Sunday, 18 July 2010

The (toy) story so far...

So what cake would a three year old boy want?
Well it bl***y better be this one is all I can say!

















So at first glance you could be forgiven for thinking I'd spent hours carefully moulding icing into intricate figures but this is a bit of a cheats cake this year, in that I bought the Toy Story mini figures ,







So i decided to take a break from force feeding my kids various vegetables in their cakes and went with an old faithful recipe from Nigella Lawson, Buttermilk Birthday Cake.

This cake is ideal for any birthday cake you want to make in a special mould as it holds its shape brilliantly, or if you need a firm cake which will hold its shaped.
But you don't have to wait for someone's birthday - it's a great recipe to cook with the kids at any time …
Recipe

Serves 10
250g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt

200ml buttermilk (or 75g yogurt mixed with 125ml semi-skinned milk)

125g softened butter, plus extra for greasing
200g caster sugar
3 large free-range eggs
icing sugar and ready-to-roll icing to decorate

(I used double this quantity as I wanted to be sure there was plenty of cake.)
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4. Grease and line a 23cm square cake tin.
Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate and salt together. Mix the buttermilk (or yogurt mixture).
Cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a little of the flour with the last one. Gradually add the rest of the flour with the buttermilk, one after the other, until thoroughly mixed.

Pour into the tin and bake for about 30 minutes or until well risen and pale golden brown. Loosen the sides of the cake with a round-bladed knife and turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

When cold, drizzle with icing sugar mixed with lemon juice – get the kids to help - and decorate with ready to roll icing.

I bought pre-colour icing too to make the toy blocks.

For the floor I made a fairly thick fondant icing and added food colouring to make a light brown floor colour. I spread it thinly on the cake board and when almost set, scored the lined to make floor boards. After some drying time I painted in-between the floor boards with black food colouring and added some nails.
It was then just a case of assembling the pieces of cake and covering with icing sheets and a duvet.

The head board was made of ginger bread (see below) and cut out using a handmade cardboard template.
Ingredients
350g plain flour
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
100g butter
175g soft brown sugar

1 egg

4 tbsp Golden Syrup

Method: How to make gingerbread

1. Mix together the flour, spices and bicarbonate of soda.
2. Rub in the butter until it looks like breadcrumbs.
3. Add the sugar.
4. In a separate bowl mix together the egg and golden syrup then add to the dry ingredients.
5. Mix together until it forms a dough. Tip out onto a clean, floured work surface and knead for a minute or two until it is smooth.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
7. Roll out the dough to the depth of a pencil (approx 5mm) and cut out around the cardboard template.
8. Lay the biscuits on a greased baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.
If the holes in your cut out have joined together during baking, you can cut them out again using a sharp knife before the gingerbread cools completely.
Store the gingerbread in an airtight container to avoid softening and add to the cake just prior to serving.

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