My daughter is extremely lucky to be able to celebrate her Bday twice every year! Two parties, two cakes, gifts and much more excitement two times a year! What more can make a little girl happy?
As we are living in Bahrain and all our life revolves around Bahrain its only natural that she celebrates her Bday with her closest friends from school. However since her actual Bday is on 4th of July the school is closed and all expats are back to where they came from. We are also traveling to Poland every year for 2 months and almost first thing we do is to plan her Bday party!
This is what we did this year and as all the decoration part was quite easy I really had troubles with cake idea. To start I am not a professional baker or someone especially talented in that area. I am just a mum trying to make my daughter happy. In the past years I tried buying a cake which she requested but somehow it didn't make ME very happy that I didn't bake it all from the scratch - it is not that difficult, much cheaper and I can involve her which makes it such a fun activity. Creating memories and bonding is very important in my opinion - much better than offering a ready product which is just teaching our kids to reach out instead of making an effort.
Anyway absolutely last minute I came up with an idea of a butterfly cake and quickly YouTubed how its done. Turns out it is nothing easier so voila! I set my mind on it and told Maja I am going to have a surprise cake for her. If I started asking her what she wants all I would hear is what her friends wanted and had for THEIR Bday parties. I wanted to make hers special and as she loves surprises from me she was thrilled at my idea!
Below is the recipe which I pretty much made up from 3 different cakes which I found online. It is perfect for kids as it is a colorful part of Rainbow Cake with a butterfly design and pretty healthy mascarpone based cream inside instead of typical all-sugar-only frosting. Have a look and TRY! Don't be afraid! If I can do it anyone can!:) Look at it - it was gorgeous!
BUTTERFLY BIRTHDAY CAKE
Ingredients for base cake (2 round cakes diameter 20-22cm):
- 3 big eggs,
- 150g sugar,
- 75g all purpose flour,
- 30g corn starch,
- food colorings.
All ingredients should be at room temperature.
Mix flours and set aside.
Beat egg whites stiff and at the end start adding sugar spoon by spoon. Then add egg yolks one by one still beating. Add mixed flour to this egg mixture and stir very slowly and carefully until ingredients combine. Divide your mixture in half and pour into baking tins (20-22cm). Use different food coloring to create a rainbow look. Use baking paper to seal them and then you do not need to oil the tin even on the sides.
Bake in 160C for about 20min or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.
Once finished remove hot cakes from the over and from about 60cm height drop them on the floor (in a baking tin). Them leave on the kitchen counter to cool.
Cream for filling:
- 500ml heavy whipping cream - at least 30% fat,
- 500g mascarpone,
- 3 spoons icing sugar,
- few drops of fresh lemon juice.
All ingredients should be cold from the fridge.
Put whipping cream and mascarpone in a mixer bowl and mix together until fluffy (don't over beat). At the end of your mixing add icing sugar and lemon drops. Voila!
Lemon punch for the cake:
- lemon juice from 1 or 2 lemons,
- water.
Pour lemon juice in a glass and top it with water until 1/2 or 2/3 glass of punch.
How to make it:
Take each cake and place it on a flat surface. Start with the first one, then spoon some punch all over it and then cream filling. I also added some fresh strawberries on the cream filling. Just sliced them really thin and place them on the filling one close to the another. That just gave an extra freshness to the whole sweetness. Repeat all this with each cake. Then use the rest of the filling to decorate outside your cake.
Now you are ready to decorate it according to your kids liking. I made a butterfly! So easy and quick but you would need some internet guide on how to cut it properly. Trust me if I say it was easy.Then you need a lot of sparkling confetti to decorate and some cake markers (I am not sure if this is the correct name but this is what they are - you can draw lines with them on the cake). I also used marshmallows on a stick to make a butterfly body and I have to say that part was eaten first!
Then you really need to use your imagination and ingredients that you have around the house as I don't want to tell anyone in details how its done as there are maybe millions of way to do a butterfly cake. Go crazy and trust me - all the kids will love it anyway! It does not have to be perfect! What matters is that it was made with loving mummy hands!
I thought that maybe only cake is not enough so I also made some muffins (just use simple recipe that you always use - doesn't really matter). I used banana muffins and baked them in heart shaped tins. Then I bought some of ready made decorations from Dr. Oetker and using the cream from the cake I stuck the flowers onto them! They were a huge hit! And although kids mainly ate the decoration it was still something they remembered!
The last thing was a fruit platter that is a MUST at every summer Bday party. Kids generally love fruit and they are much better than veggie sticks with some mayo based dip. We also enjoyed some Piccolino - sparkling wine for kids. It made my daughter really proud as she felt like a totally grown up girl!:)
My final advice is that you really do not need a lot of baking skills to make a wonderful party for your child. It is all suppose to be fun - for both of you! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
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