Easy Rainbow Cake

I know that I already mentioned this, but I think this rainbow cake deserves an entry of its own. A few months ago, I decided to make my beautiful daughter her birthday cake and it turned out rather well - well enough that a dear friend of mine is brave enough to trust me to make the same one for her son's birthday next month. Having gained more confidence, I thought I'd venture to make my darling son his birthday cake as well. I initially thought of making him one of those train cakes, but he saw the rainbow cake that I was looking at and he preferred it so that's what we both dreamt of making.

For his actual birthday, we made a test cake, but instead of using white icing, I used the chocolate frosting recipe that I have tried, tested and loved. Instead of following the lovely rainbow cake recipe I found, I thought I would make it easy on me and use the 4 ingredients cake recipe that I have used before. I made three mixes, divided it into seven portions and started colouring into my desired rainbow colour. I initially used my rectangle glass mould but it was not thick enough that even if I greased it, it still got stuck. I tried my round silicon mould and it worked better. However at that stage I already used up two portions and I wasn't very patient to make a new one so I thought because it was just a test cake, I might as well just use what is available.

We didn't really plan on him having a party but he got pumped when a dear friend promised him a birthday party and he kept raising the question since. I knew then that I had to make a better version of the test cake.

Having that bit of experience, I decided not to make the whole batter but  make separate ones and colour as I bake. I thought making 1/3 of the recipe (as opposed to 1 cup of each ingredients)  would be okay, but it still was not thick enough. I ended up doing 2/3 of the recipe but in hindsight, 1/2 would have been enough.

When I finished all seven layers, I searched for a white chocolate icing and found an easy one on the Cadbury kitchen  website. I was tempted with how easy it was  and how few the ingredients required to make, plus I only needed the microwave. I wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do. I thought it would turn out too sweet, because I used two packs of the white chocolate melts but in the end it tasted just right. I found it really hard to ice the sides though because the ganache hardened too much, it was not easy to spread.

For next time, I am going to try this white chocolate icing recipe.

If you have a tried and tested go to cake recipe, I suggest  that you give it a go and just colour the batter into your preferred rainbow consistency. Otherwise, you can try the one I used from 4 Ingredients. Take note that I have adjusted the amount based on how much I will need for each colour.

Cake Recipe
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup self rising flour

Preheat oven to 180C. Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Tint the whole mixture with purple. Grease your favourite cake mould, line with baking paper and pour mixture. Cook for 30 minutes or until cooked through. Let cake stand for 5 minutes. Repeat six times and tint with the remaining rainbow colours.

Thanks Irene for the photos and collage
Thanks photovisi for the edit

 For the frosting, I am still experimenting so it is best to use what has already worked for you.

Place purple cake on board and add frosting. Top with blue cake. Repeat with remaining frosting and aqua, green, yellow, orange and red cakes, using frosting for each layer. Spread remaining frosting over the top and side of cake. Sprinkle with 100s and 1000s.Serve and resist the temptation to eat everything in one go.

Birthday Musings

I am not one to make a big deal of my own birthdays, especially when it means moving from one decade to another. I have to admit waking up to a headache from the day before, which immediately made me think it comes naturally when one gets to a certain age.

I was going to say that I didn't like the attention, but to be honest, I am missing the "bless the birthday celebrator" tradition I grew up in with my friends. I just made up the name of course because we never called it anything - where there's a birthday celebrator, friends just tend to gravitate and it always seemed natural to end up in conversations that lead to blessing the person, mostly where we thought of one or two things, depending on the number, we love and appreciate about them and we told them in the group's presence. It probably sounds corny but for some reason, whether as a birthday girl or one of the friends, we all leave encouraged and blessed. Maybe it is just me, but quality time being my top love language and words of appreciation coming close second, it really makes me feel really special and well, LOVED. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate presents, but it is probably in the bottom of the love language scales and even if I don't get one, it doesn't make me feel loved any less.

This year, friends thought of surprising me with a birthday lunch, but because I was so "clever", I figured it out. Instead I invited them over to my house along with a few other friends without mentioning that it was my birthday. I thought if I didn't want to make a fuzz out of it, why should they? So lunch it was, and what a good time to catch up with some friends that I hadn't seen for a while.

I woke up to a very nicely made birthday card with some carefully worded note including something to the effect of looking younger than my age. It was a stretch but hubby did volunteer to wait til 9am to drive our little mister to preschool, saving me a total of 40 minutes to an hour of walking, so I was happy to let it slide.

I am tempted to make a list of forty things I am grateful to God for, but we all know that when a girl says list, it is a list of words per item and I did want to make this short. I must

Photo Credit+flowers: Tess Colgrave
Thanks, mare! Rachel Kelly for the cake

say I am very thankful for the life God has blessed me. He has blessed me with the most amazing husband and two awesome kids. I thank God for our families. While they all live overseas, distance doesn't seem to hinder the close family ties that connects us. In the absence of our biological family, God has connected us to a great local church family where we got to meet like minded individuals and families in similar season in life like us. We are blessed that we still get to honor God and be a part in advancing His kingdom even in this season, and not be hindered by it. I thank God for the friends He placed in our lives, for the opportunity to make sisters and brothers by choice,  and for the many blessings that keeps coming our way.

You know how I started my day with all sorts of body pains? Let me just say that when I started thinking and thanking God for everything I was grateful for, it all just went away - and I must say, it was a happy birthday indeed!

He is FoUR!

All the waiting has finally paid off. He is four by himself, not three, like his sister, in the past four weeks! Four. How fast time flies. It seemed just yesterday that we brought home a little over 2 kilos bundle of joy after staying for nearly 5 weeks at the hospital.

He was fast asleep but we brought his cake to the room to wake him up so dad can leave for work. As we sang  happy birthday to the top of our voice, he simply opened his eyes to acknowledge us and went back to sleep. He eventually woke

 

up because we kept on singing. As we lighted the candles on his cake, we found out that the fire starter has stopped working so we had to console him that he can blow his cake again later after going to the shop. After cutting and seeing the beauty of his cake, he looked up  with grateful eyes and gave away the biggest cuddles.


 
As he celebrates his birthday, I can't help but think of the times that he  made our family really proud. It's a bit tricky because if truth be told, he doesn't really need to do anything to make us proud - just by being himself, the special gift that he is from God - is more than enough! 

If I do have to pick a few though, I can't forget  that time when we were in an indoor playground and there were two girls shouting "no boys! no boys!" at the jumping castle. I was so impressed when he replied - this is for everybody - and went on playing! What a brave thing to say to two older girls at that by a then three year old! He loves playing with older kids and at times it doesn't turn out very well. One time these boys were picking on him and I was so proud of the way he pretended and played along with them that the boys had no choice but to play with him. I wasn't there when that happened so when I was told about it I asked why he didn't tell an adult. He replied, "I'm telling you now, mum!"

Every time we go to the park, he would get drawn to the disabled play area because it is locked and he wanted to go inside. One morning he was on to it again so I had to explain that it was only for special kids, thinking that it would be harder for me to explain disabled to him. He surprised me when he replied - "but I am special too mum!" remembering most likely the time when we had a follow up conversation about how we are all different but God made us special and he loves us very much, thanks to a Noah's Ark lesson at church! Naturally, I groped for words to explain to him in a way that he will understand and after a while he did, thank God!

Happy birthday little mister! We love you and we thank God that he choose for you to be part of our family! We are honoured and blessed that we get to share your journey!

DiY Birthday Party!

It all started when we all got talked into throwing her a birthday party. Perhaps she remembered when we said we will alternately  have one party for them being born only eleven months apart and they have the same set of friends and this year, it was her turn. Maybe it did not help that we got invited to parties and she saw how fun it was. From the time we said YES, we were asked nearly every day if it was her birthday yet.

Gunnamatta Park
 photo pinched from here

She chose  Gunnamatta in Cronulla after we went for a  day to relax, she decided that she will have her party there.

view opposite the park 

We even made up a song to the tune of five cheeky monkeys and it goes like this:

z wants a party
she gets it on her birthday
she loves it is gunnamatta bay
so she can play, swim and have a barbie

We did not end up having a barbie because we thought it was better to have everything ready by the time we got there, but that is going ahead of myself. Choosing the venue was easy because the birthday girl knew what she wanted and we can't help but agree. With a park and a beach in one place, we didn't have to do anything to entertain the kids. We did have a few other decisions to make -

1. Pick the Date. Autumn this year is a little bit tricky because some days feel like summer, while other days feel like winter. We had to consider people's schedules too but after what we thought was carefully thought and planned date, we still found ourselves in a bit of a bind, what with our chosen date being in conflict with another activity, or some friends going away. However, we had to make a choice. When we decided on the date, the forecast was a high of 20 degrees with expected showers. Our toddlers prayed every night from the time we decided on the date for a change of weather and every few weeks we checked the forecast. And what do you know, on the day itself, it was a high of 27 degrees, not windy and certainly no showers, just perfect for a park-beach sort of weather, thank you, Jesus!

2. Invitation. When the date was sorted, it was too close that we did not have time to make the invitations. We resorted to emails and facebook, and it all worked out fine. I have to say I did try to get all the materials but in the end it was rather late.

3. The Birthday Cake.  The m & m and kitkat cake looked very attractive so I thought I'd give it a go. I have seen a few tutorials on youtube that looked really doable. I made my tried and tested cake recipe base 

my test kitkat cake

from 4 ingredients called the 1,1,1,1 cake and found a delicious and easy to make chocolate frosting recipe  from google to decorate. When we tasted out test cake, it was okay. However I thought it might be too much sugar so I decided to use marshmallows to keep up with the pink motif. Also, I decided to stretch 

>myself and make it a two-tier cake - it impressed my darling husband so much he wanted to marry me again if he could. My timeline -

6 days before the party - made a triple mix to make the two tier cake. let it rest.

5 days before the party - wrapped the cake with cling wrap and freeze

2 days before the party - decorated frozen cake with a double chocolate frosting mix  and marshmallows. let it sit at room temperature til the party

4. Party Menu. We decided on a very simple menu, but it might look  massive only because our friends had different dietary requirements. Maybe I got carried away too but I was very sure that it could be done without drama. In the end I had to drop the vegetarian spring rolls that I had already began cutting and only because I thought it might be too much work having to soften the wrapper with hot water, etc. I also made big plans to make drinks for the kids but in the end had to let it slide. 

Friends brought some yummy fried spring rolls as well as chips and drinks. This nut platter, inspired by a friend who posted a picture on instagram, is a mixture of ding dong from the Philippines made of cracker 

nuts, beans, peanuts, corn and green peas mixed with tropical nuts and m & m was an instant hit with the kids.

5. Party Favour. Being the anti-lollies that I am, (and only because I know that my toddlers will not stop eating til they turn blue) I thought I'd make some cookies. I have seen a friend do it and it looked really beautiful. However I have to admit that my icing skills is very limited that as early as Easter week, I tried and failed at it miserably.  I thought maybe cutting the cookies into beautiful moulds would make it look better but that did not work too. In the end, and at the encouragement of a friend, I opted for the tried and tested crisp coconut cookies in a nice looking cd envelope inspired by this post. I made two double mix of the cookies 

three days before the party and wrapped everything on the cd envelope with the thank you label at two days before.

6. Party Supplies. I cut out some templates for the party hats from here and here for the kids to decorate. I had stickers, foam letters and shapes as well as ribbons for them to use, but alas, it was not very popular as 

the park and the water was beckoning them. For buntings, I had some fibre cleaning materials that looks like felt from a few months back. I picked pink, cut it into bunting flags and pasted it into a string. With pink balloons on the sides, it makes up all  the birthday decorations we had. Our birthday girl choose the pink and purple plates for the little ones with bigger white plates for the adults. The same color goes for the plastic cups and cutlery. We also picked the pink and white plastic table cloth.

On the party day itself, we spent the morning cooking, packing  and taking everything  to the venue. We are blessed to have friends who helped us with a back up table in case we couldn't get one by the time we got there. They also came to pick up some of the things that wouldn't fit in the car. I have to admit we were running late, arriving there at 12:30 PM but thank God for one of our friends who arrived early, because of them we had one big table perfect for the occasion.

At the end of the day, we had one happy three year old. I overheard one mum say it was a highlight to the kids' school holidays. We thanked God for everyone who celebrated our little girl's birthday with us.

We left the place at 6 PM. Needless to say, she slept in the car and slept thru til 6AM the next day. She also had to wait the next morning to open the rest of her presents.

PS. for a very detailed checklist, I found this and this really helpful.