My 2nd daughter Sheza had her 5th birthday yesterday. This was a surprise cake for her. A butterfly shaped strawberry cake with heaps of her favourite gems/smarties inside….
Ingredients:
For Strawberry Cake:
2 cups plain flour/ all purpose flour
150 gm butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup strawberry pulp/puree
1- 1 1/4 cup sugar, powdered
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 tsp strawberry essence
For Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3-4 cups icing sugar/ confectioner’s sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
3-4 tbsp milk
Ready to roll fondant
food colours
candies like gems/ smarties / M&M’s
Preparation:
For Strawberry Cake:
- Preheat oven to 180 degree celicius. Grease a baking pan with butter and dust it with flour or spray with a cooking spray. Here I used small butterfly shaped mould.
- Sift together plain flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and keep it aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, add butter and sugar and beat well till light and fluffy.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add sifted flour to this mixture and beat well till combined. If the batter is thick, add the milk as required and mix well.
- Add strawberry puree and strawberry essence and mix well.
- Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan and bake for 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack…
For Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:
- In a bowl, add the butter and beat until smooth and creamy at medium speed using electric mixer.
- Add 3 cups icing sugar/ confectioner’s sugar , little at a time on low speed,until it mixes well with the butter.
- Then increase the speed to medium and add vanilla extract and milk and beat until smooth and creamy…
- To prepare this butterfly shaped cake, I baked four small cakes with this batter using butterfly shaped mould. Then allow the cakes to cool completely and level the top of each cake with a knife.
- Cut out centres / inside of two cake layers using knife .
- To assemble cake, place one uncut cake layer on a serving plate or cake stand and spread or pipe frosting around the edge of the cake.
- Stack the two cut out cakes on top of the bottom layer with frosting in between each.
- Fill the centre/ hole with the smarties/ gems /M & M’s or other candies.
- Then top the cake with the other uncut cake layer with some frosting.
- Cover the cake with the remaining frosting, smoothing it out well. Then I covered the cake with Ready-to-Roll Icing / fondant and decorated with sugar sprinkles…
- When ready to serve, cut the cake and surprise the kids !!!
lovely cake..belated birthday wishes to mol 🙂
Cute cake.
pretty cake there…good one