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Featured Cookbook
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Ice Cream Feast (Chocolate Cake with Ice Cream Cones)
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Squealers (miniature wedding cakes)
Book Description
Children's birthday cakes usually come in one of two varieties: the basic, straight-from-the-box version, or the labor-intensive, time-consuming specialty cake. Happy Birthday offers an alternative: birthday cakes that are fabulously creative and fun as well as incredibly easy to make. Cake designs from potted sunflowers and football fields
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Happy Birthday
Authors: Anna Von Marburg
Date:
ISBN: 1865081442
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty., Limited (Australia)
Hardcover
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Offer these little jewels to a table full of girls, young or old, and listen to then squeal with delight. There’s nothing like a miniature cake decorated with an array of all the things girls are made of…pink bubble gum, ribbons, flowers, sugar beads, and jewels. It’s easiest to cut shapes from a thin, 1-inch cake; use graduated cookie cutters to make tiers.
Makes about 10 two-tiered cakes
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1 Butter Cake or favorite flavor sheet cake (9- by 13-inch)
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1 box (1lb) confectioner’s sugar, sifted
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4 to 8 Tbsp hot water
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Decorations: baking sprinkles, gum paste flowers, bubble-gum strips, candies, colored crystal sugar
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1/2 batch Topcoast Frosting (recipe follows)
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Food coloring in desired colors
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Refrigerate or freeze cake for at least 1 hour. This makes it easier to cut shapes.
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Cut shapes from cake. Stack tiers snugly together on a bamboo skewer, with enough of the skewer sticking out on either side to let you grasp both ends securely.
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In a medium bowl, combine sugar and hot water; stir until smooth. Keep icing warm by placing bowl inside another bowl of hot water.
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Grasping both skewer ends, hold a cake sideways and immerse it in icing bowl, turning to coat all sides. (If the skewer is too long to fit into the bowl, trim it with a pair of scissors.) Set cake right side up on a wire rack, keeping skewer in place, for about 20 minutes. Dip cake a second time; set on rack again. (If desired, you can simply pour icing over single-layer cakes.)
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Remove skewer from cake before decorating. Attach decorations while icing is still soft. Or wait for about an hour, until cakes are dry and easier to handle, then use a dab of Topcoat Frosting to attach decorations. There will be a little hole in the top of the cake from the skewer. That’s a spot for decoration.
Frostings
To avoid crumbs in the frosting, apply a base coat of a thinner Crumbcoat Frosting to 'set' the crumbs, then give it a thicker, creamier Topcoat.
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Crumbcoat
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1 1/2 oz (2 1/2 Tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature
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1 box (1 lb) confectioner's sugar
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1/4 cup water
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Topcoat
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5 oz (10 Tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature
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1 box (1 lb) confectioner's sugar
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1 tsp vanilla extract
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1/4 cup or more water
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For both frostings: In large bowl with electric mixer on high speed, beat butter until light. Reduce speed to medium; add remaining ingredients. Increase speed to high; beat 5 minutes, until fluffy.
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Spread a thin layer of Crumbcoat over cake. Allow it to harden and form a crust so that the crumbs 'set.' Once set, apply Topcoat.
More From This Book:
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Ice Cream Feast (Chocolate Cake with Ice Cream Cones)
-
Squealers (miniature wedding cakes)
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