Baby Z's 1st Birthday Party

Ok so I know that I said I was going to post up some tutorials for the decorations I was making for Baby Z's birthday party but what else can I say other than I suck?? I've been incredibly busy over the past month with catching up on studying, family stuff, being unwell, etc so I haven't really had time to do a whole bunch of tutorial posts. Fortunately all the decorations were very easy and straightforward so I'll simply explain each of the decorations.

For Baby Z's birthday I wasn't planning on a huge party with lots of invited guests etc. We don't really know too many people here in Canberra, other than family, and I definitely don't know anyone with kids Z's age so I decided to simply hold an intimate family luncheon and invite over a few close family members.

 

This is the birthday cake I made using Sweetapolita's pastel swirl method - I probably could have swirled the sides a bit more to achieve a nicer finish, but was running short on time! The top tier I made so it could be lifted off the main cake and used as a smash cake. I used my eggless chocolate cake recipe with pre-made Wilton buttercream - which I DEFINITELY won't be using again!!! It was super sickly sweet, ugh, but definitely easy! I wasn't happy with how the plaques turned out, I was trying out a method that didn't work too well, next time I would probably pipe directly onto the plaques rather than using my edible ink markers.

 

I made this adorable mini cake bunting using double sided scrapbooking paper, string and mini bamboo skewers I found in the local dollar store. I also made the mini pinwheels using double sided scrapbooking paper, and used a sewed on bead to close the centre.

Using double sided scrapbooking paper I made these pinwheels, with silver star shaped pins in the centre. I hot-glued them onto dowels (which means they don't turn like normal pinwheels - but I didn't need them to be functional!) and used these cute glass soda bottles I found at a local dollar store for $1.50 each. I tied a pretty ribbon bow around each bottle.

You can't see his jumpsuit too well in this photo unfortunately, I ordered it online from Cheekee Monkeez. It says Z is for Zavien. A had a matching long sleeve shirt that says A is for Alakai. I'll try to get better photos when they come out of the wash - if the cake washes out lol!!

Stand of half eaten buttermilk scones. I used a flower cutter to cut them out since I couldn't find my round cutters, they looked super cute! They were served with strawberry jam and whipped cream. Yum!!

 I found instructions online for folding napkins into the shapes of button-up t-shirts. The instructions are for cloth napkins but worked perfectly for these paper napkins I bought. I topped each napkin off with one of the tissue paper pom poms I made earlier.

I strung up some of the nicer photos of Baby Z all the way from when I was still pregnant to now. Everyone really liked looking through these photos and I gave each of the grandparents and great-grandparents an envelope with their own copies of the photos to take home.

The smash cake was a definite success! The grandparents were all a little bit horrified at first lol but were definitely amused watching Baby Z's disgust at having dirty hands!! (He doesn't like having dirty hands and kept stopping to try and shake off the icing!)

The menu:
Cucumber and herbed cream cheese tea sandwiches
Red pepper, basil pesto and feta tea sandwiches
Smoked salmon tea sandwiches
Pumpkin and winter vegetable soup with crusty bread
Crispy noodle salad with Asian vinaigrette dressing
Scones with jam and whipped cream
Birthday cake!!

A few of the guests had special dietary requirements so I kept food fairly simple and stuck to vegetarian options. Since there weren't many people and we were all close family I decided not to go overboard with a lot of different options.
I served the soup in individual coffee cup portions, everyone commented on what a good idea it was as it gave you a perfect amount, not enough to fill you up so you can't gorge on scones and sandwiches and cake, but enough to make everything into a substantial lunch.
The sandwiches were gobbled up very quickly, everyone really enjoyed them! The smoked salmon ones were kept very simple, just salmon on bread, no butter or anything else as they were for a couple of the grandparents who have very strict dietary requirements. I'll have to post the recipe for the herbed cream cheese, it was soooo good!!

It was a lovely day spent with close friends and family, and I'm now starting the planning process for A's 4th birthday - only 5 months away!!! Lol!

C.A.M - Mud Cake Scratch-Off - And the winner is....

So for the final test in this months scratch-off I invited over a few friends to help me sample each of the cakes and judge them each based on the flavor, moistness, and density.
I cut a portion of each cake into small 1.5cm pieces and set them out on the table, and labelled each one from A-E. Each person was given a piece of paper and pen to write down their thoughts on each cake, and a cup of tea or coffee to enjoy.

Bluehue's Chocolate Mud Cake:
Everyone agreed that this cake was very very rich. It also seemed to have an odd, nearly floury underlying flavor/aftertaste. It's a flavor that I've come across quite often in chocolate cakes, most people don't seem to mind, or even notice it, but DH and I have always being able to pick up on it and don't tend to enjoy cakes that have that flavor. It's a shame because I really, really wanted to like this cake, I'd heard so many wonderful things about Bluehue's mud cake but it just really wasn't enjoyable to me. It had a wonderful texture and density to it though and the coconut milk added a very unique richness to the cake. You couldn't pick up a coconut flavor until you were told that it contained coconut milk.

Pam's Chocolate Mud Cake:
This cake was very similar to Bluehue's mud cake, although without that extra richness added from the coconut milk. We could also detect that floury flavor/aftertaste that we detected in Bluehue's mud cake, which instantly turned off DH and I. It was still very rich however, and had a lovely texture and density to it. In fact, we had sorta cheated and prior to doing the proper tasting had cut some small slices out of each cake to test before our friends came over. My MIL and FIL when tasting the cakes the first time around both chose this cake as their favorite - although DH and I both disliked it due to the floury flavor/aftertaste. However, when we did the second blind tasting they both disliked this cake and my FIL even picked up on the same floury flavor/aftertaste that DH and I could detect.

Australian Womens Weekly Mississippi Mud Cake:
This was one of our favorites of all the cakes. It was sooo yummy BUT very very very rich!! We all agreed that this cake would be fantastic as a slice or brownie but was simply too rich for a cake - especially if used for a 4 layer cake with chocolate ganache and fondant!! We all kept going back for more, but could only eat a very very small piece at a time. It was a very dense, smooth cake, almost like dark chocolate fudge. It's certainly a recipe I would keep and make again, but as I explained to my taste testers I want to make cakes that taste delicious but aren't so rich that no one can ever finish their slice. I dislike being given slices of cakes that are so rich that I can only ever eat a couple of bites before being done.

Exclusively Foods Chocolate Mud Cake:
I'm not sure what went wrong with this cake. Remember when I made this cake that I felt as though something was off with the batter and the final product? The cake didn't look or feel the same as the others and the batter felt a different consistency. Well when we cut into this cake we found that oddly, rather than having the same fudge-like density of the other mud cakes, this cake was actually fluffy inside and nearly like a regular old chocolate sponge cake. It was nice in its own way, but certainly didn't resemble a mud cake! I used this recipe for my March cake and it turned out fine, however I had used the original quantities, whereas for the scratch-off I used their pan size ingredient chart to make a smaller 6" cake. I'm not sure if the error was in their calculations or if I made a mistake when making the cake. Either way, the final product wasn't really valid for testing, so we chose not to include this when comparing the different cakes as we didn't feel it truly represented an Exclusively Foods mud cake.

Best Recipe's Chocolate Mud Cake:
This cake had a lovely chocolatey flavor without the super-richness that the Mississippi mud cake had. It had a nice texture and density, although not quite as lovely a texture as Pam's and Bluehue's cakes had. In fact, this ended up being the cake that we all kept going back for more - and could finish each slice without feeling ill!

So we all sat around discussing the merits of each cake, and gorging on mud cake. I had to explain several times to my MIL and FIL that we weren't trying to find the 'truest' mud cake, but the best cake for using in my layer cakes under fondant. They kept leaning towards the Mississippi mud cake simply because it was rich and 'true mud cakes are rich'. I kept trying to explain that yes, true mud cakes are rich, but that's not the be-all end-all, it had to be a cake that guests will keep coming back for second and third slices - no one was going to be doing that with the Mississippi mud cake unless they were planning on being ill for the rest of the day and having an afternoon siesta! Lol, finally they understood what exactly we were looking for and we were ready to vote on our favorites:

A - Pam's chocolate mud cake:
No one voted this one as their favorite
B - Bluehue's mud cake:
No one voted this one as their favorite
C - Exclusively Foods mud cake:
Well obviously this one was taken out of the running so no one voted on this one
D - Best Recipe's chocolate mud cake:
Out of the seven of us voting on the cakes, 5 voted this as their favorite. The other 2 voted this as their second favorite!!
E - Australian Womens Weekly Mississippi Mud Cake:
2 voted this as their favorite cake, the rest of us voted this as our second favorite!

So you can see that there was a clear winner in this scratch test: Best Recipe's chocolate mud cake.
I was really surprised at this result, Bluehue and Pams mud cakes are touted among professional bakers as being among the best recipes but none of us enjoyed them that much (with the exception of my MIL and FIL the first time around - but they changed their minds when doing the blind tasting lol!), and this recipe was just a simple user submitted recipe on the Best Recipe's site. It was among the cheapest to produce of all the cakes, one of the easier ones to make (not that any of them were terribly difficult), and it was perfect for using in 4 layered fondant covered cakes. It's not too rich that you can't go ahead and have a second slice (or a third!), has a distinctly chocolatey flavor, was moist and had a lovely fudge-like density.

C.A.M - Mud Cake Scratch-Off - Best Recipe's Mud Cake

I know this post is a bit late, I finished baking this mud cake from the Best Recipes site about one and a half weeks ago. I feel really bad that I haven't gotten around to writing this post earlier because I don't remember making this cake very well anymore :( But I'll do my best to go back over it for you!

Ease of Making:
So, same as with the others, this cake really wasn't all that complex to make. I melt the chocolate, butter, sugar, water and coffee together, then stir into the sifted dry ingredients, then add the eggs. Done. The mix didn't take very long to cool, I probably only left it about half an hour before I went ahead and finished the batter.

Cost:
This cake was the second cheapest cake to make after Pam's mud cake and cost me $6.64AUD in ingredients.

This is how I prepare the pans with a flower nail as a heating core.

I'll be back next with the results of the final tasting!!

C.A.M - Mud Cake Scratch-Off - Exclusively Food's Chocolate Mud Cake

Ease of Making:
Ok, so this cake was a bit more complicated than the other cakes. I mean, it wasn't hard, not even particularly time-consuming, but definitely not as straight forward as the other recipes.
The other recipes, I simply had to melt the chocolate/butter/liquid combo, wait for it to cool and add the flour/eggs/vanilla. Done. This one, I had to melt the chocolate/butter/liquid combo, wait for it to cool, sift the sugar into the already sifted flour combo, whisk the eggs/vanilla/buttermilk separately, stir the egg/vanilla/buttermilk mix into the flour/sugar combo, then add the melted chocolate mix in 3 separate batches.
One of my concerns with this recipe is that the sugar isn't required to be dissolved into the mixture at any point. When doing my research on mud cakes (because I research everything to death) I came across a few comments that one of the most important things with mud cakes is to ensure that the sugar is completely dissolved before baking. I don't know what the difference is but each of the other recipes instructed at some point to dissolve the sugar, whether it was with the chocolate/butter combo on the stove or after adding the sugar/butter combo to the flour.
Also, after I mixed everything together the batter seemed quite thick compared to the other batters which were very runny. It just didn't...seem quite the same as the other recipes at all.
The Exclusively Food website provides ingredient quantities for several different size pans. In cut back on costs I only made the smallest size they provided the quantities for, a 6" round. I have a 6" round pan but the recipe said to use a deep pan, generally a 3-4" high pan and I only had small pans about 1" high so I decided to bake the cake in a larger pan to compensate for the smaller height. I ended up baking the cake in a 10" round pan that was only 1" high. I probably should have used the same pan as I used for the other cakes though because the cake rose way higher than the edges. In fact, I thought for a few moments that the pan was going to overflow but luckily the edges were cooked just enough to keep the batter from overflowing. I also used a heating core in the cake so that may have helped stop it from overflowing.
So the final cake doesn't quite...look right. It didn't dome on top at all, and is very very flaky on top compared to the others and felt like it was falling apart as I was wrapping it up to put it into the freezer. I should have taken a photo but was a bit too concerned to remember!! In fact, I didn't remember to get ANY photos while making this cake!
So we'll have to see whether this cake turns out or not. It's the same recipe I used for last months baby cake so I know what the final result should be like so I'll have to take that into consideration when tasting it. However, I don't know if this cake would be the winner of the scratch-off anyway simply because of the slightly more complicated mixing process. It also ends up being pretty middle-of-the-road, cost-wise...

Cost:
So obviously the cake I made was quite cheap in comparison to the other recipes since I only made the 6" round, but I used the ingredient quantities provided on the site to calculate the cost of a cake the same size as the other recipes and it came up to $7.16AUD, putting it smack in the middle of the pricing test. To be honest, the taste would have to pretty much blow me away for me to prefer this recipe over the others simply because I thought the other recipes were simpler and more reliable. This recipe also used buttermilk which I don't ordinarily use, and it only used a very small amount of buttermilk which means the rest of the carton would go to waste. At least this would be true if I hadn't worked out how to freeze the rest of the buttermilk in ice cube trays so now I probably have enough buttermilk to last me the next 5 years (especially considering this was the first time I've ever bothered buying buttermilk!!).

Once again, no photos. I know. I suck.

C.A.M - Mud Cake Scratch-Off - Australian Womens Weekly Mississippi Mud Cake

Ease of Making:
Once again, this cake was made nearly exactly the same as the previous two cakes, however the recipe said that the chocolate mixture needed to be cooled down nearly completely before adding the flour and eggs. Luckily it didn't take long at all for it to cool down, by the time I was finished measuring and sifting the flour and eggs etc the mix was basically cool enough to add straight away. I'm not sure why Bluehue's mix took so long to cool down in comparison to the rest of the recipes, perhaps I heated it up a lot more??? This mix probably only took about 15 minutes to cool nearly completely.

The other difference with this recipe was that it called for milk instead of the water that was used in the previous two recipes. We'll have to see how the taste changes with the milk instead of the water.
The cake didn't rise quite as much as the previous two cakes, however I used a heating core in the center while baking so not sure what difference that may have made. It also, like the other cakes, cracked dramatically on top.

Cost:
This cake came out being the 2nd most expensive cake behind Bluehue's cake. I calculated it to cost me $7.35AUD. I think this is largely because of the milk being used in place of water and it, like Bluehue's cake, called for nearly twice the amount of sugar as the rest of the recipes used.

C.A.M. - Mud Cake Scratch-Off - Pam's Chocolate Mud Cake

So I've just finished wrapping up Pam's mud cake and thought I'd write down my thoughts on the last 2 criteria before I forget!

Ease of Making:
The recipe for Pam's mud cake isn't much different from Bluehue's mud cake but I do think that Pam's mud cake is a bit easier to make, simply because I don't have to leave the chocolate mixture to cool down for as long.
Bluehue's recipe states to leave the chocolate mixture to cool to room temperature, which took about an hour and even then could probably have done with another half hour to cool.

Pam's recipe simply needs to be left for 15 minutes just so it's not boiling hot when the rest of the ingredients are added. This was the perfect amount of time for me to preheat the oven, measure out and sift the rest of the ingredients, beat the eggs, set up the KitchenAid and put everything away.
I do wonder whether the sugar would have been better off added in the beginning so it dissolves over the stove with the chocolate, butter etc. I don't know if it would make much of a difference which stage the sugar dissolves in but adding it in the beginning would save a minute or two.
The recipe stated it made enough for a double quantity of 20cm round pans. There ended up being a very similar amount of batter as Bluehue's recipe made, so I decided just to use 1 3" high 10" pan, same as I used for Bluehue's cake. I did however decide to use a greased flower nail as a heating core in the center of the pan to help prevent the big dome and to make sure it cooked evenly. I realised afterwards that using the flower nail may change the results so I'll continue using a heating core in the rest of the mud cakes and just try to take it into consideration with Bluehue's cake when tasting it later.

Cost:
So Pam's mud cake ended up being one of the cheapest mud cakes from the scratch-off. I calculated that it cost me $6.46AUD to make. It's only a couple of dollars difference though so it really just comes down to the taste.

I forgot to take any other photos while making Pam's mud cake, sorry! But the final cake rose nicely, it was mostly level on top due to using the heating core but could probably still do with being leveled off. It looks slightly darker than Bluehue's cake but I don't know if that's simply because I'm comparing after Bluehue's cake has been frozen. It looks about the same size as Bluehue's cake, it rose slightly higher but without the huge dome on top so it probably works out pretty evenly. It still cracked across the top but not as badly as Bluehue's one did. However, that's nothing against Bluehue's cake since it's a normal characteristic of a mud cake.

So into the freezer it goes...

C.A.M - Mud Cake Scratch-Off - Bluehue's Chocolate Mud Cake

So as I sit here typing this I can smell Bluehue's awesome mud cake baking in my oven. Obviously I can't compare the first 3 criteria yet (Flavor, Texture/Crumb & Moistness) but I can definitely talk about the last 2 criteria: Ease of Making & Cost.

Ease of Making:
Well this is definitely far easier than your usual white or yellow cake. You start out by heating the chocolate, butter, coconut milk, sugar, and instant coffee in one pot on the stove till it's all melted together then leave it to cool to room temperature.

Mmmm melted chocolate...

While that was cooling I then sifted all the dry ingredients together, measured out my vanilla and put that to the side with the 2 eggs to add later. All of this probably only took me a few minutes, after which I went to tend to the kids while waiting for the chocolate mixture to finish cooling down.
I gave it about an hour before I went ahead to the next step which is basically just mixing everything together. The chocolate mixture was still a bit warm, I probably could have left it for another half hour but I'm impatient, lol!

All the waiting ingredients

I poured the mixture into a 10" round pan - here's where I started to have a little bit of confusion. See, normally you need to grease or flour your cake pans - even if using baking paper you normally still grease the pan - but the recipe only stated to line the pan with baking paper. I didn't want to risk having the cake stick so I decided to grease the pan anyway. The recipe also didn't state what size pan to use but it looked like a lot of batter so I decided to go with the 10" pan since I don't have anything bigger. Once I put the mixture into the pan it still looked like a lot - like perhaps it could have made 2 cakes. Then I noticed that in a couple of spots the recipe refers to tinS but in other spots it only refers to 1 tin, so I don't know if the quantities in the recipe are actually for 2 cakes or 1. I crossed my fingers and went with 1.

Cost:
So I worked out the costing for each of the cakes based on the pricing of the brands/products I normally purchase from my local supermarket. Everyone's costing would be different based on local pricing or preferred products. I calculated that Bluehue's chocolate mud cake cost me $8.82AUD to make, which is the more expensive cake out of all of the ones I'm making for the scratch-off. However, it's only a difference of $1-2 so the taste may more than make up for that.
Using the coconut milk is what makes it more expensive since most of the other products can be bought in bulk and it's only a small percentage that gets used as opposed to the coconut milk which gets used nearly completely in just one cake. It also has nearly twice the amount of caster sugar as the other recipes with the exception of the AWW Mississippi Mud Cake which has the same amount. Caster sugar is quite expensive locally since the largest pack I can find around here is 1kg which only makes 2-3 cakes.
However you need to take into account that the recipes from the scratch-off don't all make the same size cake. The recipe I'll be using from Exclusively Foods makes a 16cm/6" round cake, the AWW Mississippi Mud Cake makes a 22cm/8.5" round, and Pam's Mud Cake makes a 20cm/8" round, and Bluehue's Mud Cake made a 10" round. The $1-2 difference probably works itself out in the end anyway once the size difference is taken into account.

For anyone interested in knowing how to work out the costing, I may do a post on how I work it out further down the track.

Update:
So the cake finished baking after 1 hour, 45 minutes and smelt awesome. I couldn't resist eating a bit of the crust which tasted great but obviously the cake will taste much better after being allowed to set up for a few days and being frozen to improve the flavor. It had quite a large dome and cracked along the top which I understand is pretty common when making mud cakes. I'll bake the rest of the scratch-off cakes the same way but in the future when making mud cakes I think I'll use a foil tent over the cake while baking, even baking strips around the pan, and possibly put a pan of water in the oven while baking to prevent such a large dome and the cracking across the top.
Using just 1 pan worked out fine, the cake baked right to the top of my 3" high pan and the dome rose probably about an inch above that. Perfect height for torting into 3 layers.