Hi, all. Summer is here. July just started and I just wrote my first post on my first blog. Yesterday it was my birthday (not telling how many candles were on the cake) and we all know what comes with that…..the cake of course. A blueberry frosting birthday cake to be exact.
My boyfriend’s mother gave us this “parrot cake” (Papageienkuchen in German) in a box. That is how I got the idea for my birthday cake. I combined together the sponge cake and “parrot” cake, so the cake would be spongy and colourful. The colours were the natural golden, green and pink. Those colours made me think of purple, so I decided for blueberry filling and also frosting. I like blueberries and purple. I have my hair dyed pastel purple and guess, my laptop is purple too.
But let’s get back to the topic….our recipe.
First I started with the sponge cake. I had to make three of them (three different colours, remember?). As I have only one 16 cm round baking form and I needed three of them, I used the paper baking forms. Just like the ones for muffins, but bigger. I decided for the 18 cm diameter. If you put 5 together (instead of using single ones) it will work just great. Here is what I did.
Ingredients:
- 3 eggs (size M)
- 180 g (softened) butter or you can use also sunflower oil
- 180 g caster sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 180 g self-raising flour (how to make a self-raising flour )
- 150 ml water or milk
Let’s get started!
Preheat the oven to 180ºC and grease the 3 paper forms using some softened butter or oil. First, mix the butter and sugar until fluffy. It will take a couple of minutes. The butter likes to climb up the sides of the bowl and up the mixer whisks. No worries, just scrape down the sides and the whisks.
Beat the 3 eggs and add them to the butter mixture. When mixed properly add the flour and the baking powder. At the beginning mix slowly so that the flour does not fly everywhere. Now you can add the water or milk, a little at a time. The mixture should slide easily off the spoon, but you do not want it to run off.
Now divide evenly into 3 bowls. Put one bowl to a side (we want that natural colour), in the second bowl mix the green food colour (I used the colour powder, you can find it in any supermarket) and in the third the pink one. Mix it just with a spoon. Pour the mixture into the paper baking forms (each colour in a separate form).
Place them in the oven on the middle rack and bake them for 25-30 minutes. Do not open the oven before the cake is baked. After 25-30 min you can check with a toothpick if it is done (toothpick should be dry), but try to do everything quickly so that the warm air does not go out. Turn off the oven and place a wooden spoon between the oven’s door to let the cake cool down slowly. After 10 minutes you can take them out of the oven. Remove the paper forms, flip them around and put on a wire rack to cool down completely.
I didn’t do the frosting right away. I wanted to be sure that the sponge cakes are cooled. So you can take a break like me.
I have decided to cover my cake with something purple. I have chosen blueberry buttercream frosting. Since the weather in Hamburg is not stable at all, I didn’t want to take a risk with fondant. I had to cover and fill the 3 layer cake. So I have been reading a lot and here I found how to make a perfect buttercream. I have made some changes; instead of vanilla I added coconut flavour and I used less sugar.
Here are the ingredients that “fit” a 18cm cake:
- 225 g (softened) butter
- 375 g icing/confectioners sugar (if you have the cup with measurements in ml it would be 690ml)
- 300 g fresh blueberries (half of them for decorations and filling)
- 2 Tsp coconut milk (the solid layer in the tin)
- 100 ml water (for cooking the blueberries)
Wash 150 g blueberries and put them together with 100 ml water in a small pot. Cook on medium heat for ca 10 min or until the blueberries are really soft. Stir all the time. Then take a sieve with a fine mesh, place a small bowl underneath it and push the blueberries through it. Use a spoon to push all the blueberries liquids in the bowl. You are going to use only the juice so the rest in the sieve can be thrown away. Let the concentrated juice to cool completely.
Now you can start “creating” the buttercream. Almost the same procedure with whisking the butter as before. So take the butter and start mixing it for 5 minutes or so, until fluffy. And same as before the butter is going to climb up the sides and up the whisks, so scrape it down. Start adding a little icing sugar at a time. I was mixing on medium and high when adding the sugar and on low when I added the blueberry juice. You don’t want it splashing everywhere, right? And now you can put in the mixture also the solid part of the coconut milk (putting the tin in the fridge helps to get a nice layer of solid milk). Keep whipping for 3 more minutes and then you can start with the cake decorations.
Put the first layer of the sponge cake on the platform where you will keep the cake. I made one myself, using a little of creativity. Using a square piece of paper cardboard, covered in aluminium foil, then I cut the borders of a nice paper napkin (so that you could still see the shiny alu foil on the borders) and placed the napkin in the middle of the cardboard (use some glue). At the end wrap everything with the transparent foil for food (fix it at the back of the cardboard with some tape) and place a round (cake size) piece of baking paper in the centre. Voilà! Done in 5 minutes.
Now the first piece of the cake (I started with the green) is placed. I put some of the frosting on the first layer (enough for the blueberries to stick) and I completely covered it with fresh blueberries. Then comes the second layer of the cake (pink) and a layer of frosting (you can add some blueberries also here) and the last one. Now start spreading the frosting on the sides first and then on the top. I didn’t make it look nice smooth but more nice rustic. And for the end, my boyfriend decorated it with blueberries on top (three nice circles, starting on the outside).
The blueberry frosting birthday cake is done! Hope you will try it too. It is easy to make and doesn’t take much time, it looks great and it tastes great too. Enjoy!
