When I was thinking about what kind of cake to make for my daughter's first birthday I didn't have "healthy" or "sugar free" in mind. I didn't think she would actually eat (much of) it and even if she did... it's her birthday and she doesn't eat candy usually. So, the dough contains sugar, the cream doesn't.
I wanted it to be easy and fast to make, because I wasn't going to pour my heart out into a cake she's not going to appreciate and just going to destroy. And I don't have that much time on my hands anyways.
I still wanted it to look good though. For pictures, you know. For the 'gram!
For the base:
3 egg whites
3 egg yolks
100 grams or 1/2 cup of sugar
75 grams or 2/3 of flour
25 grams or 1/4 cup of cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
Optional: a drop of vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F or 180 degrees C. Line a 7 inch round cake pan with parchment paper, only on the bottom. DO NOT grease the sides.
- Beat the egg whites for 3 minutes on high in a stand mixer (or with a handheld mixer until semi whipped/semi firm), then add half the sugar, beat again for 3 minutes.
- In another bowl beat the egg yolks with the other half of the sugar for around 5 minutes or until pale and fluffy. Add vanilla extract while mixing, if you wish.
- Fold the egg white fluff into the egg yolk fluff with a spatula. DO NOT use your mixer!
- Combine the flour, cornstarch and baking powder in a bowl before adding or sifting into your combined fluff. Sifting is better to avoid clumps but I usually don't.
- Pour the batter into a 7 inch round pan. Make sure to only fill 1/2 to 2/3 of the pan, so the cake doesn't grow over the pan!
- Bake for 20-30 minutes. Use the toothpick method to make sure your base is properly cooked!
- Allow the cake to cool completely before removing it from the pan.
- If your cake has an uneven top later, remove it. Otherwise cut the cake into 2 or 3 pieces.
For the cream:
1/2 a pint of heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon of cornstarch
- Pour the cold heavy whipping cream into your cold bowl, place onto your stand mixer and beat until semi whipped.
- Add the cornstarch.
- Keep beating until cream forms peaks but DO NOT over beat (or else you will have butter).
For the decor:
Wilton gel food coloring in the desired color
Schleich animal figurine matching the theme
Assembly:
For my cake, you'll just need to bake a simple sponge cake, remove
the uneven top layer and cut it in half. I should've cut in 3 pieces for
better texture and mix between cake and cream, but I didn't bother...
it was mostly for pictures and smashing!
You want to layer the pieces
with cream and cover the entire cake in cream with an angled icing
spatula or a wide knife.
For the water color effect add one drop of blue
gel food coloring on your spatula and spread it across the cream, as if
you were painting on it. The more you spread the food coloring, the
lighter it will get on your cake. You can play around that way until you
get your desired design.You can obviously use and mix different colors
to match your theme!
Once you put the cake in the fridge to cool the
color will most likely fade as it gets sucked into the cream. I would
recommend decorating it à la minute.
Then add your preferred animal figurine on top or on the side, depending on the size of it.
Our whale was too huge to place it on top of the small cake!
Our One-year-old didn't care to smash it, by the way.
She was actually a little intimidated by the cake...
I hope you enjoyed reading this recipe and you will give it a try!
Let me know, if you do. It's very easy, I promise!
When I don't make this for a baby, I add sugar into the whipped cream and fresh or frozen berries on top of a layer of cream. It's delicious! I recently made a bigger naked chocolate drip cake with the same base and filling.
Here it is:
Thank you for visiting my blog.
Mery
