eggs. I also bought the dino figures off eBay as there was no way I had the time to sit and model a load of sugar dinosaurs.

Thankfully the little man loved it and I managed to stretch it to feed over 20 people woop!

Chocolate Dinosaur Cake

2.5 cups SR Flour

2 cups soft dark brown sugar (although any sugar will be fine)
1 cup cocoa
1 cup veg/sunflower oil
1.5 cups of milk
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs

Preheat your oven to 160C (fan)
Grease and line two 20cm cake tins
Pop all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth
Divide between the two tins and bake for 40mins or until a skewer inserted comes out clean
Tip onto a wire rack to cool

Chocolate Gananche

300ml double cream

300g dark chocolate

Gently heat the cream in the pan until warm but not hot
Stir in the chocolate until melted and smooth
Pop in a bowl to cool and once cool cover in cling film and place in the fridge for a few hours to firm up

Green Buttercream

500g icing sugar

200g unsalted butter (softened)

A few tbsp. milk

Green food colouring gel

Using an electric whisk mix or mixer, beat the icing sugar and butter together until smooth adding a little milk at a time to loosen the buttercream if it’s too thick to spread
Add the food colouring and beat on a high speed until well combined and fluffy

To Decorate

Level the 2 cake layers and sandwich with ganache. Make sure to set some aside for the rock pool
Ice the outside in buttercream and place some in a piping bag to pipe on a grass effect
Using the micro eggs create a rock pool and fill with some ganache (I gave it a quick zap in the microwave to soften it slightly)
Scatter the remaining eggs over the cake, pipe on some grass and decorate with dinosaur figures.

Enjoy!

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Chocolate Box Birthday Cake

By A Wee Bit of Cake - October 26, 2016

I mentioned in my last post that my parents came to stay for a few days recently for Mum's birthday. Often I miss a lot of the family birthdays with living across the water so having Mum here provided me with the perfect opportunity to bake her a birthday cake.

I was really struggling for ideas for ages as I wanted something with a bit of a wow factor but that wasn't too labour intensive. I do miss spending hours baking in the kitchen but with maternity leave rapidly whizzing by I want to savour as many moments with my boy as possible.

My parents are quite plain eaters so there is no point in making anything too wacky on the flavour front as they won't enjoy it. I realised I needed a cake that looked amazing but was traditional in taste. I know I could have knocked up a Victoria Sandwich or a Lemon Drizzle fairly quickly but birthday cakes need to be fun and interesting as we only get that special day once a year.

When I think of a birthday cake I always think of sprinkles, lashings of icing and it's more often than not chocolate! By combining these three together I created one of my most favourite cakes to date - my go to chocolate cake sandwiched and coated with a decadent chocolate ganache, a scattering of sprinkles up the sides and a selection of delicious chocolates on top.

This cake took very little time to knock together. I popped it in the oven while Ethan napped and made up the ganache. Once he went to bed I trimmed the layers, assembled and decorated it. To be honest that part should have only taken half an hour at most but a certain little man kept waking up!

Mum was delighted with her cake (phew!) and Dad who isn't a massive fan of chocolate cake said he really enjoyed it too - woop!

I know I've already said it but this was one of my most favourite cakes to make to date. Happy Birthday Mum!

Chocolate Box Birthday Cake

2.5 cups SR Flour
2 cups soft dark brown sugar (although any sugar will be fine)
1 cup cocoa
1 cup veg/sunflower oil
1.5 cups of milk
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs

Preheat your oven to 160C (fan)
Grease and line two 20cm cake tins
Pop all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth
Divide between the two tins and bake for 40mins or until a skewer inserted comes out clean
Tip onto a wire rack to cool

To Decorate
300ml double cream
200g dark chocolate
100g milk chocolate
Sprinkles
Selection of chocolates

Heat the cream until warm but not boiling
Stir in the chocolate until melted, smooth and glossy
Place in a bowl in the fridge for 2-3 hours until thick and spreadable in consistency
Level the sponge layers
Sandwich together with the ganache and coat the outside of the cake with a generous amount
Carefully scatter the sprinkles up the sides
Decorate with a selection of chocolates

Enjoy!

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birthday cake

Chocolate Rolo Cake

By A Wee Bit of Cake - April 29, 2016

I've been trying to find the time to bake since Ethan has been born but I've discovered I need to make stuff that is quick and easy as time is no longer on my side. For some crazy reason I decided that booking the next even for Wharfedale Clandestine Cake Club for when he was only a month old was a great idea and I was determined to arrive with a cake.

Our theme was Birthday Bakes and when I think of birthday cakes it's always a chocolate cake that comes to mind, in particular that chocolate caterpillar cake that we all had as kids. Apart from the cake being chocolate I didn't know what else to do to it so a couple of days before the event I was stood in the chocolate aisle in Asda willing for some inspiration to come to me. I spotted the Rolos were on offer and not knowing what else to do I grabbed a bag and figured I would just wing it (story of my life these days haha).

Using Mary Berry's recipe for her Chocolate Fudge Cake from her Baking Bible my Chocolate Rolo Cake was born. I really love the lightness of the sponge in this cake although I did fiddle with the recipe slightly. It's fairly quick to make which suits me perfectly and I was able to get it in the oven in less than 10mins including preparing the tins. The smell coming from the oven was divine, I do love a good chocolate cake!

Our Birthday Bakes event was held in the Little Corner of the World tearoom in Otley and so far it's the only place in the town that serves clotted cream with their scones. Double cream is just wrong with a cream tea so this little cafe was already a winner in my book before our event had even taken place. We did have a slight dilemma of a power cut just before everyone arrived but thankfully it came back on just in time for us to enjoy copious amounts of tea and coffee with all of our cakes.

It would appear we all had the same idea with making chocolate cake which then resulted in 6 different chocolate cakes being consumed - yum!

I owe a special thanks to Sarah at the Little Corner of the World for being such a fab host. If you ever visit Otley I strongly recommend going there for a cream tea (and the best scones in town!)

Anyway... slight diversion there... back to the recipe!

Chocolate Rolo Cake

50g cocoa
6 tbsp boiling water
3 eggs
50ml milk
175g SR flour
1 tsp baking powder
100g baking spread
275g soft dark brown sugar

Icing and Filling
150g dark chocolate
150ml double cream
1 large bag Rolos

Preheat the oven to 160C (fan)
Warm the double cream and chocolate together until the chocolate has melted, smooth and glossy. Set aside to cool.
Once cool pop in the fridge to set, it needs to be firm but spreadable.
Grease and line two 20cm cake tins.
Mix the cocoa and boiling water together in a large bowl.
Add the remaining ingredients and beat until smooth and well combined.
Divide between the prepared tins and bake in the oven for 25mins until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Pop on a wire rack to cool.
Once cool sandwich the cake with the chocolate ganache and a handful of chopped Rolos.
Spread some more ganache on the top of the cake and scatter over a few more Rolos.

Enjoy!

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birthday cake

Sweetie Cake

By A Wee Bit of Cake - November 27, 2015

2 Comments

birthday cake

Chocolate Birthday Bundt

By A Wee Bit of Cake - May 14, 2015

It was Mr T’s birthday last week so of course I needed to make him a cake! He loves chocolate but doesn’t go in for loads of icing so I knew a bundt was the order of the day. I also decided to use the Jubilee tin he bought me for my birthday as a special little nod to him.

My usual chocolate cake recipe doesn’t always work well as a bundt as it’s quite a wet mix so even with lots of greasing and flouring bits of the cake still stick to the tin. I didn’t want a light chocolate cake; it needed to be dense, fudgey and rich in flavour.

After doing some digging online and checking out my favourite blogs I came across this recipe from Ruth at The Pink Whisk. I did need to up the quanities and fiddle with the recipe slightly but it resulted in one yummy bundt! Mr T and I may have had more than one or two slices but it’s his birthday so it would be rude not to. It did mean a slight gain at SW the following Thursday but I didn’t mind, this cake was worth it!