beautifully imperfect birthday cake for mom, with love

August 28th, 2009

This was like two hours ago, we turned off the light, brought in the birthday cake, mom blew the candles, we all had a slice and it was wonderful :) With the light off, you can’t really see the cake, with the light on:

You see? There is frosting. Yes. FROSTING, my worst enemy. Making the cake was quite straight forward, but I really struggle with the frosting for hours! My friend Ivan even gave me a call, worrying about by frosting crisis this afternoon. But I did not give up, and finally: One birthday cake for mom, made all by me :) Yes, it looked abit childish. Yes, it was uneven. Yes, it was imperfect. But It was beautifully imperfect, loaded with love.

I actually wanted to match the colours of the roses that my father gave to my mom this morning, unfortunatelly, my skill in decorating is not that high :P this is actually the first time me doing it :)

I was abit confused about the cake too, as mom does not really like chocolate, and I am abit bored with normal yellow cake. Mom likes banana cake but I don’t think that is ok for bday cake :) So I add the Japanese green tea powder that my sister brought me from New York. I was very happy with the result: moist and light and with a tiny hint of green tea aroma :)

And for the filling: mango, pineapple and orange jam that I made the yesterday

And then the frosssssttttiiiiinnngggg. Argh. No photos while me doing frosting…too stressful and my hands were just too dirty and my kitchen was like a disaster.

But in the end…everything turned out just fine, I even wrote something on the top of the cake, that one went well, I think this because I am so used to use wacom to work with my design project, so, no problem in writing. As in the decorating, what I learn was the patting-dragging movement to apply the frosting to the cake. I will keep on doing this. Whose birthday next? :)))

The Imperfect Green Tea Birthday Cake

For the green tea cake:

450 gram All purpose flour

3 teaspoons Aluminum-free baking powder

450 gram sugar

6 kampung eggs

225 gram butter, softened

2 tablespoon Japanese green tea powder

1 cup of yoghurt mixed with 1/2 cup of milk, well shaken

For the frosting:

300 gram Icing sugar

100 gram Unsalted butter, softened

3 tablespoon Milk

Heat the oven at 190 C

Grease and flour two 20 cm round cake tin

Sift the flour and baking powder, set aside. Beat the softened butter with sugar until pale with electric mixer at high speed, add the green tea powder, then add the eggs one by one. Then reduce the speed to low and add the yoghurt+milk mixture. Divide the flour in four batch. Add to the mixture and mix with hand. Continue until the flour is finished.

Divide the cake batter to two cake tins. Bake 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Let cool for 15 minutes, take out from the tin and let cool completely.

You can use ready-to-use jam or you can make it yourself. I made a post about jam making a while ago. If you make it yourself, make it one day in advance.

For the frosting: Mix all ingredients, first with low speed with electric mixer, then when everything is mixed, start a high speed for 5-10 minutes.

Cut the top part of the cake to form an even surface. Spread the jam on the top of lower cake, add the other cake on the top. Apply the frosting. Finish with colouful sugar sands if you like.

Best served with love :)

filed under: food, life, sweet tooth