Baking Students: Week 16: Piñata Malt Cake

Hello (Hallo) this is Sophie, taster of baking, taker of photographs and the moral support. (Laura is captioning the photos).

So this was a BIG BIG week of baking because it was Jennifer's, Caroline's and Allan's birthdays, and as they didn't ask or want a party, and I'm British, the only thing to do was to throw a triple surprise party, which meant lots and lots of CAKE.

This started as just a party for Jennifer so that's why Caroline helped make the cake.

So the of baking was "stressy": not only did we have 3 cakes to bake, but we had to do it without Jen realising what it was for. It was fine to start with, as we knew that Jen was out, but we didn't know when she was coming back. We all got fidgety every time the kitchen door creaked opened. We had decided on the malted piñata cake as the birthday cake, chocolate cupcakes and vegan banana bread (which I'm eating just now).

Laura made a plan of attack which started with the malt cakes as it was our main cake and the most complex to create. Also everything else we were baking we had done before and had a crack team to bake, even I did some actual helping. *shock*

Pamela the one that cannot follow a recipe, Morven the sleepy head and Sophie the poser

Laura the planner

Caroline the co-baker and encourager

The malt cake was two layers so Laura made the first but in a pan that was too big, and under careful instruction Caroline made the other in a pan that was too small, and as a result they took longer to bake than expected ... but we were still on track for time. Despite the watchful eye of Laura, Caroline forgot to mix the sugar and the butter for her cake before the liquid, this lead to a weird bubbly bit on top but it was going to be covered by icing so it was all good.

All the ingredients

Baking the cake: planer and co-baker

Caroline's pouring skills :)

We had to somehow mix in the butter to the liquid... hmm...

We were just going to bake it and see what happened

The first cake came out looking alright

Time for me to do some actual helping - Caroline was making the buttercream for the icing so I helped by adding ingredients slowly, as she whisked before we switched places. Making buttercream needs elbow grease even with the hand mixer. hahaha

Since this was a piñata cake it meant that it had gummy sweets in the middle, briefly Caroline and I forgot about this so we started icing it before we had cut the middle out for the sweets. Oops!

Placing the sweets in the middle of the Piñata cake

This wasn't a problem as it was obvious we had only done this so that when we cut the middle out we had a mini cake that we could try for ourselves hahaha. After we had put the sweets in the middle we had some left over so we used them to decorate the outside of the cake. Unfortunately, we had forgotten that gummy sweets melt and that we didn't let the cake cool properly, so when we came to cut it they had melted into a blob... but oh well it tasted good haha.

While we were busy with that Laura and Morven set about with the Chocolate Cupcakes. This is when I started to get fidgety. This may have been the result of left over coffee from the cupcakes ;) Making these cupcakes was a piece of cake (pun intended) as we have made them before.

The busiest of busy!!

Morven making the ganache

Me bossing everyone around ;) And they all listened to me!! YES :D haha

Morven ready to put the ganache on the stove

Melting the ganache on the stove top

Cupcakes!!!! So I made the chocolate cupcakes, and placed them in Caroline's silicone cupcake cases

The cupcakes out of the oven. They were such a drag to squeeze out of the cases!

Pamela icing the cupcakes!!

Queue the arrival of Pamela to start on the vegan banana bread! Making banana bread is not new to Pamela, but the method was as it involved following the recipe under strict instructions from Laura. We did have to alter the recipe slightly as Pamela is 90% vegan so we swapped yogurt for soya yogurt and butter for coconut oil.

Pamela's point of view:

I just want to say, in my DEFENCE: I DID follow the instructions this time for the vegan banana bread! :D Okay, maybe just changed butter for coconut oil. And added one more banana instead of egg. And of corse used soya yoghurt. But apart from that, I followed Laura's instructions EXACTLY. And it turned out pretty well!

Pamela taking instructions from me!! Hence, following the recipe :D

Now she is not :()

During all this ... DISASTER!!!

Jen came in to the kitchen, ahhhh!!!! Quick thinking by Pamela to say we were helping her bake for her bake sale the next day, despite it meaning she would miss quite a lot of class, but we got away with it.

Jen left to go on a walk with Caroline, which was our devious plan to get rid of both of them so we could set the surprise part of the party up. We got away with it, and shortly after I found myself lying of the floor laughing, because I think the stress had got to me (and the sugar and possibly the caffeine!!!!!!!!)

Sophie helping to ice the cake :)

Icing the cake :) It was a very stressful job as there was not nearly enough icing, but we somehow made it stretch ...

It was an all-in kind of operation in the kitchen

Time for some more helping. Laura, Pamela and I iced the cupcakes. When I say iced, I mean partly stick them back together because some of them crumbled a bit when we took them out of the silicone cupcake cases.

The cake!! We were so proud of the awesome creation

Time to call in the reinforcements to set up. We had some friends waiting down where the party was going to be to help decorate, and some helping bring down the mountain of cake. An hour of frantic decorating and pacing later Caroline returned with Jen and the surprise party was on.