Birthday Cakes

It has been quite a busy week for me right after CNY. I got 2 birthday cake orders to fill so I was literally stuck home making birthday cakes and doing house chores the whole time. ;P Frankly speaking, I like it! (not the chores part of course!) I feel honored to take this all important job for making someone's birthday just a little more special. :) The first order came from a neighbor whom has requested me to make birthday cupcakes for her daughter. After some discussion, it was decided on garden theme. So here it is:

If you ask me, this is 60% fun, 40% hardwork. :) I love playing with fondant, so when my neighbor asked for it, I jump to the opportunity! Lol! Even though it does take up time for the moulding, but with proper time planning, everything will fall into place nicely. :) Furthermore, cupcakes are much easier to handle rather then a whole cake. :P

Comparing this with my previous fondant cupcakes for my kid's birthday, this is definitely a much easier one. :) I made the usual chocolate butter cake, piped buttercream tinted with leaf green over it and top off with the fondant "insects", wordings and flowers. :)

I do hope the birthday girl and her friends love these cupcakes. :) Happy Birthday Jade!

The other order I got was from my husband's office. I guess the primary reason why this order came about was from my Root Beer Chocolate Chunk Cake. Apparently the birthday gal loves to drink Coke and so her thoughtful husband took the initiative to order a Coke Chocolate Birthday cake to celebrate her birthday. :)

As I did mention in my previous post, the root beer taste was not evident so I suspected it was gonna to be the same even if I switch it to Coke. Furthermore I had to change the recipe to sponge cake rather then pound cake but still using Coke as the base fluid ingredient. Reason is simple...who uses pound cake for birthday cakes?!

I have adapted the technique "分蛋式海绵蛋糕" from my new cookbook collection; 孟老师的美味蛋糕卷. It is a little different from your usual chiffon method, but supposedly more soft and yet stays fluff without deflating. However since I needed to incorporate Coke into the cake, it got a little more tricky even though I have tried that technique before. Well, a baker's gotta do what a baker's gotta do...just bake!

It's good that the chocolate cake still turned out decant. *phew* However, even though as much Coke as I've added to the recipe, the Cola taste wasn't that evident. :P I even soaked a couple tablespoons of Coke onto each layer of the sponge cake! Oh well, I did what I could, I just hope the birthday girl wasn't too disappointed about it. :P Anyway, hope you have a great birthday celebration! :)

I won't be sharing this recipe since I did modified the original recipe from 孟老师的美味蛋糕卷. I will post up another Swiss roll recipe with this technique soon, so stay tune if you're interested. :)

Okay, thanks for staying on to read my post. But I gotta go now. :P Hope you all have a great remaining week! Cheers~!