SWEET BIRTHDAY

So the first birthday arrived and so did some nasty virus/flu, so we weren’t exactly sure the birthday would go ahead as we had rushed my little one to hospital a couple of days before. Thankfully my daughter made a very fast recovery and was in fab form for her “big day”. She definitely enjoyed every minute of the party and is still smiling to renditions of the birthday song. I was very lucky that my mum was visiting and able to support and help out! I'm glad that I had decided to keep it simple with meringues and a cake, and not the cake pops and homemade marshmallows that I had been pondering.

The inspiration for the cake was from a lot of different sources. The actual cake recipe and idea was adapted from Raspberri Cupcakes. I had decided that my daughters would be pink, of course and have meringue icing when I fell upon the exact cake on Pinterest from Call Me Cupcake. I was completely inspired by her cake bunting and had a delightful time making it. I also had fun with the matching bunting for the room!

I was making my own version of the cake which was dairy, soy and nut free. So I was hoping that the five layered cake wouldn’t be too ambitious under the circumstances. I did a trial a few weeks before just to make sure it was all going to work out as there wouldn't be any running to the store to buy a back up. I think it was delicious and certainly wasn’t impacted by the exclusions in flavour or texture. If you wanted to make it with dairy then use equal parts milk, butter and minus an egg.

As far as appearances go, the tonal pink layers worked well and our guests exclaimed wow as I cut the first piece. I couldn’t have been more chuffed with that reaction let me tell you. My daughter loved it, I have been pretty strict with her food and she hasn’t really had much sugar so of course she enjoyed every mouthful of naughtiness.

I decided to go natural with the food colouring in the end. Initially I bought Wiltons which I think would give the best pink colour but I had to look up all the numbers to see if there was soy etc and after looking up the ingredients I wasn’t that happy to eat it myself let alone give it to my baby. I have such a different perspective on food ingredients and processed food after seven months of scanning ingredients list and have lost a lot of faith in food manufacturers and try to go natural and as simple as possible. Plus food tastes better that way. Anyway enough of my new found hippyness, the colour I used was pink from Hoppers and it’s made from purple sweet potato and cherries.

The meringues were again adapted from Ottoleghni but the method is slightly different for these and they use white sugar, so I have included the recipe and I rolled them in jelly crystals so I could get the pink and white.

CAKE
355g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder

225ml oat milk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla paste paste)

400g caster sugar

225g Dairy free margarine softened (I used Nuttelex)

5 medium eggs

Pink food colour (I used Hoppers)

360g Strawberry Jam (I used Bonne Maman)

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (356 Fahrenheit) Grease five 20cm cake tins or as many as you have. Line the tins with baking paper and dust lightly with flour.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Mix vanilla and oat milk together

In a large bowl beat sugar and butter until blended using an electric mixer on low speed until blended.  Increase speed to high and blend for two minutes until pale and creamy. Reduce speed to medium low and add one egg, beating after each egg. Add a ¼ of the flour mixture followed by 1/3 of the milk mixture alternating in the same quantities and ending with the flour mixture. Beat until smooth, using the spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally. Divide mixture into five bowls by weighing the mixture, each bowl should be about 290grams. Then slowly add the food colouring, building the colour carefully and gently folding the colour in. One bowl should have no colour. By working slowly you should ensure that the colour is an even gradient between the five bowls. This wasn’t that difficult, go slowly and don’t panic.

Pour batter into cake tins and cook for 30-35 minutes, by this stage the cake should be golden and a skewer should come out clean when inserted in the centre of the cake.  Cool in tins for five minutes and then turn out to wire racks.  I let my cakes cool and put them in an airtight container until the next day. I would keep track of the colours and keep them in some sort of order, as they dried it got harder to tell the colours apart.

You could trim the cake tops to make them more even but I found the icing quite forgiving and I didn’t need to. Spread strawberry jam over four layers with a bread and butter knife, putting the cake together as you go. Lightest coloured layer on the bottom

MERINGUE ICING

1 1/4 cups caster sugar

5 large egg whites at room temperature

1 ½ tablespoons light corn syrup

Adapted from Martha Stewart

Place a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, Pour in 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of the caster sugar, corn syrup, 3 tablespoons water and bring to the boil, stirring continually. Use a wet pastry brush to wash the sugar down from the sides. When the sugar boils cease stirring and use a sugar thermometer to cook until it is 110 degrees Celsius (230 Fahrenheit).

Meanwhile, beat egg whites with electric mixer until soft peaks form. Add remaining sugar gradually while beating.

Add sugar syrup very slowly down the inside of the bowl while still mixing. Then turn the speed up to high and beat for another seven minutes. The whites should be thick, fluffy and importantly glossy.

Using a metal spatula start icing the cake, the icing is really easy to work with and covers any irregular baking. Make sweeps with the spatula to create the texture and decorate.

MERINGUES

As I said this recipe is still based on the recipe from Ottolenghi: The Cookbookbut it is a different technique utilising white sugar and instead of making a syrup on the stovetop the sugar is heated in the oven. Both methods = delicious.

600 grams of caster sugar
10 egg whites at room temperature
Pink jelly crystals
1 teaspoon of rosewater

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius (392 Fahrenheit). Line a baking tray with baking paper and then pour the sugar over the tray and spread it out evenly. Cook for around eight minutes or until the sugar is over 100 degrees on a sugar thermometer. The sugar should look like it’s started to melt on the edges.

While the sugar is cooking you should put the egg whites in a mixing bowl and begin beating them on high speed with an electric mixer until they start to look frothy.

Very slowly add the sugar to the egg whites while they being beaten. When all the sugar is mixed add the rosewater and continue beating for ten minutes on high speed. It should look very glossy and hold its shape.

Turn down the oven to 110 degrees Celsius (230 Fahrenheit). Line a few baking trays with baking paper. Pour jelly crystals onto a plate. Using two spoons pick up a ball of mixture and roll half of it in the jelly crystals and then scrape onto the baking tray. Create texture in the meringues with the spoon if desired. Leave a lot of space between the meringues as they will double in volume. Bake for two hours, they should be completely dry on the outside but still soft in the middle. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. They can be stored in an airtight container for days.

Apparently the weather affects meringues (thanks mum!) so best to avoid baking them when it rains…In this case of course it was raining so they have a few cracks but don’t we all! Enjoy