The Boy turned 1 last Thursday, and we celebrated on the 4th of July with a not-at-all patriotic, doggie-themed birthday party. What better for a kid who flails his wee arms and says “woof woof” almost any time he hears barking in the distance?
To complement the pooch-covered plates, napkins and balloons, I decided to make the Boys very first cake in the shape of a puppy. I had never before done much cake decorating other than writing “Happy Birthday” — and I have to admit I was never really steady at that.
Well, here’s what I came up with:
The Boy's 1st Birthday Cake
I think it turned out pretty good. Both the cake and frosting (all homemade) were entirely eggless since the Boy is allergic. Unfortunately, he was not very into the cake at all. He took a little taste of the chocolate frosting, but wasn’t interested in eating the cake. Disappointing, yes. But not entirely surprising when you consider it took him weeks to accept any bread. And though his favorite foods are bananas and sweet potatos, he’s not exactly accustomed to *real* sweets. Eh, I guess you can’t win ‘em all.
In case you’re interested, there’s more about the cake & my process after the jump….
The Boy’s aversion may also have had something to do with the cake being very dry. I used a great recipe for eggless cake, which I tested a few weeks ago. That time, it turned out wonderful — but then I made it as cupcakes, rather than cake. And I think I may have overcooked it a little this time around. I also cut the butter by 1/4 cup, based on some of the comments I read, but I think the next time I make it I’ll use the full amount called for in the recipe. Lastly, I made the cakes Thursday, decorated Friday & served Saturday. Although a lot of what I read about cake making suggested this would be okay, I think the wait didn’t help the already dry cake.
The frostings were really good — and really simple — recipes (with slight modifications) from Baking Illustrated, my absolute favorite baking book. I made a vanilla butter frosting, which is just butter, confectioners sugar, and vanilla. It’s very fluffy and very yummy! The chocolate was just as simple — melted chocolate, heavy cream, and about a tablespoon or so of confectioners sugar (which wasn’t called for in my recipe, but which I added to help cut the bitterness of the chocolate & sweeten it up every so slightly).
4 layers of eggless cakey goodness
To make the dog, I used two round pans (I think mine are 9 inches rather than 8 inches, which would have been better), and a heart shaped pan to get the ears. For the ears, I put my layers on top of each other (not iced), then cut the heart in half, cut out a triangle in the middle, and rounded off the cuts to make it less angular, more floppy looking. They kind of looked like big commas, but it worked. To get the snout, I just cut a circle out of some of the excess cake material I had after leveling off the layers and iced it as I would have a third layer.
I made a double batch of vanilla and used that to frost between all the layers (ears & face) and to frost the entire face. I made only one batch’s worth of chocolate and reserved that for the ears and the patch around the eye. I used a 15 inch spreader spatula for most of the frosting and a 9 inch tapered, angled spreader for the ears and any detail work. I’m sure you could also get by with a regular spatula and/or dinner knife and/or small, angled butter knife.
Ears... or commas or apostrophes... whatev
I decorated the face with decorator icing from Michael’s. (Since this was my first time, I had no idea you couldn’t just get that stuff at the grocery store. So, many thanks to Jess for the tip!) I did a practice run on my cutting board before going near the cake. I was happy with the face, especially since I was never very good at drawing much of anything.
The silver sheet the cake is sitting on is a disposable oven pan, intended for catching drippings, which I bought at the grocery store. Later on, someone suggested I use an extra large cutting board, which I will definitely do next time. The pan was the only thing I could find with enough surface area for the whole cake. But it was pretty flimsy, and there’s no way I would have been able to move the cake on just that pan — it would have totally bent under the weight. So I propped it on my broiler pan to move the cake around. It worked out fine; but a sturdy, huge cutting board would be much easier.
All in all, the cake got rave reviews — everyone at the party seemed love it. They thought it was cute and, despite the dryness, they ate it up. I can’t wait to try it again. And since the Boy isn’t allowed eggs till he’s at least 2, I think we’ll be having this cake at least a few more times over the next year. And, well, if he still doesn’t like it… I guess that means more cake for me!
For more pictures of the cake in process, check out my Flickr page.
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