Happy Birthday to Me and My Rowan!!!

The joke in our house is that I gave Rob and I children for our birthdays.  Abby is 6 days after Rob’s birthday in July and Rowan is 4 days after mine.  I’m January 28th and Rowan is February the first!  So as you can imagine lots of cake goes down at our house at least two times a year :)

My birthday is pretty standard.  Dinner with the family and then carrot cake (recipe below too)  I get to play with ideas I’ve not yet tried.  This year I decided I wanted to try the buttercream rosette cake.  Now the only issue is that I prefer my carrot cake naked, however there are others in my house who prefer icing.  This seemed like an appropriate compromise.

I didn’t get to rest on my laurels for very long because next up was Rowan’s Lavagirl cake.  First off, I hate making characters on cookies and figurines out of gumpaste.  Less so of the latter.   But when this face asks, you say yes.

Now she did give me free reign on the design but it had to look like lava; there had to be a volcano; Lavagirl had to be on it and oh yes, flowers, lots of flowers.  Right!

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of Sharkboy and Lavagirl this is the movie poster.  And yes, that is Taylor Lautner of Twilight fame.  His acting was just as bad.  But she loves it and that’s really all that matters.

First I had to make the cake look like lava.  So I used red food colouring in the cake to give it a lava look.  Filled it with chocolate butercream and covered it in marbled fondant.  So far so good.

Then I made the volcano out of rice krispie treats and covered it in black and red marbled fondant.  Then I placed it on top, added some lava fondant beads, some flowers and of course Lavagirl herself.  As requested!

I have to admit I was pretty proud of my first hibiscus.  It may not be a traditional colour, but it worked!

My Lavagirl had a great little party at Monkey Joe’s with her friends.  The bounced for an hour, ate pizza and cake and then back to bouncing.  Tired kids are happy kids or maybe that’s happy mommies.

Now I normally make cookies for goodie bags but this year I was fortunate that my friend Laurie of Cookie Bliss made them.  We got Rowan a logo for her birthday, as she wants to own her own restaurant when she’s grown up. Rowan’s Food Never Fails. 

I sent it to Laurie and these are the cookies she came up with.  They are brilliant!

We have several left and I can’t bring myself to eat them as they are so awesome.  Don’t worry, Rowan doesn’t have such an issue.  A cookie is a cookie, especially when it’s a really tasty cookie :)

Now I can rest until July for the next set of birthday cakes in this family.  I’d also like to take a moment to thank everyone who wished Rowan and I a happy birthday on my Facebook page.  The love was overwhelming.

Thanks for looking!

Carrot Cake Recipe:

• 4 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups apple sauce
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 cups grated carrots

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, apple sauce, white sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. 
3. Pour into prepared pan.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
5. Ice cake with favourite icing.  I used lemon buttercream.
6. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday January Babies–Me Included!

Well who would have know that January is a baby boom month?  Not me, I mean I was born in January and until recently didn’t realize who many of the people in my life are born in the first month of the year.  We are not New Years babies, we are Victoria Day/Memorial Day babies. Yup, that’s right, our parents were drinkers :)  LOL  SHHHH don’t say that to my mother, she’d die ;)

Ok, back to why you are here…the cake!

Our friends down the street; Linda and Adam, fellow Jan babies, hosted a party for all us birthday babies.  I offered to make the cake.

There’s nothing really special about the type of cake, I’ve made them several times before.  What’s fun is the new icings I used.  Now I made them and then googled hoping I’d be original, but alas no.  So I’m not giving credit because I honestly didn’t borrow.  I’d like to think of it as great minds!

The bottom cake is a chocolate/yogurt sponge with chocolate Kahlua swiss meringue buttercream and the top layer is my favourite carrot cake with a champagne vanilla bean cream cheese icing.  I asked on my FB which flavours I should use for the icing and these are the ones that won.  Don’t worry, I’ll include all four recipes below.

The theme of the party was winter wonderland.  And considering our recent snow and ice “storms”, it was very apropos.  As a Canadian living in the North Carolina, their version of a snow storm is a regular daily event in Ottawa, we called it just snow.  HAHA.  So I decorated with snowflakes.

The chocolate cake recipe can be found here.

The carrot cake recipe can be found here.

Now for the icings!

Chocolate Kahlua Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

• 5 large egg whites
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, room temperature
• 2 tbsp Kahlua
• 4 1/2 ounces melted semisweet chocolate

Directions:

1. Combine egg whites, sugar, and salt in the heatproof bowl of a standing mixer set over a pan of simmering water. Whisk constantly by hand until mixture is warm to the touch and sugar has dissolved
2. Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Starting on low and gradually increasing to medium-high speed, whisk until stiff (but not dry) peaks form. Continue mixing until the mixture is fluffy and glossy, and completely cool (test by touching the bottom of the bowl), about 10 minutes.
3. With mixer on medium-low speed, add the butter a few tablespoons at a time, mixing well after each addition. Once all butter has been added, whisk in Kahlua.
4. Fold in chocolate
5. Keep buttercream at room temperature if using the same day.  It makes about 5 cups.

Champagne and Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Icing:

• 8 oz  cream cheese at room temperature
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter softened
• 1/4 cup champagne
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 4 cups icing (confectioners) sugar

1. Combine cheese, butter, champagne and vanilla together.
2. Add icing sugar 1 cup at a time.  If required add  more or sugar depending on consistency.  You want it a bit stiffer so it’s easier to spread.

And here are the ones that I couldn’t used:

Vanilla Bean Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

• Use the SMB recipe above but omit chocolate and kahlua and add 1 tbsp vanilla bean paste.

Amaretto Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

• Use the SMB recipe above but omit chocolate and replace Kahlua with Amaretto.

So for all you January babies, I hope you had a wonderful birthday and I hope someone special made you a cake! Just forward this post as a hint :)

Here’s to all my friends and family who share this month with me:

Christine R, Kim, Mary-Anne, Miles, Jen L, Tracie, Nancy N., Connie, Coreen, Jennifer B, Susan, Christina B, Karina, Patty, Angela, Sarah, Emily, Kristine, Julie, Retah, Samantha, Deanna, Dee, Linda A, Tyler, Adam, Kaye, Rob T, Tiffany, Keira, Satomi, Angie.

Thanks for looking!