Baby Sprinkle Cake
A close friend of mine had her 'baby sprinkle' over the weekend and asked me to make a cake for her. We ended up deciding on a sprinkle cake to go with her sprinkle theme. We actually only made it through the top layer of cake while I was there - may have gone a bit cake-crazy size wise. Feedback on the banana layer was good, and I heard in the afternoon that the vanilla was also yum - nailed it!
I didn't take any photos of the baking part of this cake as the assembly was more important as it's a little different to usual.
The top layer of cake is probably my most well used recipe - the good old Edmonds Cookbook banana cake. This seems to be a no fail cake for me, and I sometimes even throw some chocolate chips in the batter and bake it in muffin tins. It's a great recipe with chocolate icing, on it's own, or in the case of the sprinkle cake I opted for cream cheese icing and a little zig-zag trowel to give the cake a rustic look, and stop it from being too plain.
I made the standard banana cake batter (recipe below) and split it between two smaller cake tins that I have at home. I also got a cake board size to match for this to make stacking easier when I popped this cake on top of the base cake.
Once these cakes were cool I iced them completely on the cake board and then detailed the icing. I popped it in the fridge to chill for a bit so the icing hardened up and I could man handle it later on.
For the base layer I went for a vanilla buttermilk recipe I found online (recipe below). I put a load of blue food colouring in this as I know my girlfriend is having another gorgeous wee boy! YAY!
Once I had two of the vanilla cakes I made a double batch of buttercream and iced it all up. I had this one on it's own cake board too, just to give me something solid to hold onto while I was moving it about.
Now here's the hard part - I was on my own all weekend so had to attempt this by myself, which was definitely not ideal and I may or may not have been overtired and had a wahh at this point - BUT you need to get those sprinkles onto that cake! I initially thought that I would just be able to roll the cake in a tray of sprinkles.. Turns out that I was mainly wrong on that one because a. the cake was too heavy for my wimpy arms and b. the icing was too soft. So after fail attempt one I put the fully iced and half sprinkled cake into the fridge for ten minutes to take a breather and reassess.
Once it was a little cooler I put a thin layer of buttercream over the entire cake and decided to just get my hands (and entire kitchen) dirty by scooping handfuls of sprinkles onto the cake - worked A LOT better than the rolling but still didn't entirely turn out how I imagined. I think next time I will get my icing smooth and perfect before getting the sprinkles onto it - and also wait till I have an extra pair of helping hands around. Even 2 days, and numerous vacuum sessions later I am still standing on sprinkles and finding them in odd places - like my oven mitts! Those buggers get everywhere so be prepared for a mess.
Once all sprinkled up I popped some fat straws in the centre - and surrounds - where I would be sitting the smaller cake. Just for some added support, and also because I could not find the actual cake support I was after. These fat straws were sturdy, disposable and cheap (bonus!).
I didn't assemble this cake 'properly' until I was at my girlfriends the next day. I didn't think it was a good idea to transport a fully assembled two tier cake for close to 40 minutes in the car especially at the rate things weren't going to plan!
The end result wasn't perfect but it tasted great so kept the baby sprinkle guests happy and full!
Liv x
Recipes:
Edmonds Banana Cake
125g butter (softened)
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups bananas (ripe and mashed - I used 3 average sized bananas)
1 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp milk (heated)
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Heat oven to 180˚C and grease/oil spray 20cm round cake tin.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add mashed banana. Stir baking soda into hot milk and add to creamed mixture and stir well.
Sift flour and baking powder. Fold into mixture.
Turn into greased cake tin. Bake at 180˚C for approx 50 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched.
Leave in tin for 10 minutes before turning onto wire rack.
Cream Cheese Frosting
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
175g full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature
3 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence
Beat the butter in a bowl with a handheld electric mixer until smooth and lump-free. Add the cream cheese and beat until well incorporated. Slowly add the icing sugar in three batches, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla and beat on high speed for a few minutes until the icing is light in colour and fluffy.
Vanilla Buttermilk Cake
2 cups plus 1 Tbsp plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup buttermilk
Preheat oven to 180˚C. Generously grease or spray cake tin.
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
In another mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add vanilla extract and mix well. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well. You may need to scrape down the bowl a few times.
With mixer on low, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled).
Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing lightly until each addition is just incorporated. Do not over-mix.
Fill cake tin and then whack the tin on the counter a few times to release air bubbles.
Bake until tops are moist and golden and a toothpick comes out clean, about 30 minutes, but your oven may vary.
Cool cake in tin for 15 minutes on a wire rack. Remove from tin and continue cooling on racks covered with baking paper until completely cool.
Vanilla Buttercream
200g unsalted butter (softened)
4 cups icing sugar
2 tsp of vanilla essence
3-4 Tbsp hot water
Beat the butter until smooth and pale. Add the vanilla essence. Gradually add the icing sugar, half a cup at a time, with enough of the hot water to make a creamy mixture, beating between each addition until fluffy.
