Hulk / Iron man / Cpt. America / Thor Lego Cake 復仇者聯盟樂高蛋糕

It was a very busy week to make a cake for my younger daughter's classmate Aiden's birthday. This week, my husband had business trip and I had to take care of kids and had to do everything by myself. First, need to drive them to piano class and swimming class. Then there was Chinese class exam for my 2 daughters on Wednesday. Thirdly, there was Pro-d day and a playdate was arranged at my house on Friday. Lastly, I need to drive them to fellowship on Friday's night. 8 inch 3D cake along with 48 cupcakes with topper due on Saturday. I was totally............

But thanks God for giving me strength everyday. I started my day with TWA (time with Abba) and prayer. God gave me strength and power all day long!

Aiden likes Lego Thor, Hulk, Cpt. America and Ironman. And the cake's theme has ti be in Lego Superhero theme. 

I only have  2-3 hours everyday to work on the cake. I did the four figures first. Then I made Lego fondant blocks. The cake is a 8 inch 3 layers chocolate cake. I use basic buttercream for frosting. I cover the cake with white fondant as base. Then add red, yellow, green and blue fondants on top of the white fondant. I cover the cake bottom rim with fondant lego blocks. 

 

You can see I make the body and feet of the character first. Second I

is the head. Then its hair. Lastly is the arm and hand by using different tools as you see in the pictures.

To make the lego block. I cut the lego using a piping tip. For the cake, I first cover the cake with white fondant. Then apply different color fondant on top of white fondant. 

Chocolate Cake base recipe:

Chocolate Cake (7" round pan)

(I double to recipe to make 2x 8" round cake base)

Ingredients

80g cake flour
2g baking soda
24g cocoa powder
1g salt

80g  sugar
6 Egg yolk

20g milk

40g vegetable oil

6 Egg white

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Whisk Egg white until stiff peak
3. Sift Cake flour, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt and mix together. Set aside.
4. (B) Cream Egg yolk and sugar until puffy creamy white color.
5.Add half the flour mix and mixed then add half the milk (10g) and mixed until combine.
6. Add the remaining half flour mix and mixed until combine. Add the remaining half of the milk and then mix until combine and form a batter.
7. Fold in half the egg white to the batter. Gently fold until well combined. Add in the remaining egg white and fold. Finally add in oil and gently fold until mix. Do not over fold.
8. Pour batter to lined square pan. Tab the pan to let some air from batter to come out.
9. Place pan in oven and bake for 30 mins.

 

Hulk / Iron man / Cpt. America / Thor Cupcakes 復仇者聯盟樂高小蛋糕

Related to my other Lego Superhero cake post I have only 2-3 hours each day to finish a 8 inch 3D cake along with 48 cupcakes with toppers. I definitely use the first few hours to finished the cupcakes toppers first. They can be storable and they are better to be leave out to harden before applying to the cupcakes. I finished them 5 days before the order due date.

I made 40 cupcakes with toppers and 8 extra ones with only buttercream. So 4 of each kind of characters.

I draft the Iron man head and outline it on top of fondant. The way of making the fist is the same as Iron man. Draft the outline in parchment paper and outline it on the fondant. Then cut it with knife or tool. Then I use edible pen to outline the fist and fingers detail.

I made Captain America shield, Hulk fist, Thor hammer and Iron man face.

Chocolate cupcake Recipe:

Chocolate Cupcakes recipe: (makes 12-16 large cupcakes) 

(I tripled the amount to make 48 medium size cupcakes)

Ingredients:

- 375 ml (1 1/2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
- 7.5 ml (1 1/2 teaspoon) baking powder
- 2.5 ml (1/2 teaspoon) baking soda
- 1 ml (1/4 teaspoon) salt

- 250 ml (1 cup) sugar
- 180 ml (3/4 cup) cocoa

- 180 ml (3/4 cup) vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 5 ml (1 teaspoon) vanilla extract

- 250 ml (1 cup) milk

Preparation

1. With the rack in middle position, preheat the oven to 180 °C (350 °F). Line a 12 cavity muffin tray with paper liners.

2. In a bowl,combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

3. In another bowl, combine the sugar and cocoa. Add the oil, eggs, vanilla and beat with an electric mixer at high speed or until mixture is smooth. At low speed, add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk. Scoop the batter into the molds

4. Bake for approximately 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cake comes out clean. Cool and store in an airtight container.

 

Italian Meringue Macarons Layered Mini Cake 馬卡龍迷你多層小蛋糕

I made macarons for a few times and I still prefer using Italian way to do it. Although it is more complicated but it can guarantee successful. But I will try the French way again next time. I am planning to bake some macarons for cake decoration purpose. And I also try to use macarons to make a macarons cake for my friend's birthday. I will need to prepare different size of macarons and place them in layer with cake and frosting in between them. Sounds interesting. Let's do it!

Recipe: (can make around 80 shells. That is about 40 macarons)
Italian Meringue Macarons
200g almond meal or ground blanched almonds
200g confectioners’ sugar
200g sugar
50g water
150g egg whites, divided into two 75g portions


Directions:

1. Stack two baking trays on top of each other. Line with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
2. Process almond meal with confectioners’ sugar in a food processor (Pic 1-3). Sieve out any large bits of almond (Pic 4,5).
3. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan (Pic 6). Heat on medium until all the sugar is dissolved.
   
4. Meanwhile, place 75g of egg whites in a mixer bowl with the whisk attachment .
5. Continue cooking until the sugar syrup reaches 118 C/245 F (Pic 7). While the sugar is cooking, begin whisking the egg whites. They should reach stiff peaks by the time the syrup is at 245 F. If it whips too fast, turn down or turn off the mixer.
6. Turn the mixer speed to low. Carefully pour the sugar syrup in a slow stream into the mixer (Pic 8).
7. Turn the mixer speed to high and let the meringue for several minutes until it has cooled and appears glossy and firm (Pic 9).
8. In a large bowl, combine the almond meal mixture with the remaining 75g of egg whites (Pic 10) until partially combined (Pic 11).
   
9. Scoop the meringue on top of the almond meal mixture. Using a spatula or dough scraper, carefully fold the meringue in, trying not to deflate it (Pic 12-14).
10. The final batter should be thick and flow slowly like magma. Do not overmix.
11. Scoop the batter into a piping bag fitted with a ½” diameter plain tip (N0. 12) (Pic 15).
12. Pipe 1 ½” rounds of batter onto the prepared baking sheets. Let the sheets sit for about 20 minutes to let the shells harden (Pic 16).
13. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 160 C/320 F.
14. Bake one set of macarons for 15 minutes, rotating once. (Pic 17)
15. Let tray cool for a few minutes before removing from the silicone mat. Let finish cooling on wire racks.

TIPS: For bigger macarons, bake longer in time with the same temperature.

In the meantime, I am working on my Napoleon Cake, I have extra Egg White Walnut Crisp cake and some maple syrup buttercream left. I will use them back to assemble my macarons into a macarons cake.

For the Egg white cake layer and buttercream recipe, please refer to my Napoleon cake blog page: http://winniemsfong.blogspot.com/2013/11/napoleon-birthday-cake.html

Cake assembly:

1. Pick out different size of macarons (Pic 18)
2. Cut out the cake size using a cookie cutter (Pic 19&20)
3. Spread buttercream on cake layer (Pic 21)
4. Place the largest macaron on the cake layer.(Pic 22)
5. Cut another cake using a small cookie cutter. Spread buttercream on both side of the cake layer. Then place another layer of macaron. (Pic 23)
6. Repeat these steps and place the smallest macaron on top.
7. Pipe buttercream around the outside of cake layer. Finished with any icing or fondant decoration you want.

I put on some fondant flowers and stars for further decoration. 

Napoleon birthday Cake 拿破崙生日蛋糕

This week I am extremely lack of energy and being sick. Got the coughing from my kids and husband. But birthday party for my friend Ben already scheduled long time ago. But I can tell I am unable to make any fancy cake. And after I made a cake, I am unable to put on any fondant or any special decoration. So I decided to make a good tasting cake without any special decoration. I made a Napoleon cake before in single serving size. This time I want it to be served like a big cake. In normal situation, one day or two I can finished the cake. But in my situation now, I took 4 days to finished the cake with simple decoration just before the party started. I can only work on one step at a time in one day. Those coughing makes me sleepless at night. Everything is in slow motion for me including writing this blog now.

Ingredients: (Pic 1)
1. Instant puff pastry
2. Walnut egg white crisp batter:

• 130g egg white
• 2 drops vanilla essence
• 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
• 60g caster sugar
• 25g bread flour
• 10g corn starch
• 120g walnut (diced)

3. Butter cream

• 120g butter
• 2 drops vanilla essence
• 45g syrup

4. Whipped cream

• whipping cream 300ml 
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

 Directions:

(Walnut egg white crisp layer)

1. Preheat oven at 350 degree F. Blend walnut into little pieces (Pic 2). Heat it in pan for better taste(pic 3). 

2. Whisk egg white, vanilla essence and cream of tartar(Pic 4) with mixer at high speed until fluffy (Pic 5).

3. Add sugar, bread flour, corn starch,(Pic 6) walnut in this sequence. Mix well with spatula. (Pic 7)

 4. Line baking tray with parchment paper

5. Pour egg white batter into tray. Smooth the surface(Pic 8). Adjust oven temperature to 350 degree F.  Place batter at middle rack of oven for 20 mins.

6. Let cool and cut egg white crisp into 2 parts (same size as the puff pastry that you prepared).

 (Puff Pastry)

7. Prepare puff pastry according to the directions on instant pastry box. Roll it out and cut into your square pan size (Pic 10). Save the cut out unused pastry for cake decoration. Poke some holes using a fork (Pic 11) Place puff pastry at the middle of oven. Also bake the extra unused cut out pastry. Bake until surface of puff pastry changes to golden colour. Adjust to 200 degree F. The entire baking process takes about 30 min (Pic 12). Save the cut out unused baked pastry and crushed into tiny pieces. Save it for later use in Step 15.

(Buttercream layer) 

8. Whisk butter (Pic 13) and vanilla essence with mixer at high speed to milky colour(Pic 14). Add syrup(Pic 15). Whisk until fluffy to form butter cream.(Pic 16)

(Cake Assembly)

9 .Spread a little butter cream on puff pastry(pic 17). Add egg white crisp layer (Pic 18).

10. Spread a little butter cream (Pic 19)

11. Add the second piece of puff pastry

12. Repeat the above step and add the third piece of puff pastry. (Pic 20)

13. Press down firmly. Chill in fridge.

(Whipped cream and decoration)

14.Whipped whipping cream with powdered sugar. Spread evenly on cake (Pic 21)

15. Take out the crushed pastry that you saved in step 7. Cover the whipped cake with your crushed pastry bits. (Pic 23). If you have extra walnuts left. You can put some on top of cake as well. (Pic 24)