7th birthday: Mango Peashooter Cake

s turned 7! Gosh, almost not a little kid any more. His birthday fell on a Sunday, so we asked him what he would most like to do that day... He said he wanted to play with his friends, so we ended up inviting the 12 boys from his school class over for a party! It was all about gaming this year - purchased lots of gaming themed paper cups, plates, decorations etc. Even managed a Plants (vs Zombies) themed garden treasure hunt... And s requested a Peashooter (from PvZ) for his birthday cake... And mango (again). Yet another challenge!

Ever since s was big enough to make a birthday cake request, he has requested mango cake. So I have had a little bit of practice. But haven't been completely happy with my mango cake results so far. Last year's cake was nice and mango-y, but rather too dense. It might have been due to the baking powder being a bit old, or maybe I didn't beat enough air into the mix... or maybe it was just the recipe, with no eggs and mango puree. Last year I didn't really need to sculpt, so the texture and composition of the cake could be all about taste...But this year I wanted to sculpt, and hoped to find a cake with a better texture for sculpting / in general. I decided freeze dried mango powder was a key ingredient, purchased some, and then started hunting far and wide for the right recipe. I consulted our departmental cake whiz at work - who also happens to be Filipino (according to the East Asians at work, the Philippines is the source of the best mangoes in the world - I want to try!), and he agreed about the freeze dried mango powder and made some helpful suggestions... But it was not easy to find a recipe with mango powder in the actual cake! Nevertheless, buoyed by the moral support, and widening my search to include other freeze dried fruit powders, I found a few options... I was seriously considering this one when I noticed the author - Liz from 'Is It Cake?'! s and I love watching that show - and she was memorably brilliant - and it was the first time I noticed a cake recipe specifically saying it was good for carving! I was sold.

The only downside of that recipe was that it used egg whites but not yolks (which I thought might have the upside of making it less dense). So I needed to find something to do with the yolks. I decided to crack open a big can of mango puree and try out a mango curd. I wasn't sure if I'd find a place for it in the cake (in the end I didn't) - and I am not sure if I love it, the eggs and butter kind of distract from the mango intensity. But still, it was a pretty good use of egg yolks. The recipe for the curd is here.

I wanted to use fondant for the outside, and figured I'd need a mango buttercream (with more freeze dried mango powder) for sticking and layering. Thought it might be smart to follow a recipe - went with this one.

For the cake:

10 oz plain flour 

1 oz freeze dried mango powder 

1 ½ tsp baking powder 

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 

8 oz unsalted butter, room temp 

½ tsp salt 

10 oz granulated sugar 

½ tsp vanilla powder

zest of 1 lime 

6 egg whites, room temp 

8 oz milk, room temp 

2 oz vegetable oil 

2 drops yellow food colouring 

1 drop red food colouring 

 

For the buttercream:

 

1 cup (226 g / 8 oz) unsalted butter, room temp

3/4 cup (18 g / 0.9 oz) freeze-dried mango powder (use less!)

3 tbsp (45 ml) milk, room temp

3 cups (360 g / 12.7 oz) icing sugar 

pinch of salt  

 

For the decoration:

 

2 packs of green fondant icing, one a bit lighter / brighter than the other

1 pack white fondant icing

black gel food colouring (or black fondant) 

white shimmer powder for highlights (optional)

don't forget candles!

To make the cake:

 

(Notes: All ingredients must be at room temperature. I baked this in one 8 inch round springform cake tin and one loaf tin, and it worked out being about right as a starting point to make the shape and size of cake I wanted.)

Heat the oven to 350ºF/176ºC. Grease and line the cake tins.

Beat the butter in a medium bowl until smooth and shiny. Gradually sprinkle in the sugar and beat until the mixture is fluffy and almost white. Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl (I wasn't sure whether to do this, so I beat them until loose peaks - really didn't want a super dense cake again!). Add the egg whites approximately two at a time, beating to mix in between. 

Whisk the flour, mango powder, baking powder, bicarb, salt, vanilla and lime zest in a medium bowl. Combine the milk, oil, and food colourings in a separate bowl. Add about a third of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, followed immediately by about a third of the milk mixture, and mix until ingredients are almost incorporated into the batter. Repeat this process 2 more times, until the batter appears blended. Divide the batter between the prepared pans, aiming for a similar batter height in each. Smooth the tops. 

Bake cakes until they feel firm in the centre and a skewer comes out clean, about 35-40 min. Transfer tins to a wire rack and let cool for 10 min. Invert cakes onto the rack and pop cakes out of tins. Cool completely before assembling and icing.

To make the buttercream: 

Beat the butter until creamy and light in colour. Add milk and mango powder and beat until fully combined. Add the icing sugar one cup at a time and mix. Add pinch of salt and mix until well combined.

To assemble:

(Notes: To make a base for the cake, I covered a large flat bamboo chopping board with silver foil. I decided to go for a semi-3D shape - a lying-down peashooter - since a fully 3D standing-up one seemed like a bit tooo much of a challenge. I couldn't bring myself to buy both black and white fondant just for a few little bits, so I bought white and mixed a bit of it with a LOT of black gel food colouring to make some black.)

Cut the cooled cakes into the peashooter shape and put together. I got most of its head out of the round cake, and made the rest of it by cutting and shaping the remaining pieces of that one and the loaf cake. Use the buttercream as a glue to layer up the cake where needed. 

When the shape looks right, cover the cake in buttercream and smooth it out as much as possible.

Roll out the fondant icing (if it sticks to your surface, roll it on/between clingfilm). When it is the right thickness (c. 2 mm?) and size, lift it gently over your cake and smooth it into place. I used a lighter green for the head of the peashooter, and a darker green for its stalk and leaves - using one piece to cover the head, one to cover the base leaves and stalk, and one to cover the leaf at the back of the head. Press all around the base and bring together as smoothly as possible.

Roll a few extra pieces of green fondant into long sausage shapes to make the parts linking the leaves and head; and to make the outline of its shooting mouthpart. Press into place.

Roll out the black fondant to make the inside of the shooting mouthpart and to make the eyes. Press into place. 

Make small flat discs of white fondant and press into place to finish the eyes.

Press the fondant gently but firmly with a blunt thinnish edge (I used the edge of a rubber spatula), to make the leaf veins and divisions between leaves and stem.

Dust white shimmer powder to make highlights on the head.

If you have sufficient suitable remaining cake, buttercream and fondant, you could shape and cover some peas! About the same size as the shooting mouth makes sense... I did this thinking perhaps s could have some teaser cake in the morning before the party - in the end we didn't have time for this but it was still kind of nice to have them for sharing.

We decided not to show the finished cake to s until we revealed it at his birthday party, with the candles and singing, in front of all the boys! I was pretty happy with it but also a bit nervous... My heart literally leapt when, as soon as he saw it, he said: 'it's good mummy'! Praise indeed - esp as he can be a bit of a wee hater...

The cake was a really nice texture and tasted good but I didn't really find it mango-y enough. Perhaps I'll try a different recipe next time (if there is another mango cake request!) - maybe this one.

The buttercream was not the right texture. I think I pitched in too much extra mango powder - just noticed the recipe starts with whole freeze dried rasps, I'm sure I measured the same amount of powder by volume, which will have been way more! It wasn't really sticky enough for slathering, and it stressed me out a bit as I couldn't get it to stick to the cake very well. Next time a different recipe (or just stick to the one given...).

I can see the cake is a bit bumpy in places - if the buttercream had been a better texture, I can see it would have been important to make as smooth a surface as possible before putting the fondant over.

I had to mix a lottt of black food colouring into the white fondant to make it black enough - and then it was a bit too sticky for good rolling - so those bits were tricky. I might be tempted to buy black as well as white for optimal results...

I think the mouthpart could have been a bit better - although I am not certain how.

The white shimmer seemed like a good idea for the highlighting, and I kind of like it, but I don't think it is completely necessary. Also it doesn't look that different from just flour or icing sugar or cornstarch or so - not so shimmery - maybe one of those white powders would have been OK instead?

S birthday mango-chocolate football cake

For S birthday this year, he wanted mango and chocolate, Dortmund football team themed...

I wanted to try making mango cake with freezedried mango powder this time. It was surprisingly hard to find a recipe with mango powder in it. I decided to use this one, subbing the raspberry powder with mango. And then mango icing based on this recipe. And coconut 'grass'.

I ended up doing a half size cake cos I realized it'd prob be too much if I did the whole lot. Meant 1.5 eggs, bit awkward, but if I was doing it for more people could do the whole lot...

(for a half size)

For the cake:

5 oz plain flour

1 oz freeze dried mango

(1 oz cocoa powder)

1 1/8 tsp baking powder

3 oz butter, softened

5 oz sugar

1 1/2 eggs

3/4 tsp vanilla essence

5/8 cup milk

yellow + black food colouring 

 

For the icing:

4 oz cream cheese

2 oz butter

6 oz icing sugar

2 oz freeze dried mango

For the 'grass':

4 oz desiccated coconut

c. 2 tbsp warm water

green food colouring

 

Also:

White mesh from a bag of garlic

wire

six lego figures, three with yellow dortmund shirts made from felt

one little ball

chocolate, chopped

Heat oven to 180C / 350F. Grease and line the base of 1 9-in round baking tin.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, mango, baking powder and salt.

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar til pale and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla.

Alternate adding the flour mix and the milk to the egg mix, beginning and ending with flour (3x flour, 2x milk), fully incorporating after each addition.

 

(if doing black and yellow for dortmund, split the mix and add black food colouring to one and yellow to the other)

 

Transfer to the tin. Bake til a skewer comes out clean - 24-28 min. Cool in tin 10 min before removing to wire rack. Cool to room temp.

 

For the icing, beat butter and cream cheese til smooth. Add icing sugar gradually, and mango powder. Beat until smooth and fluffy. 

For the grass, heat oven to 70C. Put coconut in a bowl and add food colouring and water and mix until it is s good and consistent colour. Spread thinly on a baking sheet lined with paper. Stir every 10 min til dry - c. 40 min total.

To assemble, cut the cake in two horizontally. Layer it with icing. Put top half on, cover with icing. Press 'grass' onto the top to make a football field. Make a goal out of net and wire and press it in on one side. Add the figures and ball to make a scene.

It didn't rise well. Perhaps it took too long to mix in the yellow and black. Or perhaps the baking powder was too old. Or perhaps something else went wrong... Oh well, it still tasted nice enough.

6th birthday: Mango Shiny Mew Cake

This year's cake request was mango, and shiny Mew (the Pokemon). I felt like expectations were pretty high, and it was a tough challenge... I didn't feel like I could do a good Mew as a 3D-sculpted cake - also it is tricky trying to work out if a cake will be good for sculpting before baking. So this time I decided to go 2D, and also took inspiration from perler (s likes that too), so did a kind of perler-style shiny Mew made of little edibles of several colours / types... I also bought a backup sugar paper Mew in case it all went horribly wrong, from the same place I got the muffin toppers for s's birthday cookies to take to school.

I made a mango cake from this recipe (coincidentally vegan), and a mango icing that I basically freestyled (similar to last year's), and sandwiched it with a kind of mango jam.

For the cake:

2 cups / 220 g / 7.76 oz plain flour

2 tsp / 8 g baking powder

½ tsp / 3 g bicarbonate of soda

½ cup / 120 ml veg oil

1 cup / 225 g / 7.9 oz sugar

1 cup / 265 ml mango purée (used tinned)

1 tsp / 5 ml vanilla extract (used powder)

¼ cup / 60 g milk (used oat milk)

For the icing:

4 oz butter

4 oz icing sugar

c. 1/2 cup (or more if possible, replacing some or all of the icing sugar) freeze-dried mango, powdered

For the mango 'jam':

1 packet dried mango, snipped into small pieces

For the decoration:

101 dark chocolate balls

93 pale bluish white balls

33 blue balls (note: it would have been nice if 4 of these were a darker blue or purple)

2 white chocolate balls

A rectangular perler base plate with at least 20 x 25 perler places

To make the cake:

Heat the oven to 180C and lined an 8 inch round cake tin with baking paper.

 

In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and bicarb.

 

In a large bowl, whisk sugar and oil together until pale and well combined. Add the mango puree and beat well. Beat in the vanilla and milk.

Gently fold the flour mixture into the liquid mixture and mix until everything is well combined and there are no large flour pockets. Do not overmix.

 

Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 30-35 min, until a skewer comes out clean. Let cool completely before icing.

 

To make the icing:

 

Beat the butter in a medium bowl until pale. Add the icing sugar and powdered freeze-dried mango and beat some more. Chill until needed, but bring to room temperature before using.

 

To make the mango 'jam':

Put the dried mango in a small bowl and cover (just) with hot water. Let soak overnight or for several hours. Blend with a wand blender to a thick, smooth, jam-like consistency.

To assemble:

Cut the cooled cake horizontally in half to make two layers. I froze the cake after cooling and cutting because I thought it might make it easier to ice - perhaps it did, but I also think it might have messed up the texture and made it a bit too dense. 

When ready to ice, put the bottom half on a plate or serving disc, then spread the mango 'jam' over it. Put the second cake half on top. Spread the icing over the top and round the sides as smoothly as possible.

 

Press the perler plate, spike side down, into the icing quite hard until you can see a grid of indentations. Then arrange the balls according to this design:

The birthday boy seemed happy with it! He ate lots and didn't dis it at all - he's a bit of a grumpy handful these days so that felt like success. I thought the cake was a bit dense but it tasted pretty good. The rest of the tin of mango puree became delicious smoothies, it was really good.

Oat, cranberry and white chocolate cookies

I've made these a couple of times now, including once for s to take to school for his 6th birthday (with Pokemon sugar papers and icing on top). They were easy and good.

To make approx. 25 smallish cookies:

76 g / 2.68 oz butter

60 g / 2.1 oz brown sugar

1 large egg

67 g / 2.36 oz oats

90 g / 3.17 oz flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

3 oz cranberries

56 g / 2 oz white choc chunks

Heat the oven to 190C / 375F.

Beat the butter and sugar til light and fluffy. Add the egg, mix well. Mix the oats, flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and salt in separate bowl, then add in a few goes, mixing well each time. Stir in the cranberries and chocolate chunks. Put rounded teaspoonfuls on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 10-12 min til golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Koldskål pancakes

A little bit of koldskål left that no one seemed inclined to eat as is. Was thinking about making pancakes, but would have to be eggless as no eggs. Considered banana. Considered koldskål. Found this recipe and it was exactly what I had in mind. Gave it a try. 

https://www.dk-kogebogen.dk/opskrifter/38618/pandekager-med-koldskaal

180 g / 6.5 oz flour

1 tsp baking powder

1-2 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

300 ml koldskål

50 ml water (or milk)

2 tbsp veg oil

1 tsp vanilla sugar

Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, vanilla and salt in a medium bowl.

Mix milk, water and oil in a small bowl then beat it gradually into the flour mix. Best until soft and without clumps. It should be quite thick, like a cake dough. Add a bit more flour or water if needed.

Melt a little butter in a pan at medium temperature then cook the pancakes til golden on both sides.

Serve with maple syrup (and bananas?) while still warm.

They are pretty good! The thick kind of pancakes.

Pizza snails

s’s birthday wish was to have his class from børnehave over to play. They do this sometimes for birthdays - the whole room of kids goes to the birthday boy/girl’s house for a few hours in the morning during børnehave time, with a pedagog or two. But we haven’t tried it before… 

Apparently pizza snails (pizza snegle) are required for such gatherings. Like overnight bread rolls, these seem to be something every Danish mum can whip up with her eyes closed.

I asked two different Danish mums about how to make pizza snegle, and both directed me to the same recipe, this one. So that seemed like a done deal. 

(makes about 30 medium snails - including some slightly small/awkward end ones - about 20 acceptably similar ones)

For the dough:

50 g fresh yeast

200 ml milk

150 ml plain yoghurt 

2 eggs 

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp honey

100 ml olive oil

250 g / 9 oz wholewheat flour

400 g / 14 1/2 oz plain flour

 

For the tomato sauce:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 400 g tin tomatoes

2 tbsp tomato purée

2 tsp dried oregano

Salt+pepper

 

To finish:

125 g (one pack) fresh mozzarella, finely chopped

1 egg, lightly beaten - for brushing

 

Make the dough:

Mix yeast in a large bowl with the milk. Add oil, yoghurt, honey, egg, salt and wholewheat flour and mix well together.

 

Add plain flour a little at a time until the dough is nice and flexible (it was a bit sticky). Put in a warm place to rise, with a tea towel over it, for about an hour or until doubled in size.

 

Make the tomato sauce:

Heat olive oil in a pan and sauté onion and garlic until soft and translucent. Add tinned tomatoes, tomato purée, oregano, salt and pepper. Simmer c 20 min until thick. Let cool, and keep in fridge until needed, esp if making in advance.

 

Assembly:

Roll out half the dough on a floured surface until c 1/2 cm thick rectangle/square. Spread half the tomato sauce out evenly on top, except c. 4 cm from one end. Sprinkle with half the cheese. Roll into a long roll and cut snails about 2 cm thick with a sharp knife. Put on baking sheets lined with baking paper, with a few cm between them at least, and make round and neat with your hands. Repeat with the other half of the ingredients. Let rise on the sheets for 30 min. Brush with beaten egg. Bake 16-18 min at 180C, until golden brown.

 

They came out well and looked legit. They didn't go down all that well with the kids (they preferred melon, salty popcorn and coconut water), but there were no major complaints so think I got them about right.

5th birthday: Dragonfish cake

For the first time this year I had a birthday cake request from s (who was turning five! FIVE!). Dragonfish. Perhaps I was too ambitious last year and got his expectations up? It's nice to be believed in, and I thought I’d try… Request was for coconut and mango. And blue. 

Decided to do a coconut cake and mango icing. Needed to get a few details for it to be a dragonfish - mainly a light- up lure and long, sharp, multitudinous teeth. Then also big weird eyes, and some spikes and spots along a long, thin body.

Hard to find good pics of dragonfish, since it cannot live above deep sea level. But I am pretty sure s got the idea from wild kratts so I partly based the look on that.

Pretty much followed this recipe for the coconut cake - baked in one round springform tin and one loaf tin.

For the cake:

250 g / 9 oz butter, softened, plus extra for greasing

250 g / 9 oz sugar 

4 eggs, lightly beaten 

1 tsp vanilla 

250 g / 9oz flour 

3 tsp baking powder 

75 g / 2 ½ oz desiccated coconut 

4 tbsp coconut cream

 

For the icing:

6 oz butter

6 oz icing sugar

c. 3/4 cup mango purée made from dried unsweetened mango covered in hot water and soaked for a few hours, then blended up

3-4 tbsp ground desiccated coconut

Food colouring (should be blue)

 

For Features:

1 fresh ripe/brown coconut

1 pack marzipan

c. 30 g dark chocolate

Small white chocolate drops / buttons

Food colouring (blue, green)

Small bike light

Tape

Kitchen foil 

To make the cake:
Heat the oven to 180C. Grease tins and line the bases with buttered baking paper.

Cream the softened butter and sugar together for 3–4 min, or until pale and light – do this as much as possible, here is where I wish I had a mixer of some kind. Gradually add the eggs, mixing well between each addition. Add the vanilla and mix again. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl, add the desiccated coconut and coconut cream, and beat again until the mixture is smooth and the ingredients are well combined.

Divide the mixture evenly between the prepared tins and bake for 25–30 min, or until the cakes are well-risen, golden-brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Leave the cakes to cool in the tins for 5 min, then carefully turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

To make the icing:

Beat the butter until really pale and light. Gradually add the icing sugar, mixing well between each addition. Add the thick mango puree and ground desiccated coconut and mix again. Finally add the food colouring until desired colour is reached (nb I wanted it to be blue but it ended up more green - think the orange-yellow colour of the mango might have skewed it). Chill until needed.

To make the features:

Teeth + spikes - fresh coconut - cracked open and flesh removed in as big pieces as possible; then sliced into thin spikes. Tooth pieces left white; tail spike pieces coloured blue by mixing with food colouring.

Lure+spots - marzipan, food colouring, bike light, tape, foil - marzipan coloured with food colouring by kneading briefly together until colour consistent, then squished into spots; bike light taped into appropriate shape then wrapped with foil, then foil covered with coloured marzipan to make the part that attaches the lure to the fish's body.

Eyes - Melted dark chocolate with small white chocolate blobs in the middle. 

To assemble:

Carve the cakes into shape, sticking together with icing. I used a couple of toothpicks hidden at the back of its head as well, to keep the jaws open. When the shape is OK, cover the outside with icing. Then add the features in appropriate places.

I made the cakes, icing and most of the features two days before the birthday, then chilled overnight, then assembled the day before and kept in cool room overnight. Ideally you could do it all in one day, but... life... All the components should be chilled when assembling - and definitely not at all warm - think it makes everything easier if stuff is stiffer.

I wasn't completely happy with the colour, and the fish was a little dumpier than I would have liked, but on the whole it turned out like I wanted - recognisably a dragonfish!