threefootcooks: cakes

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D is for DIY Birthday Cakes

I was inspired by Jean Van't Hul over at The Artful Parent blog for this cooking activity. Bear has been pestering me over the past few weeks to make a train cake. I am not sure where she got the idea from but Bear has certainly been persistent in her requests.

Bear loved her finished train cake

With their birthdays coming up this month it was a great opportunity to not only make a train cake but also let Bear and Bee have total control over a cooking project.

This is what we did to make an easy train birthday cake. But you could easily adapt this idea to lots of themes. How about a square sponge cake and some mini waffle ice cream cones to make a castle cake? Or blue jelly and crushed plain biscuits for a beach cake? We used store bought cakes and decorations because of limited time but you could easily make your own plain butter cake as the base.

Ingredients
1 plain butter cake
1 packet assorted rollettes
Icing mixture
Food colouring
Assorted sprinkles and lollies for decorating such as smarties, freckles and musk sticks

Directions

Bee mixing her icing

1. Make icing using icing mixture, a few drops of food colouring and a small amount of warm water. Or use your favourite recipe for icing.

2. Cut the cake into 2 different sized rectangles to create a train engine shape.

Bear icing the train engine

Bee adding decorations

3. Ice the engine and add the decorations.
4. Arrange the musk sticks (or you could use liquorice straps) onto a large flat plate to form train tracks.
5. Place the train engine on top of the musk sticks.

Bear decided her cake needed candles.

6. Add the rollettes as carriages and decorate them with lollies using leftover icing as 'glue'.

Bee loved her cake.

7. Enjoy.

I really would encourage you to let your children have a go at making their own birthday cakes. Bear and Bee were absolutely thrilled with the results and there wasn't as much mess as I thought there would be!

X is for Xmas Cone Cakes

For our first Xmas cooking activity I thought we would try making a Christmassy version of cupcakes cooked in ice cream cones. I came across a recipe in a Woman’s Day Fun Food book that I then adapted to make the cake batter from scratch. You could certainly use a packet vanilla cake mix or even a different flavoured cake like chocolate or orange.

Instead of creaming the butter and sugar I used this melt and mix recipe from Donna Hay and to make it a bit more Christmassy I used golden syrup instead of honey and added 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon to the flour. The result was a great tasting cake.

To make these Xmas cone cakes, follow the above recipe to make the cake batter.

Mix the flour and sugar together.

Crack the eggs.

In a separate bowl mix together the melted butter, sour cream and eggs.

Mix in the golden syrup.

Stir in the flour sugar mix.

Stir until combined.

Arrange 3 flat bottomed ice cream cones close together on a microwave safe plate.

Getting the ice cream cones ready.

Spoon some of the cake batter into each cone until they are ½ full. Don’t be tempted to put more in – they won’t work. The first batch we tried cooking were about ¾ full and they overflowed when cooking and the cones went soggy and fell over.

Don't overfill the cones!

Microwave the cone cakes on high (100%) power for 40-45 seconds. Allow to cool. Repeat for remaining cone cakes. This is a great way of cooking cakes for young children impatient to start decorating and eating.

Now to decorate them. Make sure the cone cakes are nice and cool. Once they are ready spread on some icing and decorate with your choice of sprinkles, lollies etc. I just use a very simple icing made from icing mixture (a blend of pure icing sugar and cornflour) and warm water. You can certainly add some food colouring if you like too.

This recipe will make at least 24 cone cakes. We made 8 and then had enough cake batter left to also make 12 cupcakes.

Here is what Bee’s and my cone cakes looked like. I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo of Bear’s cakes.

What will you be cooking this Christmas with your child?

R is for Rainbow Cake

Bear and Bee’s grandparents have been up north on holidays for the past 6 weeks so both girls were very excited when they learnt that Grandma and Grandad were back and coming for a visit. Bee decided straight away that we needed to make a cake for them. Not a birthday cake but a hip-hip-hooray cake (I think she meant a welcome back cake). Anyway that decision was easy, now to decide on the cake.

I gave Bee some Donna Hay Kids Issue magazines to look through. I love Donna Hay as her recipes are inspired and taste great as well as being achievable. She has written some fabulous cookbooks and I subscribe to her monthly magazine, mostly to look at the pictures these days. Bee eventually settled on a Rainbow Cake (you can use this recipe from the Donna Hay site and then divide the cake mix into 3 and tint one pink, one with cocoa for chocolate and leave 1 white). However as the cake in the magazine was in layers and I don’t have that many round cake tins we decided to make it as a marble cake with the colours swirled together (I think as long as there was going to be pink cake, Bee would have agreed to anything).

Rainbow Layer Cake from Donna Hay Kids Issue magazine

The recipe was for a melt and mix cake which meant no need to get the electric beaters out and cream the butter and sugar. It also meant that Bee was able to do most of the steps herself with my supervision (Bear got distracted and disappeared again :)). Melt and mix cakes do tend to be a little denser than regular cakes, much like a mud cake. BTW there was enough mix to make two cakes as you will see in photos.

Here’s what we did: