Baby shower cake

One of my favourite things to do is to bake cakes. Most of my cakes come out pretty well, if I do say so myself :) But I never used to decorate them. Once I started seeing some of the gorgeous creations in the blog world, I wanted to try my hand at decorating. I made this cake for one of my friend's surprise baby shower. She is expecting identical twin girls. She is an amazing person and I wanted to make something special for her. I decided to make a pink and white stacked cake and decorate it with fondant. Since I was going to use fondant, I needed to make a dense cake. I have a wonderful recipe for pound cake and buttercream icing which I got from the "Instructions and Recipes for Your Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer".

Old-Fashioned Pound Cake recipe from "Instructions and Recipes for Your Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer"

Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups butter, softened
1/2 cup low-fat milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract
6 eggs


Instructions

1. Combine dry ingredients in mixer bowl.
2. Add butter, milk, vanilla and orange extract to the dry ingredients.
3. Stir everything together till combined.
4. Beat everything together using a electric mixer until light and fluffy. If you are using a stand mixer, it would take 6 minutes to do this.
5. Stop and scrap the bowl. Turn the mixer to slow speed(speed 2) and add one egg at a time. Let it mix for about 15 seconds between each addition. Turn to medium speed(speed 4) and beat about 30 seconds.
6. Pour the batter into a greased and floured 10 inch tube pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour and 15 mins.

Buttercream frosting recipe from "Instructions and Recipes for Your Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer"

Ingredients
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup cream or evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups powdered sugar
low fat milk, if necessary

Instructions

1. Place butter in a mixing bowl
2. Beat the butter till light and fluffy
3. Scrape the bowl and add cream, vanilla, salt and 1 cup powdered sugar
4. Stir well and beat it till well-blended, about 1.5 mins using stand-up mixer
5. Scrape the bowl and in low-speed slowly add the 3 cups of sugar and mix until well-blended.
6. Turn to medium speed and beat till smooth, about a min.

I used these two basic recipes and made some small changes to make the cake I needed.

After I made the batter, I divided them into two. To one part, I added 1/4 cup of strawberry syrup and 2 tablespoons of strawberry jam and mixed it well. Instead of a tube pan, I used two 9 inch pans and two 6 inch pans to make the cake. I divided the plain batter between the 9 inch pan and 6 inch pan. I did the same with the strawberry flavoured batter.

I made the buttercream frosting using the recipe above. I substitued low fat milk instead of evaporated milk. Instead of low fat milk to adjust the consistency of the icing, I used strawberry syrup. I used the filling recipe below to fill the cakes.

Filling recipe

Ingredients
A jar of strawberry jam
small pack of unflavoured gelatin

Instructions

1. Melt the strawberry jam on stove top or microwave
2. Add the gelatin to the melted strawberry jam and mix well
3. Place the mixture in the refrigerator for 15 mins

Once the cakes were cooled, I left them in the freezer for 30 mins. I used a serrated knife to level and trim the cakes. You can find all you need to know about levelling and trimming at http://www.baking911.com/decorating/cakes_cut_layers.htm .

Here is how I assembled the cake

Assembling the cake

1. Place a 9 inch plain cake on the plate you are going to serve the cake
2. Spread the filling on top
3. Place the 9 inch strawberry cake on top
4. Frost the sides and top of the cake with the strawberry buttercream frosting
5. Place the 6 inch plain cake on a cakeboard
6. Spread the filling on top
7. Place the 6 inch strawberry cake on top
8. Frost the sides and top with the strawberry buttercream frosting.
9. Let both the cakes dry for half hour. You can prepare the fondant during this time
10. Knead 1lb fondant and color it pink. I used the Wilton Rose color to color the fondant.
11. Roll the pink fondant and make two circles big enough to cover the 9 inch and 6 inch cakes.
12. Cover the cakes with fondant. Smooth the fondant on top and sides.
13. Knead 1/2 lb fondant and roll it out. Cut two strips of white fondant to be used as a ribbon around the 9 inch cake. Use water to moisten the strips and stick it to the pink fondant like a ribbon. Fashion two bows from the left over fondant and stick it to the ribbon so that the edges won't be seen.
14. Spread a small amount of buttercream on top of the 9 inch cake and transfer the 6 inch cake on top of the 9 inch cake
15. Repeat step 13 for the 6 inch cake.
16. Place the cake topper on top of the 6 inch cake

I also made buttercream dots on the pink fondant since I thought it looked too plain. I used a 'Super Mom-to-be' cake topper and two pink pacifiers as cake toppers.The photo I took of my end result is not the best. I'm yet to master the art of photgraphy. Here is the end result,