Just a quick post on a couple of birthday cakes I whipped up last week.
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The first was a little vanilla sponge cake for my aunty's birthday on Saturday. My mum bought me two 6 inch round tins a couple of weeks ago and they make a very cute cake. So cute that I made a vanilla chai tea latte cake the same size for my sister in law's birthday on Sunday. As I didn't alter the quantities I ended up with enough left over batter to bake a tray of buns/fairy cakes too.
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To cover up my scruffy edges I piped shell shapes back and forth around the top and bottom of the cake using a wilton 1M nozzle. Here's a useful video tutorial by Sweetapolita if you fancy giving it a shot. I also recommend heavy quantities of sprinkles. They cover all manner of uneven icing!
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As I baked these cakes quickly I didn't really have enough time to do a proper crumb coat or level the sponges properly on either cakes, so there were some crumbs running through the icing. To be honest it didn't spoil the overall effect; both cakes still looked pretty.
Apologies for the slightly fuzzy images. I photographed these cakes in such a hurry that I'm not entirely convinced I had my camera on the correct settings.
6 inch vanilla sponge cake
I followed the standard recipe of equal quantities self-raising flour, golden caster sugar, margarine and eggs. For two 6 inch cakes I used the weight of 2 large eggs, about 150g
Preheat your oven to 180C/Gas 4. Beat your sugar and margarine together until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add your eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add a tablespoon of your flour with the last egg to stop the mixture from splitting. Add the rest of your flour, along with a tablespoon or so of milk and 1/4 teaspoon of good quality vanilla extract (or to taste). Mix together until everything is just incorporated. Divide the mixture between two tins and bake in the centre of the oven for roughly 25 minutes, or until golden and springy to touch. Leave to cool in the tins for 5 minutes before turning out to finish cooling on a wire rack.
Once cool sandwich together with jam and vanilla butter icing. I followed the Hummingbird Bakery's vanilla frosting, making 1 1/2 batches.
I followed the standard recipe of equal quantities self-raising flour, golden caster sugar, margarine and eggs. For two 6 inch cakes I used the weight of 2 large eggs, about 150g
Preheat your oven to 180C/Gas 4. Beat your sugar and margarine together until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add your eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add a tablespoon of your flour with the last egg to stop the mixture from splitting. Add the rest of your flour, along with a tablespoon or so of milk and 1/4 teaspoon of good quality vanilla extract (or to taste). Mix together until everything is just incorporated. Divide the mixture between two tins and bake in the centre of the oven for roughly 25 minutes, or until golden and springy to touch. Leave to cool in the tins for 5 minutes before turning out to finish cooling on a wire rack.
Once cool sandwich together with jam and vanilla butter icing. I followed the Hummingbird Bakery's vanilla frosting, making 1 1/2 batches.