One Cake - Three Ways

Ok, so a little late to the party, but I'm back!
I have some big news to break - but that's another post for another day.

The first birthday cake of the year snuck up on me and I only had a few days to pull it together. I have always wanted to make a confetti cake, which is basically a plain white cake flecked with sprinkles! How delightful! I've seen them in boxed cake form and I thought I would take a stab at it. Why not ring in the first 2012 birthday cake with a festive confetti cake?

I cobbled together a cake (no recipe, ma!) and dumped in a jar of sprinkles.

Here's the thing. I think there is a trick to confetti cake because the sprinkles essentially melted and instead of flecks of colour in the cake...I got blobs. It was pretty... "festive" looking. Delicious, but certainly not what I had expected. I poured the batter into a tube pan (ring-shaped pan) and after it was done I carved out a tunnel from the underside. I then filled the 'cake trench' with whipped cream that had been flavoured with some homemade strawberry jam. I took a thin layer of cake that I had carved out and patched up the trench, so essentially there was a tunnel of strawberry cream inside the cake. I then made a ganache and poured it on top and let it dribble down the sides.

That was the 'first' permutation of the cake.

Using the scraps of the cake, I built a small cup-sized trifle. I had a date coming over a few days later and wanted to serve this as a dessert. I layered the cream, cake, toasted hazelnuts, and ganache in a whiskey tumbler and added some slivered almonds as a garnish.

That was the 'second' permutation of the cake.

And for the third?

The rest of the scraps (plus some ganache added later) that I devoured after cleaning up!

Goes to show that one cake, can certainly go a long way.

Occupy Kitchen!

So yes, I haven't blogged in a while. It doesn't mean that I'm not busy! I'm still cranking things out of the kitchen, but a lot of what I was making was for my Christmas project. Ironically, today, I decided to scrap the original idea and go with a more generic focus. My idea was to do a Chinese-food themed cookbook, but I realized that trying to make presentable dishes every weekend, whether or not I wanted to eat them or not, was turning into a very ambitious project. And I was losing my passion for it very quickly. I think it will be something I will put together later, but I think I need to spend more time perfecting my recipes and figuring out better lighting schemes in the darker months.

But aside from Chinese food, I am still baking away! Two big birthdays came and went - which meant two cakes were made along with some other treats cranked out from my oven.

Have you ever heard of Domo-Kun? He's this Japanese...err..."character" who is actually a mascot for a TV station. It's all a bit weird, but he's very cute and adorable and can be seen adorning many people's cell phones, key chains and other typical swag areas. A friend LOVES Domo - so why not make her a Domo cake for her big day? I've seen it done many times before (online) and as I was not going to do extremities (gah, I don't think I can find a box big enough for arms and legs) - it was a simple square chocolate cake.

I present to you... Domo-cake!

Cake: Dark Chocolate Cake (classic standby recipe, it never fails to shock me how much sugar it contains)
Filling: White Chocolate Mousse (next time will use gelatin or a proper egg-white stabilizer)
Frosting: Chocolate Buttercream
Details: Eyes - Girl Guide Chocolate Mint Thins, Mouth - White Candy Melts, red colouring

Yes, it does look like a Deep 'n Delicious cake! :P I used a fat star tip to pipe the buttercream. The cake was received very well, and was as delicious as it was cute!