So, the cake this week was a very special bake. I’ve made a few things this week whilst I’ve been at home, taking full advantage of my Kitchenaid I got for Christmas. I never got the chance to use it before I went back to uni after Christmas and it was great to finally get to use it. I baked a few things this week but they’ll be future blogs. The only cake I knew I was making for sure was my Grandma’s birthday cake. I normally get a pretty good idea how I want to do a cake but this one literally came down to decorating it. I knew I wanted to make Swiss meringue buttercream just to see how much quicker it was than making it using a hand mixer like when I made it at uni. I bought a nice pink topper, glitter and sprinkles and hoped I would be inspired by the time it came to decorating it.
I made two lots of cake mix and made four 8inch cakes. I made the mixture all at once then weighed each cake out equally. I only have two 8inch tins so baked them two at a time. I weighed 350g butter and 350g sugar and creamed it together. I then added 350g self-raising flour, 6 eggs and 2 teaspoons of baking powder. I only went to the baking shop for a cake topper, obviously got distracted and treated myself to some other things including some Easter bits. When it comes it baking I just don’t have much self-restraint. When I was on my little baking spree shopping for my grandma’s cake I bought a large bottle of vanilla flavouring because I use it so frequently, but I need to finish the small one first. Once the mix was all incorporated I baked each cake for 20 minutes. Once all my cakes were baked I let them cool. I’ll admit I’m not the best at tidying up, but my Kitchenaid is pride of place in the kitchen and I’ve washed and dried it each time I’ve used it. This probably isn’t a big thing to a lot of people but my mam has certainly noticed.
Whilst the cakes were cooling, I took the butter out of the fridge to soften. When I made my 2000 cake it took nearly an hour to make my buttercream, thankfully with a stand mixer this is a lot quicker. I washed my bowl and whisk with some vinegar before I started. I added 10 egg whites to my metal bowl and added 600g granulated sugar. I put this over a pan of boiling water and whisked it until the sugar was dissolved. You can check this by rubbing it between your fingers. I then wiped the bottom of my bowl and transferred it to my mixer, whisking it for 15 minutes until I had nice stiff peaks, as you can see from the photo below. I then changed my whisk to a beater attachment and gradually added 510g unsalted butter. Once this was all incorporated I left it for 10-15 minutes so it wasn’t runny. I was so happy that it came together. I added some vanilla flavouring and a pinch of salt. For the cake I added buttercream to each layer and then some caramel sauce. I used Hawkshead Relish Company’s Salted caramel sauce for the filling and it is amazing. We had some on our pancakes this week and it was unreal.
Using the buttercream I did a crumb coat on the cake and tried to get it as smooth as possible. I love the texture of the buttercream it’s so light. I then put the cake in the fridge whilst I thought of the decoration. I was going to do a mix of pink and white buttercream, I remembered I had a PME hexagon cutter. I got some ready to roll icing and coloured it green and pink. I tried putting it on the table before I put it on the cake, I loved how it looked. I was only going to do it half way around then when I started it wanted to do it all. I added another layer of buttercream. I had to cut the hexagons at the top and bottom so it fitted perfectly. It was so satisfying seeing it come together. Once I got to the top I didn’t know what to do. I decided to colour some buttercream pink and use little white flowers I had. I added some pink glitter in the centre that coincidentally matched the cake topper that I bought.
At first I wasn’t convinced by the cake but taking a step back from it I loved the sides and the topper. My grandma didn’t realise I was making her a cake so it was nice to see her reaction when we met in the pub for a meal. I think there is certainly an improvement from last year’s cake that I made her and that’s all I can ask for. I’ve already started thinking about how I can improve it. Happy Birthday again Grandma hope you love your cake and had a great day, love you lots. I hope you have a brilliant week, I’m very excited about my upcoming blogs.
Love from,
Hannah x
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