Easy Mermaid Birthday Cake

This year, my newly 5 year old, Willow opted for a Mermaid themed party! After I convinced her that she couldn't have a Unicorn theme two years in a row that is! She had never had a BIG party before, so this was her year. We made it a joint party with one of her close friends, hired a hall, invited their whole kinder class and more and had games, craft activities the whole lot!

Sharing a party with another family is great, sharing the party work load worked out so well for us! I volunteered myself to take on the task of the cakes! Because I secretly love stressing myself out about making them perfect and spending half the day in the kitchen!

But, actually these cakes were relatively simple and looked really cute! I probably would have made it even easier for myself if I had some of the proper baking utensils, like one of those handy metal scrapers for the butter cream, but hey.. it worked!

For the cakes, I used the same recipe I always use, the simple yet effective Butter Cake recipe from Taste.com.au , always a hit! Basically, this recipe makes 1 cake layer in an 8 inch or 9 inch cake pan.

For the butter cream, its a mixture between guessing and reading too many recipes, I still haven't perfected the butter-cream, it is next on my to do list! If anyone has a fail proof recipe hit me up! But, this time what I did do right was to invest in some gorgeous gel colours for the butter cream, rather than trying to create something from the basic supermarket colouring. I used Ameri-color Violet and Dusty Rose and they both turned out gorgeous!

My favourite part of this cake though was making the little fondant Mermaid Tails. I haven't used fondant much before, mostly because I don't like the taste of it and I've been a little worried it wouldn't work out. But, I am here to let you know its actually pretty easy! Especially if you are good a playing with play-doh! I purchased the silicone tail mould/mold from Ebay. The tails were really just a matter of rolling the fondant around in my hands until it got warm and therefore soft enough to mold. I experimented with the two colours mixing them together before and after they were in the mold, and ended up with a range of cute colour combos. After ensuring they were pressed down enough in the mold, and removing excess fondant from the top and around the edges I peeled them out, and gently stuck the skewers almost all the way to the end and left them to harden. Here is a great You Tube tutorial that I watched before making them : How to make fondant mermaid tails

I then pulled out this champagne coloured edible shimmer I had purchased, and brushed it onto the tails with one of the kids unused paint brushes! And WHAT a massive difference it made, they became all shimmery and gorgeous! You can see the before and after shimmer pictures below!

Some of the other cakes I've made for my kids birthdays are :

Easy Toothless Dragon Icecream Cake

Easy Miffy Birthday Cake

Pastel Layered Ice Cream cake with White Chocolate Bark

Easy Rudolph the Reindeer Christmas Cupcakes

The words 'School Bake Sale' can strike fear in the hearts of many parents! I experienced our very first Christmas Bake Sale as a part of our School Fair this week. A few weeks before the fair I decided to make Reindeer Cupcakes (you know when you assume you'll be well rested and have plenty of time to make them), and promptly told my kid. Bad Idea, because they weren't going to forget it. A few days before the fair, in one of the busiest weeks we've had,  including my husband having to travel interstate last minute for work and one child breaking their arm!!!! I really started to regret my choice. Turns out however, that these Reindeer Cupcakes were actually relatively easy and didn't take much time at all. They aren't "perfect" by any means, but they are FUN and the kids loved them! Which is what Christmas baking is all about right!

Cupcake Recipe:

Vanilla Cupcakes

225g unsalted butter, softened

150g caster sugar

225g Self-Raising Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

4 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

I put everything in my Cuisine Companion and mix on 3-4 for the first few seconds so flour doesn't fly everywhere , and then  level 10-12 for about 1-2mins with the mixing blade. But any good mixer will do, or by hand if you are that way inclined. Just mix until its all smooth.

Spoon it into cupcake cases. Bake for 20 mins at 175 degrees celsius (350 F) 

I iced it with a Chocolate Buttercream Icing, there are plenty of easy recipes online, I just used cocoa powder not actual melted chocolate as I was feeling a bit lazy!

Now to the Reindeer Faces.

The eyes are white chocolate chips with a dot of dark writing icing on top.

The Noses are White Chocolate Melts with a M&M stuck down with a dab of writing icing. 

The Antlers are Pretzels cut in half and just press them into the icing to stick!

Easy Miffy Birthday Cake

This year for Willows 2nd Birthday, I made her a Miffy bunny cake! She does love rabbits after all, and Rabbits don't get much cuter than Miffy! Plus, Miffy's face is really, really simple! The hardest part of the whole cake is cutting the bunny ears out. But, I found an easy way to do that too!

This cake is really easy. Its perfect if anyone is embarking on their first child's birthday cake! I know, it can be a pretty daunting task! I have now successfully made 5 birthday cakes, and I have another one to make in about a months time, and Ez is requesting a dinosaur...eeep!

For all of the 5 kids birthday cakes I have ever made, I have used the same really simple butter cake recipe, I'm not trying to be all fancy, butter cakes are a simple classic, here is link to the basic cake recipe that I use. BUTTER CAKE RECIPE . For this cake I needed to double the recipe. some for the head and then some for the ears!

I used a round cake pan for Miffy's head. And then a smaller square tin for her ears, but you could use another round tin if you have one on hand, or if you only have one cake pan!

Once I baked the cakes and let them cool it was time to embark on making the shapes. I put some baking paper on a bread board and taped it down underneath, and then placed the round cake at the bottom. I then used a sharp knife and cut it a little at the top and bottom of her face to make her head a little more of an oval shape.

For Miffy's ears, I found this template on Pinterest HERE opened it on another page and printed it out at 250% the size, I tried a few other sizes, but this was perfect. I placed the template on the square cake and cut around it with a sharp knife. Then I picked up the ears and moved them to the covered breadboard and put them in place! Thankfully they stayed together.

Next was time for the icing. I just used a simple Cream Cheese icing recipe with a bit of lemon for some extra zing! I'm no expert in icing cakes, but i put most of it on with a spatula and then spread it around to even it out with the back of a tablespoon.

Then, for her eyes and mouth I used liquorice. I just sliced the liquorice about 3mm thick in a round shape and stuck on her eyes, and then for her mouth sliced thin pieces and crossed them for her mouth.

Like I said, easy!!!

Some of my other cakes:
Easy Toothless Dragon Cake

And yes, we made Miffy cookies too! These little cookie/sandwich cutters I got on Amazing for less that $3 and Free shipping! Steal!

What I learnt about Fondant with Appliances Online

Last week I had my first proper daytime outing since having Willow, on my own! I know, it's taken me long enough. I've had times where I had ducked down to the shops, or gone out at night, but this is the first time in 5 whole months that I left both my kids with their Nan for half a day. And, it was glorious. Just to get the chance to do something fun and not have to worry about changing nappies, hungry babies or finding dummies. I could carry a small purse and I was free to do as I pleased! That alone made for a great morning.

So, with my little taste of freedom, what did I do?

In the kitchen with toddlers: Cheese & Vegemite Roll Ups

So, every time I go into the kitchen at the moment it is quickly followed by a little squeaky 2 year old voice demanding 'me help, me help' followed then by the screeching sound of a chair being slowly dragged over the tiles towards the kitchen bench. So, he like many toddlers loves to help in the kitchen, which is awesome (sometimes) and he wants to participate, which I love (sometimes), and I really don't want to make him feel disheartened and squash his love for helping me or making things in the kitchen.  So, in the limited time I have, I've been trying to make some really simple recipes with him, that mean he can actually help, we can have some good quality time and he can learn some simple skills as well! 

Wecipe Wednesday...

Wecipe Wednesday!?!

This is one of my favourite things to make! It isn't really like a bar, it is more like a cake...and it is delectable (introducing it to my vocab thanks to Bill Compton) . This recipe is from my Pennsylvania First Church of God cookbook that was given to me as a wedding present, it has come in very handy when trying to prepare traditional Pennsylvania dishes to help Joels homesickness!

Ingredients: 1 cup sugar
1 cup mashed bananas
1/3 cup oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
cinnamon to taste
sprinkle of salt
nuts ( I use walnunts) or grape nuts cereal.

Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan. Beat sugar, bananas, oil and eggs together. Add flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir until moist. Add vanilla, cinnamon and salt. Mix in nuts, as many as you need. Bake 25-30 mins at 350F (180C). Cool completely and frost with cream cheese frosting.

Frosting:
1 (8oz) pack cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla.

Cream together the cream cheese and butter. Add the sugar 1 cup at a time. Add vanilla and mix. Apply to cake when it is cool.

(By Christopher Weaver, Newville First Church of God)

Well this is definitely worth a try, I assure you. Of course, there is a whole lot of sugar in these, so I only make them every so often! But they sure are amazingly yum! Enjoy!