Birthday cakes for all ages!

Due to a run of birthday's in our family the last month or so has been very full of cake, this is obviously no bad thing (especially as I'm pregnant and not yet thinking about dropping a couple of pounds!) It all started in  May with a Cars cake for Leo's friend and  Leo's two birthday cakes and last week we finished off with a cake for my friend Sam's birthday.

I don't claim to be a very good cake decorator, the actual making of the cake is fine but I have no patience, not a lot of imagination and a very unsteady hand so usually I bake and Aaron decorates when it comes to 'novelty cakes'  However as he's been working so much I've been giving it a go!

I was most worried about the No.6 Cars cake as it was a present but it seemed to go down very well, I got very stressed whilst rolling out the icing as its so warm that I find it hard to handle, Aaron actually rescued me with this one as it was so big that every time I picked up the icing to put on the cake it broke - he came home just as I was about to launch it across the kitchen in a strop!

I was reasonably happy with Leo's party cake although he wasn't impressed as I'd put one of his engines on it and 'You don't put toys in food Mummy'  :)    He was much happier with the second one I did for his actual birthday. 

For my Dad's birthday I made a yummy Coconut Cake...

225g unsalted butter
225g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
200g self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
25g cornflour ( I used extra SR flour as I didn't have any and it seemed to be ok!) 
50g desicated coconut soaked in 150ml boiling water

Blitz together with a mixer all in one go - nice and easy!
Filling - 
25g desicated coconut
75g unsalted butter
150g icing sugar
1 tablespoon Malibu (or coconut liquer)

Toast the coconut in a dry frying pan, leave to cool. Mix butter and icing sugar to a paste, add the malibu and dried coconut.
Topping - 
2 -4 tablespoons of Malibu
Icing sugar (I can't actually remember how much)

Mix until you have a runny paste and drizzle over top of cake.


When it came to Aaron's birthday I knew it just had to be chocolate based to I used a combination of two recipes and came up with a Triple Chocolate Cake...

85g milk chocolate
1 tsbp milk
115g self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
115g butter
115g caster sugar
2 eggs
1tsp vanilla extract

Melt the chocolate and to all other ingredients into a bowl, mix and spoon into cake tins. Bake for about 20 minutes in 190c preheated oven.

I used normal buttercream to sandwich the layers together and then topped it with the best chocolate covering I've ever made!

Topping - 
50g cooking chocolate
2 tbsp water
25g butter
175g icing sugar
approx 50g white chocolate

Break the chocolate into a bowl, add the water and butter and set over a pan of simmering water until melted. Sift the icing sugar into the mixture and beat until smooth and thick.
Pour over cake and then decorate with white chocolate curls / sprinkles made by using a grater or potato peeler.


Sam's birthday cake, like Leo's was a standard Victoria Sponge and yet again I battled the fondant icing - this time entirely on my own and I was quite pleased with the result. It certainly tasted good anyway!