Birthday Banana Cake

For my partners birthday he requested “my” banana cake and since all of my recipes are on my old dead laptop I had to find a new one! Now I am all for change except when in comes to “my” banana cake. After hours of research I decided to go with this one: 
2 large ripe bananas

1/3 cup (80 ml) sour cream, room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs, room temperature

1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

2 cups (230 grams) cake flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

10 tablespoons (140 grams) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

From Joy of baking

To mix things up a bit I decided to make a three layer banana cake covered in chocolate ganache! I've never made ganache so I followed this video, How to make chocolate ganache for decorating cakes Inspired by Michelle Cake Designs, word for word and it came out perfactly yummy and was super easy to make. I used Cadbury milk chocolate but any chocolate will be fine. 

I made one and a half times the recipe and divided it into three lots, each baked in 23cm square pan.

 

This is where it started going a little wrong. To get perfectly straight sides you have to trim the edges but I decided to trim one cake at a time instead of all three at once. This resulted in a slightly wobbly finish.

 

In the video she lets the ganache cool to room temperature, refrigerates it over night and then brings it back to room temperature to use. Since I was pressed for time I let it cool to room temperature and warmed it a little so it was easier to spread. I spread the ganache in between the layers and then finally over the cake and used a spatular to even it out. 

 

As I said the cake was a bit wobbly on the sides and unlike icing ganache doesn’t hide the flaws in the cake so the sides looked a little uneven. I suggest putting the cake on a wire cooling rack and then pouring the ganache over the top and letting it run. This way you don’t get a pool of ganache like I did and the ganache spreads a lot more evenly.  

 

Ta da! The finished product, not bad for a first attempt, the hole on top is from the musical candle.  

  

Triple chocolate!!

So this is my first batch in my new kitchen! I did the bigger half in the maker and the smaller half with frosting.

And because one layer of chocolate over chocolate pops isn’t enough, I added white chocolate!

Pretty bouquet!

And all packed..

Moving maddness!

So since I am moving very ridiculously shortly I haven’t been able to bake (apologies) however while looking for things for my new pad I came across TheHappy Lab.

 Must have!

Happy Easter

So since its Easter I thought why not baby chicks as cake pops? Used the cake pop maker again but revised my recipe a bit. In the instructional book that came with the maker says to add pudding mix to your cake mix as well as an extra egg. I used Weight Watchers pudding mix (that’s all I could find) and the extra egg and it really made a difference! The cake balls were denser and held the stick very well and were far easer to handle. Tasted better too! 

I used Wilton yellow candy melts to dip. I found that when melted the consistenc of the melts was a bit too thick to dip and the packet suggested to use a little bit of vegetable shortening which helped. I used the same modelling pasted I used for the bunny ears for the beak and feet just dyed it yellow with gel food colour. Forgot to pick up edible ink pen for the eyes but they still turned out cute.   

Also had some pink melts left over so made some pink bunnies!

And packaged them up nice and pretty.

Happy Easter and a very Happy Birthday to my little brother Akshay!

Pretty Present

Put this together for my friend Rose, made her day!

Cake pops!

Now I initially got this idea from bakerella.com, pure genius! Bite sized balls of adorable goodness! So finally after a long and slightly expensive shopping trip this is what I came up with. Also a week before Easter I thought why not bunnies!

While searching for lolly pop sticks at Spotlight I found this:

Usually I believe in making everything from scratch but in this case I figured I’d use a mix out of a box just in case something went horribly wrong.

Well a few things went wrong, first I used the entire mix for the 18 cake balls and this is what happened:

The mixture over-flowed horribly. I suggest using half the mix. The cake balls come out perfect though! Also because of how the lid is made the top half of each ball wasn’t browned but I suggest doing the toothpick test about 10min into baking so you don’t burn the bottom.

And then something else went even more horribly wrong; after the balls had cooled I went to attach the sticks. To secure the stick to the ball I dipped the top of the stick in to melted chocolate and then into the ball. However because I used sponge cake mix the cake was too light, the stick went straight through and the entire batch of cakes pops was unusable. Note to self use dense cake mix: chocolate mud cake maybe.

After a (cider) break I thought why not go old school!

Traditionally cake pops are made from crumbling cake, mixing with frosting and rolling bite sized balls. For best cake pops refrigerate until they are firm enough insert a stick into.    

And honestly this was so easy. Add enough frosting to mould the crumbs into balls and be careful because the frosting is super sweet. The beauty of this method is that you can use any cake mix. I used sponge cake mix that failed me the first time around and it turned out beautifully.

    

I used plastic and wooden sticks. I found that for the larger cake pops the wooden sticks support the weight better. Once the sticks are secure start dipping into melted chocolate. When the whole cake pop is coated gently tap the hand that is holding the cake pop to drip off any excess chocolate and start decorating! As I said my inspiration was Easter so to make bunny ears cut out a small heart shape out of modelling paste.

Cut in half and pinch the top to resemble ears. Let it harden on a curved object, I used a rolling pin, to give it a natural curve and petal dust pink for the pink bits inside the ears.

 

Attaching it is slightly tricky. Once the cake pop is completely coated in chocolate but before the chocolate dries poke 2 holes on the top wide enough to fit the ears. Dip the bottom tip of the ears in melted chocolate (to help it stick) and insert in the hole.    

Enjoy!

Welcome Cakers!

I’ve been baking regularly for a while now and figured I’d share my sugary delights with the world.

Enjoy,

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