Birthday Cake

saggycaggy

Hi all,

Im really really bad at baking but im determined to make my 3year old daughters birthday cake next week. I did a practise run last night and it turned out ok. (Apart from it sticking to the tin but parchement paper has gone on the shopping list since!).
I made a victoria sandwich and then I made a buttercream mix for the middle and on top-I just added colouring to the buttercream for the top!

The problem was that it was very sweet-sickly sweet! Does anyone have any other suggestions for decorating the victoria sponge? Would it be nice to have just cream in the middle and buttercream on top? I really want it to look and taste good as its for my daughters birthday and all the family will be there!!

Thanks!

ElleEm

Buttercream is way too sweet for me too.
Why not decorate the top with cream and strawberries (or another berry if there are strawberry haters)?

When I make a sponge I tend to mash up some strawberries (easily done with jam too )and spread cream on the middle too. It's yummy and very simple to do.

olaola

I'd try a chocolate buttercream icing and then load the smarties on in a shape.
Always looks good no matter what!

lucylu

how about a cream cheese frosting

150g soft cream cheese (Philadephia)
50g soft butter
75g icing sugar
The finely grated zest of one and the juice of half an orange

To make the frosting, beat together the cream cheese, butter, icing sugar, orange zest and one tsp of the juice until smooth and creamy, then set aside in the fridge.

emeraldstar

ElleEm wrote: »

Buttercream is way too sweet for me too.
Why not decorate the top with cream and strawberries (or another berry if there are strawberry haters)?

When I make a sponge I tend to mash up some strawberries (easily done with jam too )and spread cream on the middle too. It's yummy and very simple to do.

..I really don't think there are :eek:

saggycaggy

Strawberry lover here!!

Thanks for the great suggestions-I really like the idea of mashing up the strawberries and adding the cream for the middle of the 2 sponges-so if I went with that should I put cream on top too or a thin layer of buttercream for decoration? I'll put the number 3 in Smarties or something then!

Thanks again!

Phenix

i made a sponge for my hubby's nephew's birthday recently! i used cream and strawberries also. what i did then was have a number candle which we lit to sing happy birthday and then id a bowl with smarties in and let each child decorate their own piece of cake - happy adults cream and strawberries on their cake and happy kiddes decorating

DreamC

saggycaggy wrote: »

Strawberry lover here!!

Thanks for the great suggestions-I really like the idea of mashing up the strawberries and adding the cream for the middle of the 2 sponges-so if I went with that should I put cream on top too or a thin layer of buttercream for decoration? I'll put the number 3 in Smarties or something then!

Thanks again!

Just bear in mind that the mashed stawberries would will colour your filling and the sponge deep purple.

toadfly

emeraldstar wrote: »

..I really don't think there are :eek:

Me hate the horrible things

saggycaggy

Thanks again for all the replies!
In the end I just went for the buttercream middle and top! But I put a much thinner layer on top and decorated with smarties!! It looked really good so I was happy with that! Everyone said it was yummy too (well thats what they told me!!)

Thanks!