It was a challenge I took up to cherish my little one's first birthday. I had been searching the internet for something different for my son's birthday and finally I found this particular cake pan from Wilton. Being in Botswana, an African country, i wasn't sure where we could get this pan here. My search took me to ebay where someone was selling this in NJ for 9.99 USD. I convinced my husband to purchase this online(it was my first online shopping as well). The pan reached me safe and earlier than expected - it took just 10 days. So i had the pan ready more than a month before the Birthday, which gave me ample time to try out the cake.
THE CAKE - chocolate cake
I used Moir's chocolate moist cake mix for the cake and followed the recipe on the pack. I had to try out 2 times to make myself confident, especially with the icing. Learning to do the icing was also fun - Videos in youtube were very helpful. Being the first time, i had to borrow an electric beater from a friend of mine(now I have my own). Next was the hunt for icing bags and nozzles which I managed to get from a store here(Pick 'n Pay, Riverwalk, Gaborone). Icing with Whipping cream was a disaster. I never got the whipped cream stiff enough for icing. That took me back to the traditional butter icing which turned out to be really easy and neat.
Marshmallow icing is much easier and tasty with less calories too.. I tried it for fondant icing for another cake i baked which i will be posting soon.
The secrets to a smooth cake without cracks -
OR
Use a good cooking spray(i like this technique)
** Bake for right amount of time
** Be patient. Let the cake cook before you take it out.
** Patient enough to wait till the cake is really cooled before you do the icing
** Do a layer of icing on the cake and refrigerate to close all the crumps, before you do the actual icing
These are my trials
Next hunt was for "black" food color for the border, which I figured out was not available in Botswana. Again Google came to my help and i found a solution, which took me back to my school days :)
Black = Red + green + blue (equal quantities)
If you cant measure exactly, you can add equal drops of each and check for the color, adding whichever color is less
I used the Star tip to make stars for the lines(border and eyes first with the black food color. Then filled up the other colors with stars. I made sure that the icing was thick enough to avoid melting down(i prepared it the previous day of the party)
The base was of 2 sheet cakes - one chocolate and one vanilla. These two cakes were joined with the butter icing. chocolate butter icing was used to do icing on top of the upper layer. Further decoration was done using smarties(something like cadbury's gems that you get in India)
Background border was linned with stars of different colors, with a silver sugar ball at the center of each star.
