Baby G's 1st Birthday Cake

Yes, our Baby G is ONEderful.  If only my stamina could match hers and being the sole baby carer is not this challenging, I would have wished for her to stay this small chubby self for much longer.

To celebrate Baby G's 1st Birthday, I gave myself a challenge to bake her a 2-tier cake. Why is it a challenge? Before this, I have not successfully baked a cupcake that has risen properly. What more a whole 2-tier cake?

To make sure I get the cake right this time, I did 3 cake trials to get the right colour, texture & taste. I had chosen to make the kind of cake I saw trending on Pinterest the recent years - ombre layer cake. So I made my very own version, a pink ombre sponge layer cake with Pandan (Screwpine) flavour.

After the first trial, I realized the normal food colouring from the local supermarket shelf is not suitable for baking because the colour would evaporate in the heat. I went to find solution online and discovered colour gel paste is the way to go.

The second trial was when I successfully achieved the pink ombre. But unfortunately, the texture & taste were not quite right. It was densed, heavy and a tad too sweet.

Though this trial cake had four layers, it looked short because it did not  rise properly. A day after that, I had the third trial to ensure my cake rises. I did a normal oblong cake in a bread pan without layers & colouring. It turned out fine. NO photos taken for that, nothing much to see anyway. 


Then, with a leap of faith, I proceeded to make the actual 2-tier birthday cake. Baked the bottom tier & covered it in regal icing. I had so much unforeseen problem with it, it took 5.5 hours to complete. The following day, I continued doing the same with the top tier which took 3 hours. On the third day (gee, doesn't that sound like something you hear from the bible?), I finished the cake with icing decorations. This too took much longer than it should because the icing decorations were made without the proper craft tools. The only shaping tools used were a cocktail pick and both ends of a chopstick.  Besides the icing, I also made two mini buntings and printed some stuff for the decoration. I love how adding the bamboo sticks could instantly add height to the cake :)


Ok, too much words. Now, I shall let the photos do the taking.

 Voila! So what do you think?

Well, since this a 2-tier cake, I specially ordered a tall cake box for it too.