So our friends’ daughter and C’s god-daughter turned one last weekend. Cue: Smash The Cake! I mean, come one, you can’t be a professional Pinner and NOT have a Smash The Cake Session, right? So ofc I volunteered (read: forced everyone to be allowed) to bring a sweet little cake entirely dedicated to the little lady, to turn the whole shabang into a sweet little, picture-worthy session. Only searched the interwebs (for like a Thousand hours…) and found this perfect giant cupcake pan. And the rest was history…
Turns out though (much to my surprise… insert eye-roll) not all one year olds fancy getting dirty with cake. How is this even possible? But hey, there is always Miss Elma to try again. Oh, how I can’t wait to repeat the same steps for our baby girl’s first birthday, come December. Loving it already.
The recipe for the cake was super easy and I’m writing it down because mainly, I don’t want to forget it myself. It was the recipe that came with the pan. I’d double it next time so there really is enough dough to fill the whole pan. But that’s it. Stick to it and win!
Gian Vanilla-Vanilla Cupcake
Ingredients for the cake:
340 g butter, softened (plus some more for the pan)
340 g sugar
5 large eggs
340 g flour (the recipe called for self-raising but I used plain old flour)
3 tsp. baking powder
Couple drops vanilla extract
3 tbsp milk (optional – I left it out)
1 pinch salt (I always add that – free-style, yeah!)
Some ground hazelnuts or almonds for the pan are nice (free-style again)
Ingredients for the butter cream frosting:
170 g butter, softened
340 g icing sugar
Few drops milk (here I used some)
Couple drops vanilla extract (again, left it out here, because don’t know)
Pink food coloring (I used gel from Dr. Oetker)
Giant strawberry marshmallows, mandatory (lol)
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 180℃ / 356℉ and grease the pan. Note: I greased it with softened butter and a brush and added some ground hazelnuts to the bottom part of the baking pan, aka the base, to make a nicer and darker crumb. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together for about 5 minutes. Then add one egg at a time and beat until incorporated. Gradually add the sieved flour, baking powder and salt. Add milk if required and beat slowly until mixed.
Half the mixture and fill both parts of the pan, top swirl and bottom cake base. Note: I found that the recipe was on the “skimpy” side and that I really didn’t have enough dough to fill both parts properly. So I’d make / add more next time. You can always cut off the “peaks” so swirl top and base fit together nicely afterwards. But that way the cake turns out big enough and the proportions of top and bottom are correct if you fill the pan enough (not just halfway full). Bake for about 50 minutes. Note again: for me, it turned out to be more like 60 minutes. Also, I’d probably bake top and base in two separate sessions, as the swirl is baked through much quicker and turns a bit dry with over-baking.
Let cool for 20 minutes then remove from the pan and let cool completely on a rack. The recipe now calls for strawberry marmalade that you smear in between top and base, but I didn’t use any. Instead, I cut off the peaks from top and bottom to level them out. Put the swirl on top of the base and fixed it with some pierced in skewers (toothpicks).
For the icing, I creamed the butter first, then added the icing sugar gradually, and mixed until creamy and fluffy. I used a bit of milk, too, just because why not. No vanilla. But some pink food coloring. So now you have the choice whether you want to frost your cake using a pipe and nuzzle or simply a spatula. If, like me, you dream of becoming a professional Magnolia’s Cupcake Baker (for purely homely purposes) you’ll use the spatula and have a proper go at smearing. Whoop! Place the giant strawbs atop and voilà, finished Giant Cupcake and ready for your bébé to Smash that Cake!
xo
PS: Oh, and isn’t it just so good how my main Blogger’s purpose – aka food and related things – now seamlessly link to my other dominant plot, motherhood? Besides, what’s cuter than cupcakes and babies…?
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