Minecraft Themed Birthday Cake

My favorite post on this blog has to be the Minecraft Cake I made for my son and his best friend. They share the same birthday and are best of friends since 1st grade. Their interest in characters changes every year and this was the Minecraft phase. It's been some time now and they still are big fans. Hey, I would take Minecraft over other games, it's just building and trading and I am ok with that!

I try to make a cake every year based on my son's current muse and this was the best one I ever made.

I did get the inspiration from another post online for the water and the bricks. Also, the grass tip for the piping was a really awesome idea too.

I used Blue Jello for the water, rice crispy treats for the building bricks, green colored frosting for the grass, chocolate cake for the soil and my son helped me make the characters, animals and the TNT blocks using printed make your own characters from the internet.

The key is to make everything yourself and not use the pre-made Jello, Rice Krispies or cake, since this will help in maintaining the correct dimensions needed to make the cake.

Since I was short on time, I used a boxed cake mix to make the Chocolate cake. Feel free to use a box cake or your own recipe.

Rice Krispies Treats:

Rice Krispies - 5 Cups

Butter - 2 Tbsp

Marshmallows - 25 to 30

On low heat, melt the butter and add the marshmallows. Mix until melted through and add the rice krispies. I used Kelloggs Rice Krispies. Mix well until well incorporated. While the mixture is sticky and still warm, grease a cake pan and add this mixture into the cake pan and smooth into a evenly. This should be about an inch and half to 2 inches in thickness. When slightly cool, cut into long blocks, about 3 inches wide and cool completely.

Chocolate Cake:

Using a box cake or a recipe of your choice, bake a chocolate cake in a sheet pan of your choice. The cake should be at least 4 inches in height after baking. Cook completely and set aside.

Blue Jell-O:

Kraft Jell-O - 2 Packets

Use the instructions on the back of the box to mix the Jell-O and pour into a cake pan. Make sure the depth is less than the Rice Krispie treats. It should be about an Inch or so in thickness. Once cooled and set, keep in the refrigerator until ready to assemble the cake.

Green Icing:

Use a boxed icing mix or make your own.

Powdered/Confectioners Sugar - 3 Cups

Butter - 1/3 Cup

Vanilla Extract - 2 Drops

Green Food Coloring - A few drops

Milk - a few Tbsp as required

Using a hand mixer or an electric mixer, beat the butter and slowly add the powdered sugar.

Beat well ad add the milk as needed to a make a stiff frosting mix. Add the vanilla extract and the food coloring and mix well.

Minecraft Characters:

There are several resources online to print, cut and make these characters. My son helped me make them and they are adorable.

When all the above steps have been complete, you are now ready to assemble the cake. There is no perfect way to doing this, so you can follow my version or assemble it in any other way you like. I stacked the chocolate cake but everything else is in a single layer.

First, cut and arrange the chocolate cake into the shape in the cake pictures above. Basically, we are trying to mimic the soil with the chocolate cake. 

Fit a piping bag with a grass tip (this is just a tip that has many tiny holes bent outwards) or just a ziploc bag snipped at the end and inserting this tip and sealing with a rubberband or a tape. Fill the bag with the frosting.

Pipe the grass onto the chocolate cake, where you gently press piping and quickly pulling off in order to make tiny thin grass like strings. Cover the entire cake with this piping.

Now, take the Rice Krispie block strips and place them around the perimeter, not evenly to mimic the blocks in Minecraft.  For all the remaining portion in the middle, cut the Jello to fit and place gently.

Top with the Minecraft Characters and you have your Minecraft themed Cake.

It does take some effort to make this, but it's totally worth it if your kid is into this. The look on my little ones faces were PRICELESS!

Mango Overload

Ingredients for Cake:

All Purpose Flour – 1 Cup
Mango Pulp/Puree – ¾ Cup
Baking Soda – A pinch
Baking Powder - 1 Tsp
Salt – A pinch
Sugar – ¼ cup
Oil – 1/3 Cup
Milk – 3 Tbsp

Mix all the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well until you form a smooth batter.

When the mixture is well incorporated, grease a cake pan, and pour the batter into the pan.

Chop the almonds, and top the cake with the chopped nuts.

Pre-heat the oven to 350F and bake for about 35 to 40 minutes. A knife inserted in the middle should come out clean. If the cake is not cooked through, the knife will have some batter on it.

Mango Whipped Cream:

Whipped Cream - 1 Cup

Mango Puree - 1/4 Cup

Mix them carefully, folding the mango pulp into the cream. Do not over mix.

When the cake is cooled, cut into squares. Place a square on the plate, top with the mango whipped cream. Top with chopped nuts and place another square of the cake. Top again with the mango cream, the nuts and finally top with some plain whipped cream.

Drizzle some mango pulp for the extra mango burst.

Enjoy!

Walnut and Carrot Cake - Valentine's special

This was a last minute attempt to make something for Valentine's day for the dear hubby. Boy am I glad I did :) He surprised me with some lovely roses and I managed to make my cake pretty with some flowers from the Backyard.

Using a Bundt cake pan gives the cake a much needed face lift and it ended up looking very pretty, perfect for a Valentine.

I adapted the recipe from this link:

http://www.skinnytaste.com/super-moist-carrot-cake-with-cream/

All-purpose flour - 3/4 cup

Whole wheat flour - 3/4 cup

Granulated sugar - 1 cup

Baking soda - 2 tsp

Salt - 1 tsp

Ground cinnamon - 2 tsp

Canola oil - 1/4 cup

Vanilla - 1 tsp

Grated carrots - 2 cups

Mashed soft Bananas - 2
Chopped Walnuts - 1/4 cup

Glaze:
Powdered Sugar - 1/4 cup
Milk - 1 to 2 Tbsp
Walnuts - 5 or 6

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine the 1st 6 ingredients from Flour to Cinnamon.
Combine all the wet ingredients from oil to mashed bananas. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and stir well. Add the chopped Walnuts and stir.

Grease a bundt pan or any normal cake pan and add the batter. Bake for about 45 min until a tooth pick comes out clean without any batter sticking to it. Remove and cool.

In a small bowl, mix the Milk and powdered sugar into a thick glaze and drizzle on the cooled cake.
Top with walnuts.

Dates and Almond cake

This is my first attempt at baking a cake from scratch. It is a very simple recipe, and quite tasty. One does not miss the eggs or the butter in this cake. I made this cake twice in a week, and it was a winner. My mom got me Lion dates syrup from India, and I used this in place of sugar in this recipe. This cake does not require any icing on it, however I glazed the cake with some orange flavored glaze. I adapted this cake from several dates cake recipes I found on other blogs.

Dates - 15
Milk - 3/4 cup
Date syrup - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1/4 cup
Flour - 1 cup
Baking soda - 1 tsp
Oil - 1/2 cup
Almonds - 1/4 cup

For Glaze: (Optional)
Powdered sugar - 1/4 cup
Orange juice - 2 tbsp

Heat the milk and dates in the microwave for 3 minutes. This will make the dates soft and help with grinding them. I used Lion dates that were pitted and soft. If using dried dates, soak them in milk over night.

Grind the dates with the milk. Add the date syrup and sugar and grind. If you do not find date syrup, substitute it with sugar. Just use 3/4 cup sugar instead of the date syrup + sugar combination. 

Add the oil to this mixture and whisk well. Mix the flour and baking soda and add to the liquid one spoonful at a time. Mix well. When the mixture is well incorporated, grease a cake pan, and pour the batter into the pan.

Chop the almonds, and top the cake with the chopped nuts.

Pre-heat the oven to 350F and bake for about 30 to 35 minutes. A knife inserted in the middle should come out clean. If the cake is not cooked through, the knife will have some batter on it.

Cool and remove.

Powder some sugar, else use a 1/4 cup of powdered sugar. Mix the orange juice into the powdered sugar. The glaze should be runny, and you should be able to pour in onto the cake with a spoon. Use more juice if required.

Drizzle the glaze onto the cake with a spoon. Cool and serve.

 

Spiderman Cake

I made this cake for my son's 4th B'day. It so happens that he's never had his birthday party on his actual birthday which fell on a weekday every year. He is a huge Spider-man fan. Which 4 yr old kid isn't :)  I baked this cake at 12 in the night, so he would not see it. I still remember the delight on his face, when he found out his mommy had made it for him.

I used a box cake mix for this, and a whipped vanilla icing.
I got food colors, and mixed them in with the icing.

This is how I decorated the cake:

Bake the cake in a round pan and let it cool.
Carve the bottom portion of the cake to resemble an oval face.
Now, cover the cake with the red colored icing. I did not have piping bags, so I used ziploc bags.
Use the blue colored icing to outline the mask, and fill the eyes with the white icing.

This cake was super easy to make. Next time, I plan to try a super mario cake. That being his current muse :)