Have always been in awe of people who can bake and decorate cakes with such finesse. You need extreme level of patience to do that..When we see all those fancy youtube videos they might look simple but once we start making them we realize how difficult it is to get a flawless output.. My Daughter’s 3rd birthday was yesterday and instead of buying readymade cakes from Dunnes or Supervalu I thought I will bake one..
If you remember that Parthiban Vadivelu comedy (இங்கு நல்ல மீன்கள் விற்கப்படும்) I started checking Rainbow cakes & slowly thought will stick to a simple three tiered cake with some Chocolate Shards & Fancy frosting and finally ended up making this small 4inch Chocolate Cake along with few cupcakes since little one loves anything with Chocolate 😬😬 Like the last minute exam preps I was trying to learn the difference between Icing, Frosting, Ganache on saturday morning before finalizing on how the finished Cake should look like😂😂
Baked with whatever ingredients that were available at home. After watching and reading many recipes online I finally decided to follow my old chocolate cupcake recipe itself that I used 6 years ago for baking my first ever bday cupcakes for Shiva..I still remember how delicious that cupcake and S absolutely enjoyed every bite of it. You can check the recipe here
I thought I will do a simple Flour Based Icing (you can check youtube) since it seemed pretty simple and also it didn’t require ridiculous amount of butter..However I was still nervous and didn’t want to ruin the cake by being over ambitious and experimenting on her special day 🤪 When S went for grocery shopping last week I had asked him to pickup one Readymade Whipped Cream (though I haven’t used them before) just to cover the cake..
Since I only have a small Springform Pan I divided my cake batter between this pan and 6-cupcake tray. Depending on the pan you will be using adjust measurements accordingly.
| Prep Time | 20 minutes |
| Cook Time | 30 minutes |
| Passive Time | 2-3 hours for the icing to set and then decorate |
| Servings |
inch Small Cake + 6 Cupcakes
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- 1 cup self rising flour If you dont have SR flour then you can use 1plain flour/Maida along with 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 tablespoons Cocoa Powder
- 1/2 cup Powdered Sugar i used Demerara Sugar. You can use white/brown/coconut sugar
- Tiny pinch of salt
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil plus extra 2 tablespoons if needed
- 1 cup milk plus extra 1/4if needed
- 2 teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar or lemon juice
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
Wet Ingredients
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- Sift Flour,Baking Soda,Cocoa Powder and Salt together
- Sift it twice
- Then add Powdered Sugar and mix with a spoon
- In a bowl add all the wet ingredients together and give it a mix
- Slowly add wet ingredients and dry ingredients together and using a whisk make sure there aren't any lumps in the batter
- If the mixture is too thick add 1/4 cup extra milk and 2 tbsps Oil
- Since I don't have a whisk at home. Hence i used my electric hand mixer and in the lowest speed setting I mixed the batter for few seconds
- Then transferred the batter to 6 cupcake cases.Line a 4inch round springform pan with baking paper and transfer the remaining batter
- Tap the pans so that there aren't any airbubbles
- Preheat the oven at 180c and bake them for around 22-26 minutes approximately
- Do test them after nearly 20 minutes by inserting a toothpick to see if it comes out clean..If not continue baking for few more minutes
- Remove the baking pans from the oven and let it cool down completely
- The small 4inch cake will look like this 🙂 Once the cake is cooled down remove the baking paper lining and then add sugar syrup+icing. Since the cake was small and also it didn't break much on the top I used the cake as it is. Didn't trim the top
- Prepared a simple Sugar Syrup by dissolving 1/4 cup Powdered in 1/4 cup water and boiled it for few minutes.
- Cut the cake into two and applied the syrup inbetween. This will stop the cake from drying up and keeps it moist.
- As I mentioned before I bought a readymade whipped cream (500ml Avonmore Whipped Cream). I added a tbsp of Cocoa Powder, a tsp vanilla extract, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder, 1 teaspoon powdered sugar. Mixed everything together. It gave that pinkish tone & cocoa flavor to the final icing 😋😋 Though it became slightly runny I didn't want to use the bland plain cream to cover the cake.
- Things I used to decorate cake & cupcakes were some Sprinkles, Pastry brush to apply sugar syrup, Cookies that I crumbled and added on top of the cupcakes, Offset spatula for spreading icing, Icing syring, Grated Dark Chocolate on the top of the cake
- My apartment owner luckily had left one offset pastry spatula along with other knives. With the help of it I applied a layer of icing inbetween the cake and as well as covered the cake.
- Left the cake with icing for 2 hours in fridge and then added sprinkles, grated chocolate on top of the cake..I wanted to finish off the decorations the previous night (the night before her birthday.i knew in the morning I will be busy with other kitchen chores & cleaning/decorating home). You can also do the finishing touches the next day morning (if you are baking this for bday or any celebration) if you have time
- I didn't have cake table at home. So left the Springform Pan's bottom layer as it as and placed the cake on a regular stainless steel plate in the fridge😬
- Decorated the cupcakes with Icing & topped it with Cookie Crumbles
- Yesterday I carefully transferred the cake from the plate to a neatly wrapped Chappathi கல் 😬🤪 and arranged it on a table along with Cupcakes
- A closeup shot of that perfectly baked Cake..
- Similarly closeup shot of the Cupcake
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Make a simple Chocolate Sauce with cocoa powder, milk, sugar and butter. Spread it on the cake
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Sprinkles can add colors to the cake
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You can buy Icing Syringe and it is easier to work with the icing & frosting
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Have some readymade White and Dark Chocolates. If nothing works you can grate and spray them on top of cakes
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Berries and fruits add freshness to cakes
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You can make simple caramel from Condensed Milk and use it as a topping on cakes
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If you have cookies crumble them and add it on cakes or cupcakes like I did yesterday 🙂
- Have a pack of Maltese or Ferrero Rocher chocolates and add them as a topping on the Cake
2 comments
Very nice Recipe and you have explained it very clearly for the beginners. Thanks for the additional recipe notes to decorate the cake.Very thoughtful
Thanks a lot Koki 💖💖