I cake, therefore I am: pink

Two tiered rainbow cake

For Abby's 3rd birthday she requested a Mia and Me inspired cake, with extra unicorn!

I used a simple vanilla sponge for the base. To get a rainbow effect I divided the cake batter into a five separate bowls and coloured each of them a different colour. I then slowly poured each colour into the centre of the cake pan. I made two round cakes, one slightly smaller than the other.

Once the cakes had cooled, I made a big batch of pink buttercream frosting and iced both cakes. For the base layer I rolled the cake sides in a tray of rainbow sprinkes and also coated the top of the cake.

After placing the two tiers together I piped a little icing to hide the join and added some small fondant flowers and leaves (and the candles of course). This cake was made so much less complicated because I purchased the unicorn from ebay (make sure you order well in advance).

The finished cake turned out OK and the rainbow insides were a nice surprise!

Chocolate cupcakes with pink butter cream frosting and sugar paste princess crowns and butterflies

We were invited to dinner at a friend's house a few days before her daughter's 4th birthday. For dessert I wanted to make something her litttle girl would like.

Cake and frosting:

I used my usual chocolate cupcake recipe and found this delicious butter cream frosting recipe. This is the first time I have used salt in my butter cream and it really enhanced the flavour. To make the pink I added just a few drops of natural pink food colouring.

Decoration:

I am still very much a beginner when it comes to fondants/sugar pastes. I used a pink pre-made paste. After softening the past by kneading it in my hands, I rolled it out (as evenly as possible).

To make the crowns I cut the rolled out paste into a long thin strip and used the edge of a star shaped cookie cutter to make the crown tips. I then rolled the strip onto a a small round (made from kitchen foil) to help hold the shape. I also added rainbow coloured soft sugar pearls to the tip of each crown point.After hardening in the fridge I removed the foil.

To make the butterflies I used a small and a large butterfly cookie cutter to cut the butterfly shapes out of the rolled paste. Using a thick folded piece of cardboard (covered in kitchen foil to stop the paste from sticking) I then placed the butterflies in the centre of the fold (so the wings are held up in shape). After hardening in the fridge I removed the cardboard and brushed a little edible glitter onto the wings. I drew the butterfly bodies on using chocolate writing icing.

For the large cupcakes (even though I used princess themed cupcake cases) I added a princess crown cupcake wrap for extra effect. The mini cupcakes are just in a pink case. I piped pink butter cream frosting onto each cake and added crowns/butterflies as required. I used pink and blue cachous and some pink butterfly sprinkles to finish them off.