Just Cakes

Those who follow me on instagram would know I’ve been baking quite the bit lately. I’ve always had an interest in baking. Back in the high school days I would try to bake my girlfriends something for their birthday even if it meant out of a packet and asking my parents how to use the hand mixer and oven. So really, all I’d do is mix the ingredients and my parents would do the rest. Times have definitely changed.

I must say that being an Aunty has definitely ignited the bigger baking spark in me. Nothing beats baking and designing a personalised cake (or any other baked treats) for the ones you love most. A big thank you goes out to the Boy who supports me and helps me when I’m about to fall apart because things just don’t go to plan.

It’s time to show you some of the things I’ve made over the past months….

Happy 5th Dinosaur Birthday, Braellan

This is a cake made for the boy’s workmate’s son. The birthday boy requested for a dinosaur cake because he loves The Land Before Time. His favourite colour was green so I thought to incorporate that where I could. The cake itself is a plain butter cake with buttercream frosting (use any of your favourite recipes). I saw these dinosaur cake toppers and I knew I had to make some of my own versions. I’m not sure if you can tell but I lost the ‘N’ cutter and had to make do with a Z…. very obvious now that I’ve told you, hey?

Happy Birthday, Momma! xoxo

With mum being fussy, I had to think carefully about what to make. I know vanilla is one of her favourite flavours so go figure. But I didn’t want to just make a vanilla cake. It was going to be a total experiment but for some reason I just thought to pair vanilla up with lychee. I had no idea if it was going to work or not but worth the try. I used an ordinary buttercake and added some lychee syrup into the batter. I blitzed up some lychees (straining excess water) and incorporated it into the buttercream, going by taste. It looked really plain so decided to put vanilla wafer sticks around the cake. I had no clear vision of what it was going to taste or look like but it actually worked a treat. The lychee flavour came out beautifully. Needless to say mumma loved the cake, as well as the rest of my family :)

Happy Birthday to the boyfriend’s Mum!

It was the boy’s mum’s birthday earlier this month. Of course I was going to use this opportunity to bake her a cake. Again, being another typical asian Mum and quite fussy with flavours, I had to stick to something simple. No doubt I go back to the vanilla butter cake because it seems to be a hit with the old ladies. This time I made a teeny 6 inch cake because I hate it when excess cake just gets thrown out. It makes me sad. I sandwich two layers of cake with a generous layer of raspberry jam. The raspberry buttercream is your normal buttercream with an addition of several spoonfuls (according to taste) of raspberry jam. I topped the cake off with some macarons I had made earlier in the week – raspberry and strawberry. I sourced the design inspiration from this cake made by raspberri cupcakes.

Happy 1st Birthday to my munchkin of a nephew, Leon xoxo

Just last week was my nephew’s 1st birthday. I spent about 2 weeks planning what to do and kept changing my mind until I finally settled with a rainbow theme. I had previously made a rainbow cake for my other nephew Jake for his 2nd birthday but this time was different. I had to make sure it fed about 60 + people. Yet again it’s a vanilla butter cake (think I have an obssession with it) with jam in between the coloured layers. I decided to only do 5 layers, as 7 was a bit much and was very time consuming. It’s iced in a vanilla buttercream and decorated with sprinkles. There are rainbow twists that sit along the edges of the cake. Around the cake board are mini red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, and a rainbow strap on top. And to top it all off, I baked 4 different flavours of macarons to fit the rainbow theme and used them to spell out his name for the cake. It was a full on week and challenge for me to do but it all came together in the end. I am so proud of what I did, and most of all, all the desserts were demolished at the party which made me super happy :)

There are so many recipes for a butter cake recipe. They are all more or less the same. I actually used a different recipe for all the cakes above. If you do need a guide, use this one I found at taste.com which I find quite reliable.

There will be more of my baking escapades to come….

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