Pink-guins and a Beautiful Chocolate Cake!

My daughter turned four recently. Her birthday is the single point in the year when I don my party planner's hat. To decide on a theme I started thinking of all the things she liked at the time. Thanks to Happy Feet and Madagascar, she liked penguins then, so I thought it'd be cute to make some sweet lil penguins - in the form of cake toppers, cake pops and cookies.

Straightaway, I knew I wasn't going to stay true to nature and make my penguins black. Though it's one of my favourite colours, I wanted a more childlike, cutesy colour scheme. Pink and purple popped into mind instantly. I know it's a cliched combination, but the more I considered it, the more I liked the idea of making pink-guins!

I'd planned to do a plain white cake with pink-guins, and pink and purple polka dots, but when I visualised it, I felt that it might need a third colour to liven it up. I was leaning toward silver, but I wasn't fully convinced it was a good choice. For inspiration, I visited one of my favourite craft stores hoping to pick up some ribbon for the goodie bags.

What I found was this:

It's a roll of masking tape, or washi tape, that is mostly used in paper crafts. Pink and purple dots, along with brown and that beautiful, vibrant, perfect golden yellow. Jackpot!

I used the tape for two things. Firstly for the goodie bags.

And then on the packaging for the cookies that went into the goodie bags.

Now about the cake itself. I gave the choice of flavour to the birthday girl, and the reply was immediate: chocolate! How much I loved her in that moment! Then it changed to chocolate and strawberry, then one layer of chocolate and one of strawberry, strawberry layer on top, chocolate down and ..... I didn't like which direction this was headed in, so I said two layers of chocolate with strawberry buttercream in the middle, which met with reluctant approval. Here's how it ended up looking.

The igloo was a simple vanilla cake baked in this bowl-shaped cake pan I bought because it was ridiculously cute. But the credit for the igloo concept goes to my sister. The idea struck her the moment she saw the the pan. And the credit for the flowers goes to my daughter. I'd wanted to do polka dots, but a birthday cake without flowers is taboo apparently. But kudos to her because I think the flowers worked out beautifully, better than the dots would've.

The only part of this whole penguin parade that didn't turn out as I'd hoped were the cake pops. 

They look ok enough, but problems with getting the texture of the chocolate coating right combined with a lack of time and energy had me go through the dipping stage hastily, without much finesse. Anyway, despite their less-than-perfect appearance, they were delicious and the kids loved them, which is what matters in the end.

And now finally, as mentioned in the title of this post - the beautiful chocolate cake! I'd been trying out various chocolate cake recipes off the Internet lately but not really liking any. Then I found this gem in a book I borrowed from the library. Let me tell you why I love this cake: it's quick to put together, it's moist and delicious without being overly rich, it keeps wonderfully. Best of all, even after being stashed in the freezer for a month, once it was thawed, it tasted as beautiful as on the day it was baked.

The birthday cake above is two of these cakes sandwiched with strawberry buttercream. Apologies for not having any pics of the inside of the cake.

Devil's Food Cake (from Good Housekeeping Great Cakes)

100g (3 1/2 oz) unsalted butter, softened

225 ml (8 fl oz) milk

1tbsp lemon juice

225g (8 oz) plain flour

1 tsp bicarb of soda

50g (2oz) cocoa powder

250g (9oz) golden caster sugar

3 medium eggs, beaten

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (160 fan oven), gas mark 4. Grease two 20.5 cm (8 inch) sandwich tins and baseline with greaseproof paper. Alternatively use one 9x13 inch pan for one rectangle layer.

2. Pour the milk into a jug, then add lemon juice or vinegar and leave for 5 min. Sift the flour, bicarb of soda and cocoa powder together.

3. In a large bowl, cream the butter with half the sugar until light. Gradually beat in the eggs, then mix in the rest of the sugar. Add the reserved soured milk alternately with the flour mixture - around a couple of tbsps at a time.

4. Divide the mixture between the prepared tins and level the tops. Bake for 30 min. Leave in the tins for 10 min, then turn out onto wire rack to cool. 

Chocolate Flowerpots: Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Grass & Flower Cookie Pops

Sometimes, ideas spark when you get a new toy and want to play with it. In this case, the 'toy' in question was the Wilton tip # 233, which is most commonly used for piping grass (or hair). So when we'd planned to invite a bunch of guests for an informal meal, I thought a platter of flowerpots would be great for dessert.

All the recipes used here for the cupcakes, cookies and frosting are from Glorious Treats. The only major change is that I decided to make mini-cupcakes instead of regulars. Now, I don't remember exactly how many minis this recipe yields as I did snack on a couple as soon as they were ready (who wouldn't!), but it was more than 40.

For the flowers, you could just plop some sugar ones over once you've piped the grass, but I decided to try my hand at cookie pops. Apparently the sticks used for cookie pops are different from those used for cake pops. Since I didn't have any of the former, and also since I had mini cupcakes, I thought using toothpicks would be better. I painted them green with some diluted food colouring (and a paintbrush reserved only for decorating purposes!), and let them dry before using.

When making pops, it's safer if the cookies are a little thicker than usual, so they don't break during the popping process. I used my smallest flower cutter here. Once the shapes are cut, hold the cookie in one hand and with the other insert the toothpick. Think screwdriver here; you need to slowly rotate the toothpick applying gentle pressure till it's in about 1 cm. Check the back of the cookie and gently smooth over any breaks. Also, you must be sure to put the blunt side of the toothpicks into the cookies, to avoid any nasty pokes when biting into them.

Once all the cookie pops are ready, bake as usual depending on the size. I was quite apprehensive about how they would turn out as they seemed very fragile when I'd placed them on the tray, but surprisingly (and happily!) they're quite sturdy when they're baked. I had also made slightly bigger flower cookies (no pops), and leaf cookies just to strew about in the platter.

To decorate, I used royal icing in several colours. Just on a whim though, I decided to try decorating these cookies without any specialist equipment. I used a teaspoon to pour flood consistency icing on the cookies, spreading it out with a toothpick. Let this dry fully for a few hours. Then, for the petals, I blobbed icing with the blunt edge of a toothpick and then pulled it into shape with the sharp end.

I think they turned out alright for the most part, barring a few unsightly blobs here and there. So you definitely need piping bags and a selection of tips for consistent, professional work and to achieve various effects (like the grass and this basketweave). But even if you don't have this equipment for whatever reason, don't let that stop you from decorating sweets. It is still possible to make cuties like these with common kitchen items and imagination!

Cake Pops: Initial Observations

People's inventiveness never ceases to amaze me, especially in the sweet decorating domain. I mean, for years, bakers everywhere have ended up with crumbs & chunks of cake after leveling and carving .... what do some bright sparks decide to do? Bind the pieces with frosting, shape into rounds and voila, cake balls! What do brighter sparks decide to do? Poke lollipop sticks into the cake balls, and voila voila, we have cake pops!

The cake pop craze has been sweeping the world for a while now, but it was only a few weeks ago that I got around to trying my hand at them. Before starting, I read this great post and watched this short video by Bakerella, the lady who's widely believed to have pioneered pops. Thus prepared, I made my first batch for a friend and her kids.

For these, I used chunks of vanilla cake I'd frozen. I left the chunks to reach room temperature, crumbled and combined them with melted dark chocolate, instead of frosting. After chilling the rounds as described in the links above, I dipped them in melted white candy melts thinned with canola oil. Needless to say, with that much sugar, they were a resounding success especially among the kids.

For my second batch, I wanted a different flavour. I used the same vanilla cake crumbs, and I whipped up a small amount of buttercream, only it was enhanced with one of my favourite ingredients - orange zest. Instead of the candy melts, I dipped these rounds in melted white chocolate (I used Nestle's white choc melts). The orangey taste came through beautifully. The piping on these was with homemade royal icing.

So two batches down, I just wanted to share some thoughts on pops:

- You don't necessarily need frosting to bind the crumbs; melted chocolate works just as well. Only, use white chocolate if you want a light interior. I think condensed milk might work too.

- For coating the pops, I found that both candy melts and chocolate work well. You will have to thin them down to get the required dipping consistency. The Americans prefer shortening, however clear, unflavoured cooking oils work just as well; I used canola oil. Add it gradually to the melted coating till you get it flowing smoothly.

- I find white chocolate more economical than candy melts, for the simple reason that you can colour the chocolate using regular paste / liquid food colours. Whereas for candy melts, you must either buy them in the colours you want, or use oil-based colours that are specifically for candy. While candy colours are available here in Sydney, they are quite expensive.

- For dipping, I found it easier to put the melted candy melts / chocolate in a coffee mug instead of a bowl, as it provided the necessary depth. This is also preferable if you're only making a small number of cake pops; you don't need as much of the candy melts / choc as you would if you used a bowl.

- When shaking off the excess coating, I recommend Bakerella's method of tapping the wrist of the hand holding the stick. Tapping the stick directly against the bowl tends to make the cake ball wobble on the stick.

- Both the chocolate and candy coatings dry in minutes, so if you're going to put sprinkles on, do so quickly while the coating is wet. The other way to decorate is to let the coating dry fully, and then pipe designs on. I tried painting with food colours, but sadly, it doesn't work. Invest in the best quality food markers you can afford, to be able to draw on cake pops.

Well, that's all the tips I can think of at the moment. Do try these out. I used to wonder what all the fuss was about till I made my first batch: they were loads of fun to make, ridiculously cute to look at, and pure indulgence to savour.