With only few weeks for my India trip, blogging and cooking has taken a back seat these days. Lots of things to organise, lots of shopping and moreoever lots of dusting and cleaning to be done at home too. Usually before going on a vacation first thing I do is cleaning up nooks and crannies of home just because I like to come back to a clean house ! Only when I started cleaning I realised that it s a never ending process ! And on top of all this, summer is not making things easier either. Lil A likes to play out longer and bringing him back home from playgrounds is not that easy :) So after a long day I just curl up in the couch watching Tele with no energy to type a blog post.
Coming to todays topic, I did this baby shower cake few weeks before. I did try to make a small video for this but unfortunately director didnt do a good job and neither did I ! Many of my friends and readers have requested me to make tutorials about fondant cakes but as a self tought person I am still in learning process and each cake is an experiment to me and the uncertainity in the outcome when I start the work is the only problem which stops me from making a tutorial, but inspite of all that I did try to make a video but it wasnt succesfull. So I promise you all that one day when I am confident enough about my work I will post a video for you all :)
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| Flaten out a ball of fondant. |
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| With the modelling tool shown press the edges for the pattern. |
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| With a flesh coloured fondant roll out an oval face. |
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| Place the face on the pillow and press gently in the place of eyes. |
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| Make a dummy and place near the mouth. |
This was a chocolate Mocha cake with mocha buttercream. I made two 9 inch cakes and sadwiched it with Mocha buttercream and covered it with fondant. Placed the pillow and baby's head on the cake. Roughly made a small body and covered it with a fondant blanket. Cut out some polka dots with piping(icing ) tips back side and sticked them with water. Made a small feeding bottle and placed near the sleeping baby. Tada a baby shower cake is ready for u :)
INGREDIENTS ( yields two small 8 inch cakes for serving 8- 10 )
Plain flour - 1 1/4 cup
Cocoa powder - 1/4 cup
Coffee powder/ granules - 1 tbs
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Baking soda - 1/4 tsp
Salt - 1/8 tsp
Sugar - 1 cup
Eggs - 2 large
Oil - 3/4 cup
Milk - 1/4 cup
Boiling water - 1/4 cup
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
Method
- Sift flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, baking soda and keep it aside.
- In a bowl beat eggs and sugar for few minutes .
- Add oil, vanilla extract and mix.
- Mix coffee powder in 1/4 cup of boiling water and keep it aside.
- Add 1/3 rd of the dry ingredients and fold in.
- Add the milk and fold in.
- Add the next 1/3 rd of dry ingredients and fold in.
- Add boiling coffee and fold in.
- Finally add the rest of the flour and fold in.
- Pour the batter into two 8 inch greased cake tins and bake it in a preheated oven at 180 degree celcius for 20- 30 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
For Mocha buttercream icing
Unsalted butter - 200 gm (apporximately 1 cup )
Icing sugar - 400 gm ( nearly 3 cups )
Meringue powder - 2 tsp
Double cream - 100 ml
Salt - pinch
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
Dark chocolate - 80 gm (melted )
Coffee powder - 1 tsp
Warm water - 2- 3 tbs
Method
- In a mixing bowl add 1 cup of sugar, salt, meringue powder and mix.
- Add cream to it and beat it in a electric beater at medium speed with paddle attachment for 5 minutes.
- Add remaining sugar and beat for 3 minutes.
- Add softened butter little by little and beat for 5-7 minutes at medium high speed.
- Dissolve coffee powder in warm water and keep it aside. Melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl placed above a simmering pot of water. Let the coffee and chocolate cool.
- Add vanilla extract, coffee and chocolate to the buttercream and beat at a very low speed for few seconds until mixed.
