2 Fun Cakes for 1 Fabulous 4 Year Old

My big girl is growing up. She is a wonderful, sweet, brilliant, and good little girl and I love her so much. And she deserves wonderful cakes for her birthday. This year we split the parties up to keep things manageable. On her actual birthday, which fell midweek, we had all of the family over.


Since most of both of our families live in the area (We MISS you D, M, and E!!!!) our house is just too small to host the family and H's friends together. We did the friend party, which we tried to keep fairly small too, on the weekend for convenience. It also made it easier for all of us to visit with each other during the parties, plus the added bonus - H gets two parties.


There was no particular theme to the family party, just Happy Birthday! to our girl. She specifically asked for a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and rainbow sprinkles. So that is (of course) what she got. I made the basic chocolate layer cake recipe from the America's Test Kitchen Best Recipes cookbook, which is dense and delicious.

For a simple, and not oppressively sweet, frosting, I made a stabilized whipped cream and used it in between the layers and rusticly swirled on top. And per H's request, the whole thing got a playful dusting of rainbow sprinkles. I thought it ended up as a nice, sophisticated, and tasty cake for a 4 year old.


The friend party had a rainbow theme, so of course I had to play that up in the cake. Quite a while ago I ran across the rainbow cake on Omnomicon and ended up using that as inspiration for our cake. I unfortunately ran short on time and ended up using two packages of white cake mix (for shame!), but I would again recommend the America's Test Kitchen, basic white cake recipe if you have more planning time.

The process is pretty easy. I mixed up both mixes together and then separated the batter into six bowls. Each was colored with gel food colorings. The gel coloring is key. The liquid is too weak and you would end up having to add so much to get the rich colors that it would be more chemical than cake.


Once you have your rainbow of batters ready to go, start with one of the two cake pans and pour the first three colors (Red, Orange, Yellow) into the center of the pan. Pour half of the red into the center of the pan, then half of the orange right on top of the red, and then half of the yellow right on top of the orange. As you pour each color, the one below will spread out and you'll have concentric circles of color.


After you pour the first three colors in, start the other pan going in the opposite direction (Purple, Blue, Green). You end up seeing more of the center color when baked , so it's nice to switch the order up to have a good color spread. It also helps to start the second pan after only doing three in the first pan so that the two pans end up with the same amount of batter in case your guess at "half" was a bit off. Finish off both pans with the colors in the order (or reverse order) of the rainbow, then bake away. I used two mixes, but only two pans, so it took longer than the box direction to bake all the way through. Just bake until a cake tester comes out clean.



After the cakes cool, put a very thin layer of frosting on the cake. This is going to help the fondant stay on. What? Did you say fondant? Yes, I finally tried to make some fondant and get all schmancy. As you can tell, it didn't come out as perfectly as I had envisioned (Damn you, Ace of Cakes, for making this look so easy!) but it was still fun.


I used this Marshmallow Fondant recipe, because it is pretty easy to make, work with and it doesn't taste quite as horrible as most fondants. Follow the instruction, and keep them wrapped in the fridge until you are ready to use them. Take your time and don't roll it too thin or it will tear when you are working with it. I got the whole cake covered at one point but it looked so bad I had to rip it all off, toss it, and start over.


I will likely give the marshmallow fondant another try, but get started earlier in the day so I am not so rushed. It is clearly one of those things that you can tell will get much easier each time you do it. Both cakes were a hit with H, which of course is the whole point!

This Weekend - I Baked

I have been wanting to do a lot more baking and cooking lately. It has just been too busy with kids, work, event like American Idol, etc. But this weekend, the stars aligned and I was able to spend some time in the kitchen. Actually, it is mostly due to my beautiful wife who was kind enough to stay on top of the weekend chores and the kids so I could get some yummy things from the oven to our bellies. And, speaking of stars...they were gorgeous last night. R and I stepped outside after the kids went to bed and the sky was brilliant with glowing stars, we hung out outside long enough to see a shooting star together, which has always been a thing for us.

Back to the baking. This weekend, I made...

a brotform loaf of semolina bread,

a classic diner style layer cake with homemade peach jam and spiced whipped cream,

and bagels from Grandpa S's recipe

I also made some zuchinni pickles from the Zuni Cafe cookbook to put on hamburgers at my mom's house tomorrow.


So first off, the brotform. This was basically because I needed space in the fridge. I had some semolina dough from ABi5MaD and I let it rise in the brotform I got from D and M. This was a much smaller loaf than the last one, but it worked just fine. We had it as an appetizer with some rosemary oil and balsamic last night.

The cake was also for last night - we celebrated my Dad's birthday.

They had just dropped off some fresh peaches for us the day or two before so I thought it would be fun to incorporate them into the cake.

I have been looking for a go-to cake recipe lately and have been playing with one from Dorie Greenspan that was used in a past DB challenge. I made it a few nights ago as mini lavender bundt cakes, but I forgot the vanilla extract and they were obviously a bit flat (sorry Cat and Heath). I am liking the cake, it's got a great texture and a hint of lemon from the zest that is blended with sugar and then creamed with the butter.

This time I used vanilla and walnut extract and used the homemade peach jam (which was just cooked fresh peaches with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove) and covered the whole cake with whipped cream (whipped with powdered sugar for added stability) flavored with a hint of the walnut extract. It ended up looking like a classic diner cake. I really liked using the whipped cream - I really really like whipped cream, so covering a cake (I really really like cake too) in whipped cream is definitely the way to go. I can do without buttercream for a while.

I have also been wanting to bake more bread lately and I thought trying out Grandpa's bagel recipe would be perfect. My grandpa was a New York fireman way back, and used to tell me cool stories about growing up playing stickball in the streets. Now some people swear that you can't make a good bagel outside of New York because there is something special in the water, but Grandpa and I gave that theory a run for its money today.

To make bagels, you make a basic bread dough with salt and a bit of sugar, and knead the heck out of it

let it rise,

reknead, then shape into the the classic bagel "oh".

After a brief rise, they are boiled in salted, malted, water. I used sugar, because I didn't have any malt in the house. Boiling is key. You can't make bagels without boiling, so don't even try, unless you are a huge fan of round rolls. Steaming bagels doesn't work either, they don't get that perfect crust and chewy inside without being boiled.


They boil for about three minutes then you take them out and put them on a greased cookie sheet and you can add your favorite toppings at this point. That is of course assuming to don't think blueberries, or sundried tomatoes are the perfecting topping. Chocolate chip and blueberry are muffin flavors, not bagels. Today I went with sesame seeds, caraway seeds, and some gray salt.


They'll sit again for a few minutes and then head into a preheated (425) oven for about 25-30 minutes. I did add extra steam when I first put them in and I left my baking stone in the oven to regulate temp since I knew I would have to open the oven to rotate the two trays.


After an agonizing wait to let them cool, R and I finally tried some. They're fantastic. I will keep playing with the recipe, but I won't buy bagels in the Valley ever again. They are delicious, dense, chewy with a crust. I can't wait to toast one up in the morning with a schmear of cream cheese.