I don’t usually make myself a birthdy cake, but I had an idea for a cake and decided to use my birthday as an excuse to make it:
It started by making 4 x 4″ layers of “brown butter” sponges:
They were then filled with a biscoff buttercream and caramel:
I stacked them using a kebab stick to hold them central (and then added more when chilling):
After allowing to chill / set up a bit, I coated in a ganache made from White chocolate, White chocolate hazelnut spread, and cinnamon:
the cake was then coated with crumbled Biscoff biscuits, drizzled with melted Biscoff spread, and topped with more buttercream and crumbled cookies.
Because the cake was so soft, it had started to lean when I had stacked it and to counter this I ended up coating it in extra thick ganache – this shows on the cut through picture above!
I cut the cake into as many portions as I could and have been giving it out to friends and family the last couple of days.
I tried to be sensible and have limited myself to one BIG slice, but honestly that’s the most I think I can manage đ¤¤
I have been eyeing up the Frost Form Kit for a while now, but I just couldnât spend that much money for it as a novice / home baker. The 6â kit is currently selling for ÂŁ66 which for me is a lot. Thatâs not saying itâs not worth it, just that it wasnât something I was willing to invest in.
Last month, I stumbled across a similar product called âBrigidâs Ganaching Kitâ which to me looked very similar. The 6â kit was on offer on Cake Cabinet for ÂŁ19, so I took a punt and ordered one last month. I realised you can order direct from the company who make them though, so check out Brigid’s Cake Room
Frost Form
Brigidâs Ganaching Kit
Clear Form / Tin
YES
NO
Base
YES
NO
Base liner
YES
YES
Crumb Cutter
YES
NO
Liner
YES
YES
Bottle
NO
YES
You donât get as much in the Brigidâs kit, but the things I was missing I already had â I have a 6â cake pan with detachable base. I have a 5â crumb cutter to trim my cake layers, so I figured Iâd have everything I need.
I made a cake yesterday with no purpose other than testing the kit out. I baked 5 layers of vanilla cake with Oreo crumb, allowed them to cool, then trimmed them with my crumb cutter. I set up the Ganaching kit as per instructions, and began to build my cake*
I had 5 layers of cake, with vanilla buttercream and Oreo crumbles in each layer.
Once it was stacked, I made a white chocolate butter ganache mixed with Oreo powder. I added it to the bottle, then realised it wouldnât come out of the spout due to the crumbs inside, so I just poured it over the cake instead.
I put the cake in the freezer for an hour to set, and then came the reveal
There was a tear in the ganache, but this was entirely my fault as the cake was pretty much touching the liner at this part & I hadnât realised. I was ecstatic with the result though for a first go!
What you can see when I cut the cake is that the ganache is a lot thicker on some slices than others. Again, this was entirely down to me stacking the cakes slanted without realising.
*I should have been more careful in building the cake as it ended up leaning to the side. This was entirely my fault and I reckon I could have added ganache around the edging as I added each layer to keep it more in line.
I got to do something new over this last week â Gender Reveal Cakesicles
My friends are having a baby (expected towards the end of next month) and asked me if Iâd be willing to make some cake-pops for them to have a gender reveal party. I have mini popsicle molds, so I asked if I could do those as Iâm not the best as free-shaping cake-pops. Funny enough, this was deemed to be OK.
The request was for 40 cakesicles to be made, but only one of to have the colour reveal inside. I was given the sealed paper with the babyâs gender on it, and neither parent knew what it said. I was literally the only person other than the doctors / nurses to know! My husband didnât want to know either, so to try keep everything secret, I made both pink and blue cake fillings to ensure the mystery remained.
I made the cake and cakesicles on the Sunday. I have 2 molds, so shaped 8 at a time.
I wrapped them in greaseproof paper and put them in zip-lock bags until later in the week. The day I did this I wasnât fully paying attention and ended up making far more cakesicles than weâd actually need. Plus side â this gave me more for practice / errors.
On Thursday, I took the cakesicles out of the freezer to defrost during the day, and then I started working on them Thursday evening.
I had bought bags of white candy-coats to use so that I wasnât trying to colour white chocolate. I melted these a bag at a time, and after adding vegetable shortening I finally got it to a consistency I was happy with for dipping.
The dipping commenced. I dipped all of the cakesicles and picked the âbestâ ones for the final 40.
I had numbered the backs of all of the sticks and knew which number was the gender reveal coloured one which made it easier to keep track of for the day.
My friend had made some chocolate stars / moons which she had coloured gold, but asked that I just go with whatever I fancied for decorations. I did a collection of gold designs using glitter, gold leaf, and her toppers.
I had bought some clear plastic boxes for cakesicles, so boxed up my favourite 40. I collected these back at the party for re-using to avoid the impact of “single use” plastics.
After boxing up the best ones, I had a LOAD spare. Thankfully, we have plenty of friends and workmates to pass these on to, as well as freezing some for family next weekend (they freeze for a few months).
I kept one each of the coloured ones so that I could 1 – test to see if you could see the colour through the chocolate (you couldn’t), and 2 – to take some pictures of the cut cakesicles.
The finishing touch was adding some small gold bows to each stick which I applied with glue dots.
When it came for the actual reveal at the party, the hosts allowed everyone to pick a cakesicles from the table. I kept an eye on who chose the one with the colour in it, and then they had everyone stand in a circle. Starting at the parents to be, each person took turns in biting their cakesicles to see if it contained a colour â to make this last longer we sent the order the longest way around the circle from the person who had the reveal. They got a video of this (2 minutes 20 before the bite revealed a colour).
It was our niece’s 6th birthday celebration on Sunday, and add to that it was the Brother in Law’s 40th that weekend too, so we decided to surprise him at her 6th Birthday “party” at our house. That was 2 cakes.
I had also kindly agreed to make a cake for a friend’s mum’s birthday, so that meant 3 cakes to sort on Saturday. I’ve never felt more like a baker, and it took the full day to decorate them all.
I’d pre-baked the layers (5″ rounds of vanilly cake for the niece, and chocolate cake for the other two) and kept them in the freezer. They always turn out amazing & it makes it so much easier to decorate from frozen.
This was the fridge throughout the Saturday:
It was just as well we have a big fridge & that what little food was in there condensed to the bottom shelf & drawers at the bottom.
These are the finished cakes that I ended up making that day:
We had a Pride Day at Zen and I volunteered to bake cakes for it. I originally planned to do my striped rainbow cake again, but I couldn’t be bothered with the effort to dye and pipe all the buttercream.
I instead came up with a painted version with fondant toppers:
The main cake was vanilla sponge with strawberry jam, vanilla buttercream, and rainbow sprinkles.
I also made some vegan cupcakes to go with it – 6 each of Vanilla and Chocolate cupcakes.
I made another rainbow striped cake, this time for someone who asked me to make one for their sister’s birthday.
The stripes were definitely better this time around:
I added the banner on the top as I felt it just added that something to the cake – originally it was just going to have the candles on, but I liked the banner better. Thankfully, they did too!
The cake itself was chocolate cake layers and chocolate buttercream on the inside, then white chocolate and vanilla buttercream on the outside.
This cake was done as part of the Free Cakes for Kids group that I bake for. The spec: Frozen – she especially loves Elsa.
I looked online for some inspiration, and opted to make Elsa using a cake topper / cut out. When I looked for cake toppers, I thought they were over-priced for what they were. I figured I’d buy a birthday card to use but then saw a gift bag for 99p when in Poundstretcher:
Seeing the chance to save some money, I got the bag & made my own topper using kebab sticks
The drip was made with white chocolate and silver lustre dust. I added some sprinkles and edible glitter for the finishing touches, as well as a candle I picked up at Asda for ÂŁ1
The last couple of cakes I have made really annoyed me as the buttercream kept “splitting” / going grainy and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to be smooth. I tried hacks like adding in a spoonful of melted butter which looked like it made it better, then it just went grainy again. You can see it on the Minecraft I did earlier this month too.
The next time I make a cake, I’m going to be super meticulous in every step to see if I can remedy this. Sadly, I didn’t have the time / energy to re-do buttercreams when I made my dad’s birthday cake this weekend.
Thankfully, my family all thought it was good, but I knew it should have been far better than this. I’m not perfect, but I know my own capabilities and it should have been better than it turned out.
