Dinosaur Birthday Cake

I've been so lucky to do a whole bunch of fun cakes lately and this one is the latest. I'll share the previous ones soon swapping between cake posts and baking posts.

 This dinosaur cake was for a little boy's 4th birthday, inspired by cute dinosaur invitations and printables from Fairydust Stationery.

The cake was my favorite fluffy vanilla cake, I know I use this one a lot, its just that darn good! The cake was iced with vanilla buttercream and covered with fondant.

 Happy Birthday Taj!

I was very happy to hear the birthday boy loved his cake and had a fantastic day. Check out that cute excited face!

Homemade Vanilla Marshmallows

Let me tell you about a couple of things that I know.

I know is has been cold and rainy more often then not lately.

And I know that cold and rainy means perfect hot chocolate weather.

So guess what I made. Marshmallows!! Hot chocolate is pretty awesome and is even more so when it has marshmallows in it, especially when they're homemade. I paired the marshmallows with some chocolate spoons for the little extra hot chocolate fun, but really it was an excuse to buy a silicon spoon mould. 

The last time I made marshmallows was when I was quite young. I helped my Nanna make the marshmallows and was so devastated about having to go home before they were set, I didn't even get to taste them.

Being kind of a grown up now and allowed near a hot stove on my own, I made some marshmallows of my very own and then because the best part is eating them I did that too.

If you've never had homemade marshmallows you've totally missed out. Unlike store bought marshmallows that are often kind of hard on the outside and chewy on the inside, homemade are all fluffy, all dreamy, little soft clouds on sweet vanilla awesomeness!

For the Marshmallow (complete recipe at the end of post)
1 tablespoon icing sugar
1 tablespoon cornflour
2 tablespoons powerdered gelatine
6 tablespoons water
400g white sugar
250 mls water
50g golden syrup
2 large egg whites
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
pink food colouring

To make the Marshmallows- Mix the icing sugar and cornflour together in a small bowl.

Lightly grease a 23x23cm square pan with oil (I used rice bran oil) and dust with some of the icing sugar cornflour mixture. Keep the remaining mixture for dusting the marshmallows.

Add water to a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatine over the water and set aside. The gelatine will soak up all the water.

In a medium sized saucepan, add the sugar, water and golden syrup, stir over medium heat until dissolved. Bring to the boil then turn down slightly so the mixture is at a simmer, continue cooking until the syrup reaches 120c (250f) on a candy thermometer. (If you don't have a candy thermometer totally get one, its one of the best things I've ever bought.

Once the syrup mixture reaches temperature, remove from the heat and stir through the soaked gelatine until melted and smooth.

Beat the egg whites and a pinch of salt with an electric mixer (fitted with the whisk attachment), continue beating until the whites form stiff peaks.

Continue beating while adding the vanilla and gelatin mixture in a steady stream, with the mixer on high beat for a further 4-5 minutes.

The mixture will expand and get lighter and colour as it's whisked.

 The marshmallow mixture is done when it will hold a ribbon of mixture on the surface.

Pour half of the mixture into the prepared pan. Add a few drops of pink food colouring to the remaining mixture and stir through. Gently pour the pink marshmallow mixture over the top on the white and smooth over with a spatula.

Put the pan of marshmallow aside and allow to set, for about 2 hours.

Once the marshmallow has set, turn out onto a sheet of baking paper dusted with some of the remaining icing sugar and cornflour mixture. Using a sharp knife cut the marshmallow into little squares. Dust the marshmallows with a little icing sugar and cornflour the stop them sticking together.

Enjoy them as they are or pop them into a hot chocolate for an extra yummy treat.

Vanilla Marshmallows
1 tablespoon icing sugar
1 tablespoon cornflour
2 tablespoons powerdered gelatine
6 tablespoons water
400g white sugar
250 mls water
50g golden syrup
2 large egg whites
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
pink food colouring

Mix the icing sugar and cornflour together in a small bowl.

Lightly grease a 23x23cm square pan with oil and dust with some of the icing sugar cornflour mixture. Keep the remaining mixture for dusting the marshmallows.

Add water to a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatine over the water and set aside. 

In a medium saucepan, add the sugar, water and golden syrup, stir over medium heat until dissolved. Bring to the boil then turn down slightly so the mixture is at a simmer, continue cooking until the syrup reaches 120c (250f) on a candy thermometer.

Once the syrup mixture reaches temperature, remove from the heat and stir through the soaked gelatine until melted and smooth.

Beat the egg whites and a pinch of salt with an electric mixer (fitted with the whisk attachment), continue beating until the whites form stiff peaks.

Continue beating while adding the vanilla and gelatine mixture in a steady stream, with the mixer on high beat for a further 4-5 minutes. The mixture will expand and get lighter and colour as it's whisked, it is done when it will hold a ribbon of mixture on the surface.

Pour half of the mixture into the prepared pan. Add a few drops of pink food colouring to the remaining mixture and stir through. Gently pour the pink marshmallow mixture over the top on the white,smooth with a spatula.

Put the pan of marshmallow aside and allow to set, for about 2 hours. 

Once the marshmallow has set, turn out onto a sheet of baking paper dusted with some of the remaining icing sugar and cornflour mixture.

 Using a sharp knife cut the marshmallow into little squares. Dust icing sugar and cornflour the stop them sticking together.

Baby Shower Onesie Cookies

Just a quick post so no one thinks I've fallen of the face of the earth. I have some great new recipes to share shortly, as soon as I get a chance to sit down and write something.

I made these cookies a few weeks ago for a friend to take to a baby shower.

They make me want to go shopping for onesis and booties but I doubt my cat would appreciate being dressed in baby clothes.

Happy New Baby!!

Beer Mug Birthday Cake

First of all please let me apologize for the huge gap between posts, for awhile I have been thinking about writing a post letting you all know I was going to have a month off from blogging. Well I though about it, I procrastinated, I spent a bunch of time looking at living rooms on pinterest, and procrastinated some more. With all my time wasting almost a month has passed anyway, so now I am back and all my time pinning lead to me buying a gorgeous new sofa so it wasn't a total loss.

So this first cake isn't a beer mug cake, clearly. It is the skydive cake I made for my Dad's last Birthday, to go with the skydive we got him as his present. There's still some debate whether it is a nice or nasty gift. Turns out I may have got my habit of putting things off from my Dad, one year on he finally booked his dive. On his birthday he jumped out of a plane!!

That's my Dad way up there. In all the excitement I missed out on some shots of the landing but you get the idea.

Pretty sure after the thrill of jumping out of a plane from 14000 feet a person deserves/ needs a nice big beer or in my Dad's case a giant mug of beer cake. 

My ideas for a beer tasting themed party were replaced by the skydive, but the beer cake was still a huge hit.

I took cake pictures super early in the morning because we had to leave to get to the skydive office. The early photos didn't work out so well, but I did get these few after Dad cut the cake. The inside of the beer mug was 4 layers of chocolate mud cake filled and covered with dark chocolate ganache. To get a little more height for the foamy head of the beer I added a thick layer of vanilla buttercream and covered the whole cake with fondant.

Happy Birthday Dad!

I've had a number of people asking questions about how to make this cake so rather than emailing you all personally I thought I'd add a few notes:

• The shape of the handle was out of light grey fondant, I inserted a pop-stick into each end of the handle to help support the weight when inserted in the cake. The handle was made a few days before so it would dry hard.
• For the board, roll out brown fondant to cover the entire board. I used a ruler the back of a knife to score in the wood and grain and let the fondant dry out before painting it with a mix of brown food colour and vodka. The Vodka thins the colouring and evaporates faster than water to stop the fondant from getting too sticky.
• I cake itself was made from two 6 inch chocolate mud cakes, with each cake split in two to give me four layers. 
• The cake was covered and filled with dark chocolate ganache. 
• Because the cake was quite tall, I didn't cover the whole cake with fondant as I usually would. Instead I wrapped the beer coloured fondant around the outside of the cake and then smoothed the join. The white fondant beer head shape was cut separately then draped over the top. 
• To attach the handle to the cake I put 2 small cuts into the cake fondant where the pop sticks would go in so it wouldn't indent too much. I brushed a tiny bit of water on the parts of the handle that would sit against the cake and then pressed it in while the cake fondant was still soft.
• The lines of colour on the sides were painted on with food colouring thinned down with a tiny bit of vodka, a mix of brown and yellow. 

I hope this helps a little. Leave a comment if there are any other questions I can answer.

Dinosaur Birthday Cake

I loved dinosaurs when I was little! For my 5th birthday I got a tape player and a bunch of tapes (those things that came before cds that came before Ipods). My favourites by far came with set of dinosaur books. The tapes told dinosaur stories and sang dinosaur songs and I thought they were the raddest thing ever. 

My inner five year old was very happy to be asked to make a dinosaur cake for a little boys 2nd birthday over the weekend. As long as it was green I was able to do what ever I liked, so I picked my favourite dinosaur (although its actually a tie between stegosaurus and triceratops) and had fun.

I ended up choosing to make a stegosaurus inspired cake because the plates would look really cool made out of fondant. The cake was made out of my favourite vanilla cake and frosted with vanilla buttercream. Steggy and parts of the base board were covered in fondant with the finishing touch of grass piped was on with left over buttercream.

Happy Birthday Dash!

Fresh Strawberry Glazed Doughnuts

I have had strawberries on the brain for the last month, but have been having such a hard time finding any! It is the very beginning of strawberry season here in Queensland so lucky for me strawberries are slowly coming into stores. After a shopping trip last weekend I came home with two punnets of sweet little strawberries and knew exactly what to do with them. 

While wasting time on pinterest I came across these drool inspiring strawberry doughnuts by Heather Christo Cooks , I've been thinking about them since and was excited to try them for myself.

I was so super impressed by the recipe, the dough is the nicest I think I've made, its silky smooth and when it rises it's so fluffy! And just to let you know how yummy the Strawberry glaze is, I seriously had to talk myself out of eating it by the spoonful. Although I kind of enjoy fake strawberry flavouring, the flavour of the fresh strawberries in the glaze is really amazing.

When I was making the dough for the doughnuts I remember thinking 'hmm that's a fair bit of flour', but it didn't dawn on me until I was cutting out 30 plus doughnuts and doughnuts holes that this recipe made a lot.

Lots of doughnuts means sharing, If the people you share them with aren't your friends now, pretty sure they will be after. As soon as they open the container it will be like bam! punch of strawberry smell to the nose and then bam! You have a new best friend.

For the Doughnuts (scroll to the end for full recipe)

15 grams instant rise yeast

¼ cup warm water

1 ½ cups whole milk

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs (room temperature)

1/3 cup Crisco (I used half butter, half vegetable shortening)

2 ½ cups plain flour

3 cups fine cake flour

1 litre vegetable oil (for frying)

To make the Doughnuts- Pour the milk into a small saucepan and bring it to the boil, once boiled turn off the heat and allow to cool.

While the milk is cooling prepare the yeast. Add the warm water to a small bowl and empty in the sachets of yeast. Mix the water and yeast together. Set the bowl aside in a warm spot for ten minutes while the yeast activates, it will bubble and double in size.

Add the milk, sugar, salt, eggs, shortening/ butter and the plain flour to a large mixer bowl, mix well.

Pour in the yeast mixture and beat until smooth, add the cake flour and mix until combined.

Continue mixing the dough on high for about 3 minutes until it is smooth.

Cover the mixing bowl with cling wrap and place in a warm breeze free spot for 1 to 4 hours, the dough will rise and double in size. I always love this part, the dough got so huge it almost filled my kitchen aid bowl.

Sprinkle a clean work surface with a little plain flour, turn out the dough and roll to around 1/2 an inch thick..

Using a doughnut cutter cut out your doughnut rounds and holes. If you don't have a doughnut cutter a large and small circle cutter are just as good.

Transfer the doughnut and hole cutouts onto a tray lined with baking paper and allow to rise once more for at least 30 minutes.

To fry the doughnuts heat the oil to 180 degrees c. (350 f.) in a large saucepan. I'm so happy I finally got a thermometer.
Carefully drop the doughnuts into the oil and fry until light golden brown.

 Flip the doughnuts over with a wooden skewer or oil safe strainer, fry until evenly coloured on both sides.

Remove the doughnuts from the oil and place on a wire rack with paper towel underneath to catch any excess oil. Continue frying the remaining doughnuts and doughnut holes.

  See how fluffy and yummy looking they are!

For the Strawberry Glaze
2/3 cup pureed strawberries
½ cup butter
2 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

To make the Strawberry Glaze- Puree the strawberries in a food procressor.

Melt the butter in a small sauce pan. Add the vanilla, strawberries and icing sugar to the melted butter. Stir the glaze until smooth. Take it off the heat. (I mad the mistake of cooking mine too long and it got too thin)

Dip the doughnuts into the glaze. At this point most of the doughnut holes somehow disappeared.

Place the glazed doughnuts on a wire rack and allow the glaze to set. Have a tray or paper under the rack to  catch the drips of glaze.

Enjoy!!

Doughnuts

15 grams instant rise yeast

¼ cup warm water

1 ½ cups whole milk

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs (room temperature)

1/3 cup Crisco (I used half butter, half vegetable shortening)

2 ½ cups plain flour

3 cups fine cake flour

1 litre vegetable oil (for frying)

• Pour milk into a small saucepan and bring it to the boil, once boiled turn off the heat and allow to cool.
• Prepare the yeast. Add the warm water to a small bowl and empty in the sachets of yeast,mix together. Set the bowl aside in a warm spot for ten minutes while the yeast activates, it will bubble and double in size.
• Add the milk, sugar, salt, eggs, shortening/ butter and plain flour to a large mixer bowl, mix well.
• Pour in the yeast mixture and beat until smooth, add the cake flour and mix until combined. Continue mixing the dough on high for about 3 minutes until smooth.
• Cover the mixing bowl with cling wrap and place in a warm breeze free spot for 1 to 4 hours, the dough will rise and double in size.
• Sprinkle a clean work surface with plain flour, turn out the dough and roll to around 1/2 an inch thick.
• Using a doughnut cutter cut out your doughnut rounds and holes. If you don't have a doughnut cutter a large and small circle cutter are just as good.
• Transfer the doughnut and hole cutouts onto a tray lined with baking paper and allow to rise once more for at least 30 minutes.
• To fry the doughnuts heat the oil to 180 degrees c. (350 f.) in a large saucepan.
• Carefully drop the doughnuts into the oil and fry until light golden brown.
• Flip the doughnuts over with a wooden skewer or oil safe strainer, fry until evenly coloured on both sides.
• Remove the doughnuts from the oil and place on a wire rack with paper towel underneath to catch any excess oil. Continue frying the remaining doughnuts and doughnut holes.

Strawberry Glaze
2/3 cup pureed strawberries
½ cup butter
2 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Puree the strawberries in a food processor.
• Melt the butter in a small sauce pan. 
• Add the vanilla, strawberries and icing sugar to the melted butter. Stir the glaze until smooth. Take it off the heat. (I mad the mistake of cooking mine too long and it got too thin)
• Dip the doughnuts into the glaze.
• Place the glazed doughnuts on a wire rack and allow the glaze to set. Have a tray or paper under the rack to  catch the drips of glaze.