Sometimes in life you just don 't want to share your birthday cake. You want to sit with a perfectly portioned serving of sugary goodness and eat it all by yourself. I mean, you are welcome to share, but with this adorable little nugget of a cake that you do not have to. I think it is perfect to make for a birthday girl or boy when there is not a big party, but the cake is still in order. (Or in my situation, do it for myself and eat later for breakfast.)
So I made my own birthday cake then what? It's so cute that I do not even care about! It was a last minute decision yesterday that I realized that even if I did not have a big party this year, I still wanted a little birthday cake. SO I started to think ... should I just make cookies instead? No ... I really need a cake. Are cupcakes do? No ... I want to cut something with layers . Fortunately I remembered seeing a brainstorm on Pintrest cake in a tin ... and here was born the idea.
This is really the easiest way to make a mini layer cake. Any uncoated tin can be *, make sure it is clean and free of sharp edges. You can use a cake recipe you want, but I find a lot that is actually for 2 cupcakes. Instead of using muffin tins, I just paid all the dough into the box and it was just the right size.
As full size diaper cakes, I decided on the domed top and made three layers (same-ish) ready to be filled. I had a little cream frosting cinnamon cheese left over them which was perfect. The options for flavors, icings and fillings are endless, making this easily adaptable recipe for the birthday girl / boy. I can not wait to make different versions of this cake for each upcoming event. It was cooked, cooled and frosted in an hour. You can not beat that can ya?
Oh- and I made you another birthday present (remember when we used to bring birthday treats our classmates at school?) this is as festive and full of glitter!
My first ever batch of homemade marshmallows! These are very special because they taste like birthday cake. Fluff, puffy, sticky, gooey birthday cake. The recipe is a new book adorable kitchen callled Marshmallow Madness by Shauna Sever. It is full of fanciful mallow recipes I can not wait to try more (Salted Caramel Marshmallows anyone?) The photos are beautiful, the recipes are creative, easy to follow, and perfect for the mallow-lover in all of us.
- 1 egg white
- 2 tablespoons sugar [butter
- 2 tablespoons, melted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used the vanilla bean paste)
- ¼ cup flour
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder chemical
- pinch of salt
- 1½ tablespoons milk
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 15oz can mold with cooking spray and dust with flour, tapping to shake off any excess. cut a round of parchment paper and place it in the bottom of the box.
- In a bowl, add the egg white and sugar and whisk until smooth. Add vanilla and melted butter and stir until mixed. Add flour, baking powder and salt and mix until smooth. Stir in milk. Pour batter into can.
- Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely, then invert the cake and drag it out of the box. Slice the top of the upgrade (perfect for taste tests) cut in layers and frost as desired.
cake recipe adapted from: How Sweet It Is
- 4½ tablespoon powdered gelatin unflavored coffee
- ½ cup cold water
- ¾ cup sugar
- ½ cup light corn syrup, divided
- water ¼ cup
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ yellow cup cake mix
- 2 tablespoons soup noodles
- gel food coloring (optional)
- lining: (1/4 cup cornstarch and ⅜ cup sugar powder combined)
- lightly coat a baking 8x8 pan with cooking spray.
- Whisk together the gelatin and cold water in a small bowl and let soften for 5 minutes
- Mix together sugar, ¼ cup corn syrup, ¼ cup of water and salt in a medium saucepan over high heat. Boil, stirring occasionally, until the temperature reaches 240 F on a candy thermometer.
- Meanwhile, pour ¼ cup corn syrup remaining in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a whisk. Microwave gelatin on high until completely melted, about 30 seconeds. Pour into the bowl of the mixer, adjust the speed of the mixer to low and make it work.
- When the syrup is 240F, pout slowly into the mixer bowl. Increase speed to medium and beat for 5 minutes. Increase to medium-high and beat for 5 minutes. Beat on the highest setting for 1-2 minutes and beat the color of vanilla and food if using. The finished marshmallow will be opaque white, fluffy and tripled in volume. (Do not fry too much dough or it will fold into the cake mix a huge mess.)
- Sift in about half the cake mixture over the marshmallows. Use a spatula to gently fold and then sift and add remaining. Fold the noodles.
- Pour batter into prepared pan, using an offset spatula to smooth the corners. Sift coating on top, reserving some for later. Let stand for 6 hours in a cool, dry place.
- Use a knife to loosen the marshmallow comes from the edges of the pan. Invert the slab onto a coating-dusted work surface and dust with more coating. Chopping (scissors worked well for me) and soak the sticky edges more coating, patting excess.
Also- make sure your candy thermometer is "calibrated" check this by seeing how hot it shows boiling water. I went mine action 205F instead of 212- so I was cooking the sugar 233E. Get me? Overheating sugar and you'll end up with a mess like hard candy
Recipe: Marshmallow Madness Shauna Sever.