A Minion Cake (from Despicable Me) for my big 6 year old!

Assemble the Minions!

I made this cake for my son's 6th birthday party, which was on the weekend.  It was a big challenge but he and his friends loved it.

I used this recipe for the cakes (yes, it was about 5 cakes) which a friend gave me.  I made two batches of the mix and had enough for a dozen cupcakes too

Cupcakes - from The Magnolia's Bakery version, makes 48 regular cupcakes;

250g butter unsalted
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

ICING
4 cups icing sugar
125g butter unsalted
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

FOR CAKES: using an electric mixer, cream butter in a large bowl until smooth, add sugar gradually and beat until mixture is light. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sifts flours and combine. Add flours in four parts, alternating with milk and vanilla; beat well after each addition. Put mixture into 48 regular paper cupcake cases set in a muffin trays. Bake at 180 degrees C for about 20 minutes, or until golden.

FOR ICING: sift icing sugar. Place butter, milk, vanilla and half the sugar in a large mixing bowl. Beat until smooth. Add remaining sugar until icing is a good consistency. To make different colours, place icing into separate bowls and gradually add food colouring.

Note: have all ingredients at room temperature.

Tips

• Use top quality fondant - I would recommend Satin Ice over Pettinice as it tears less.  I used Pettinice for the yellow parts of the cake and it was a struggle to wrap it around the body without it stretching and tearing.
• To get a smooth finish with the fondant, take the time to ganache the cake, hot knife it to get it super smooth and then let it set before covering with fondant.
• I used half of the Wilton Ball tin to get the head shape.  The rest of the cake was made with 6 inch Wilton cake tins
• I iced the top of the cake separately to the body.  The goggle strap covered the join.  I am not sure I would do it this way again as rolling the icing around the body was quite tricky. Fortunately, I was able to cover mistakes by putting a high back on the overalls and by adding a buckle to the back of the goggles :)
• Make the goggle and the eye in advance so they have time to dry properly
• I put thin cake boards under the head top and between every two layers. I punched holes in the body cake cards so I could put wooden dowels through both the cakes and the boards.
• I used four cake dowels through all the layers except the rounded head part.

Lighting the candles

The cake along with a few cupcakes

The first slices being taken out

Christmas Gifts for teachers - Chocolate Christmas cupcakes

 I'm a bit late posting this since it is now late January, but here are the gifts I made for my son's teachers at childcare this Christmas (2010).

I used a Donna Hay cupcake recipe (http://www.donnahay.com.au/) and decorated themwith green and red 'ready to roll' icing from Gilmours and silver cachous.  I love the really bright red and green colour.

I bought Christmassy plates from Farmers (http://www.farmers.co.nz/) to put the cupcakes on, so the teachers had a lasting gift as well as an edible one.

The cellophane and silver string was from the $2 shop.  Gift tags were from Whitcoulls (http://www.whitcoulls.co.nz/).

Jackson turns three!

My little boy turned three last week so I made him some special cupcakes to take to day care.

He was very pleased with them.  I did a mixture of chocolate and vanilla cakes with ready made white icing.  I made the colours by adding drops of liquid food colouring until the colour was right.

I would like to say I made the little figures on the top of each cake, but they were from the supermarket!

We had a little party at home and I made a rainbow jelly ring. I got the idea from Liss at http://www.frillsinthehills.com/.

I couldn't get all the same colours and flavours as they have in Australia so I had to improvise a little with what we have available here in NZ.  It was delicious and everyone loved it.

I used my tupperware jelly mould. I sprayed it with canola oil spray first but it came out so easily that I am not sure if I really needed to.

I served it with rainbow icecream cake :)



Cheese Cakes - not what you expect!

I am not sure if this is a New Zealand recipe or not, but I've never seen or heard of them anywhere else. These are a small cupcake with a jam filling and a pastry base - not at all what you would expect a cheese cake to be.

My mum used to buy these as a treat for my brother and I from the local bakery in St Martins, Christchurch (which is sadly no longer there).  I always have lovely memories of my mum and my childhood whenever I eat them.

Give them a try - they are delicious!

Cheese Cakes

200 g flaky pastry (1 ½ sheets)
3 T raspberry jam
125 g butter, softened
½ c sugar
1 c plain flour
1 t baking powder
2 eggs, beaten


1. Preheat oven to 200ºC.


2. Place sugar and butter in a mixing bowl.


3. Sift flour and baking powder in a separate mixing bowl.


4. Beat eggs together in small jug or bowl with a fork or whisk.


5. On a lightly floured surface, roll out pastry to 2 mm thick.


6. Cut out rounds, using a scone or biscuit cutter and use to line patty tins (or muffin tins).


7. Place ½ t of jam in each pastry case.


8. In a bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.


9. Add sifted flour/baking powder to creamed mixture alternatively with beaten eggs.


10. Stir to mix.


11. Drop large spoonfuls of mixture into each pastry case.


12. Bake at 200ºC for 15 to 20 minutes or until cooked.