3D House Cake

A child laughter is always a happy song singing to our ears . You will not get bored or annoy by it. Therefore hanging around with children make you felt younger and indeed help you stay energetic.

It is my god daughter 1 year old celebration. Kid just grow faster than we can imagine. It is always honor  to celebrate birthday together as a family :)

I want to bring something special for her party. Got the permission from the parents to bring a cake for this special occasion.( Just in case they would like to order something special for their precious baby)

I do not dare to promise anything. Though I know this is the cake I would like to make - House Cake.I saw this cake last year from the blog. Have been looking for an occasion I can make this cake and not to eat it by myself ( it is not wise to eat a whole house of cake ^^) . However not knowing how well I will success in making this cake. I just told them hopefully it will be a surprise.

I follow the link ->Cook.Bake.Love and appreciate the blogger of sharing what they have learn and how to improve the cake decoration . She is good in doing the decoration , I hope I can have such skill :)


So here is how to build the house ..

Ingredient :

1 piece of  8" butter cake with 2" height.
( I used NGSK butter cake ->Zebra Butter Cake)

1 piece of 10" pandan sponge cake 1.5" height
(I used one of the swissroll chiffon cake base ->Yam Taro Paste Swissroll)

Cream frosting :

For frosting the house in between the layer

Blueberry Cream

100g Blueberry ( I used can blueberry as I need to juice )
250g Pouring Cream ( Whip to stiff peak)

Method :
1. Puree the blueberry and press through the sift .
2. Mixed the fine puree with the whipping cream.

For outter layer of  the house

Strawberry yoghurt cream

Ingredient

300g Strawberry Yoghurt
300g Pouring Cream ( Whip to stiff peak)
2Tbsp Gelatin
4Tbsp Water

Method :

1. Put the water in a bowl and sprinkle gelatin in it. Mix well and place in a bowl of hot water to have it melt.
2. Whip pouring cream till stiff peak.
3. Pour the melted gelatin into the strawberry yoghurt and mixed well.
4. Fold the whipping cream into the strawberry yoghurt mixture.


Chocolate cream ( for the house ground)

Melt 10g of dark chocolate ( double boil)
Mix with 100g whipping cream

To make the grass - Desicated coconut mix with some pandan ecessene.
Candies , green grapes , raspberry , biscuits , anything you think your kids will like.

Housing making step :

1. Level bthe butter cake and cut into precisely half.
2.Spread the blueberry cream ont he half of the butter cake and place it on top of the other buttercake.
3.Divide this cake into 3 equal portion. , cut out 1/3 ( be precise as you can )
4.Lift up the 1/3 portion of the cake to standing position , cut diagonally into 2 triangles.
5.Place the 2 triangle together to form a roof and join them with the blueberry cream.
6.Place the roof on top of the remaining 2/3 of the cake. Joint together with blueberry cream. Now the house has been form ^^.
7. Spread the chocolate cream on the sponge cake, place the house on top and position as your preference.
8. Spread strawberry cream to cover the house and cream as smooth as possible and start to decorate the house to your liking or the liking of the litte one.

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I love to have fruit on my cake and try not to put too much of candies. So I build the house with green grapes as path leading to the door and have a bush of raspberry as roses and green grass. I have little princess & horses candies. Afterall is still a little girl cake.

Beside making a ginger bread house this year, maybe can try to do a house cake as a beautiful dessert. If you have the little one I am sure they will love to decorate the cake with you.

Hopefully this cake will bring a surprise on the christmas dinner. Wish you all a merry christmas and blessed new year 2014 ^^

 

Ladybug Steam Cupcake

Well is the time of year , where everyone is rushing to get pressie, prepare food , arrange for holidays .  To want to end the year more foodfull , and have the celebration mood to journey forward to New Year.

Staying in western country, Christmas is a big event for everyone. In US the celebration kick start from thanksgiving in November till the new year. I used to fantasy on how Christmas will be celebrated in western country. The movie seem to project such romantic event with the love one and snowing whole days, nights and months.  Well, sorry Australia is summer during Christmas . How people celebrate Christmas in this country is not romantic at all. Is very family , we tend to have BBQ at the back yard and beers and hot hot weather.  So maybe should a white Christmas will make some different ? Not sure has yet to experience it.

I try not to get too involve on getting present and eating ourselves silly as years goes by. Honestly that is lot of time the present we give or get might not be the one people like. All the people I knew of, are very blessed and have house full of things . This should be a season to bless those who really in need. So I want my Christmas to be one that is give to the needy not to top up others store room .

Every year my church will have an event for the children to know the true meaning of Christmas->Christmas for Kids ( C4K). This event has run for 10 years and we really want to bring the love of GOD to community that has struggle or needs in life.

So I participate in baking Cupcake for the little one. I found this recipe from the website , which I knew the children surely will love the print on this cake . I hope by enjoying the cupcake it will bring some joys to this special day for them .

The recipe I used and modify  is from ->My Little Favourite DIY

Ingredients :

3 Cold Eggs
275g Plain Flour
3 tsp baking powder
150ml Fresh milk
1 tsp ovallette ( I cant find this in Aus, I replace with 1/2 baking soda)
220g Castor Sugar ( can be reduced)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1-2 piece of dark chocolate ( melted by double boiling )

Method :

1) Place the egg and sugar in a mixing bowl , beat till fluffy and creamy , reach ribbon stage
2) Mix in 1/3 of the flour in the egg mixture till combine, pour in 1/2 the milk portion. Follow by another 1/3 of flour then 1/2 milk portion and finally pour in the reminding 1/3 flour in the mixture and combine well.
3)Take 1 Tbsp plain mixture and put into a piping bag
4)Take 3 Tbsp plain mixture , mix with dark melted chocolate and put into pipping bag .
5) Colour the rest of the mixing with bright red and put into a piping bag
6) Pump the red color mixture into the cup about 80% full .
7) Draw a cross with the chocolate mixture and do dots on both sides. Color the upper half of the cross with chocolate mixture.
8) Make 2 plain dots as eye and filled 2 small dots in the plain mixture as eye balls.
9)Steam with medium high heat for 10-12 min. Remember to cover the steamer lids with tea towel. You do not want the water condense to drop onto the cake.

As I do not know how should the texture and the taste of the cake with ovallette inside. Is hard for me to know what I did is successful or the cake should be more moist then this.

I do a pre run batch before the actual baking events. And put some strawberry jam in the cake as fillings. However the jam melted and leak out from the bottom of the cake and make it wet . Where I omit the jam but instead filled with some chocolate chip instead..

The cake is moist and is not as chewy as I thought it will be . The texture of the cake is sort of like chinese fa kueh. Thank GOD the texture is not like the chinese style steam cake.

What is the let down when I did that for the big batch. The cup cake liner I used seem to be bigger which I do not notice it. Until I start steaming the cake it takes longer than my pre run. The cake folor fade and some of the print fade as well.



Lesson learnt - Do not fill it too full , as the longer the heat to steam it will cause the color fade and the cake will surely crack! Is a hard lesson , but I will be more careful next time when it come to cake steaming.