Sunday, May 16, 2010

Fresh Strawberry Cake

I had the fondant itch again and this time round I wanted to create some mini cakes. I find mini cakes to be particular cute as I could make each one a different design. I decided that I would make a fresh strawberry cake as Korean strawberries are aplenty at the moment. To make sure that the cake would really stand out once cut, I added some Wilton deep pink colour to enhance it's colour. (Unfortunately I do not have any photos to show off the cool pink colour.) The batter was baked it in a 10" by 10" cake pan. Once the cake was completed cooled, I used 3" cake rings to cut out the shapes. I ended up with three mini cakes made up of 3 layers sandwiched with white chocolate buttercream. The decorations which consisted of flowers and butterfly were made a few days earlier, all done in front of the telly whilst watching my favourite programs. I definitely believe in multi-tasking.



Mini cake 1


Fresh Strawberry Cake
Recipe Adapted from RecipeZaar
Makes 16 servings


Ingredients for the Cake:

2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 strawberry essence
3/4 cup fresh crushed strawberry, unsweetened

Ingredients for the Strawberry Glaze:

1/2 to 3/4 cup crushed strawberry
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For the Cake:

1) Preheat oven to 180C.

2) Sift together: flour, salt, and baking powder.

3) In a separate bowl, combine butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Beat for a total of 3 minutes, scrapping the sides of the bowl.

4) Then add flour mixture to creamed mixture, alternating with the strawberry puree. Beat for two minutes.

4) Pour batter into two 8-inch round greased and floured cake pans. Bake in pre-heated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until cake tests done. Turn out on to wire cooling racks to cool.

5) When cool, top with Strawberry Glaze.

For the Strawberry Glaze:

Mix together all ingredients. Use enough strawberries to thin mixture.



Mini cake 2




Mini cake 3




Mini cake 4

14 comments:

  1. Very beautiful! Are the flowers and butterfly made from sugar icing or marzipan?

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  2. Spectacular. I cannot believe these are mini-cakes. Such an enormous effort and well worth it. Absolutely stunning!

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  3. I'm a mini-everything person! Your cakes are ridiculously cute. Must have very steady hands to handle such small creations, no?

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  4. Wow, your cakes are just stunning! Love the fact that there is buttercream inside - yum!

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  5. Jo, You never stop amazed me with your cake decorating skills! They are too cute for words.

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  6. Oh, yes! Jo, multitasking is a gift ya know! Too bad, I can only multitask at certain things ... For things that trigger the OCD in me, no way ... I'm such a perfectionist when it comes to these tasks. *Sigh*

    You're now well seasoned in fondant making! When will it be my turn!? Who knows! These look absolutely impressive! Keep it up!

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  7. Hi Angie the flowers are made from fondant as well. For the butterfuly I used gumpaste as I wanted it to really harden before putting it on the cake.

    Hi El, Bel,Ellie, thanks.

    Hi Ju, haha I don't actually have that steady a hand. Plus eye sight not that great either. But I kinda love doing fondant now.

    Hi Pei-Lin, hopefully one day you will venture down this path. It's quite addictive!

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  8. Your strawberry cakes look absolutely gorgeous! Like a piece of art! You're really a great multi-tasker! Dun think I will ever master your skill in doing the decorations.

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  9. Hi, just stumbled into your site.
    WOW! These fondant mini cakes are so stunning. Very pretty :)

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  10. Wow! You are so very talented... all of the cakes looks so beautiful.

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  11. awww so cute! You are so talented!

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  12. Simply gorgeous! You are so skillful..

    Sawadee from Bangkok,
    Kris

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  13. These fondant creations are works of art. They look very elegant ^^

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