Birthday Cake

Rich Moist Chocolate Cake filled with strawberries n cream, frosted over with cream and decorated with cream swirls, scrolls and fondant flowers n finished with ribbons and pearls. Individual cupcakes with the name of each lil guest were an unprecedented success...wow! n the reaction....totally worth the extra effort.

Reji's Birthday Cake

OK! so heres a fantastic cake I had made for my bro's birthday.

I cannot understand why many slave for hours and make great looking cakes with fondant, that people aren't really gonna eat!I need my cakes to look fantastic and taste phenomenal...

This is a Rich Super Deluxe Chocolate Cake soaked in syrup and brandy and enrobed in dark chocolate ganache.

Looked prreeeety goooood too!

Swirls of the deepest, darkest, most luscious chocolate with fondant flowers, buds n leaves in white, beige n chocolate....
KNOCKOUT! (-:


Here's how to make the magic!

Ingredients

Cake:

4 oz sweet/semisweet dark chocolate
5 eggs
¾ cup sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons water

For the Soak :

2 tablespoons brandy
1 tablespoon strawberry syrup
1 tablespoon icing sugar
6 tablespoons water

Method :

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C and line a 12 inch cake tin.
2. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and melt it with the water in a double boiler.
3. Separate the eggs. With an electric mixer whisk the eggs whites until forming stiff peaks, add gradually half of the sugar while mixing.
4. In a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks with the remaining sugar for one minute using the electric mixer. Add gradually the vegetable oil, one tablespoon at a time, whisking well between each time oil has been added. Add the melted chocolate and mix thoroughly. Transfer to the bowl containing the whisked egg whites.
5. Sift in the flour and baking powder, add vanilla extract and fold everything carefully together using a spoon or a rubber spatula.
6. Transfer to the cake tin and bake for about 45 minutes until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
7. Remove cake from tin when cool and brush over with a mix of brandy, icing sugar, strawberry syrup and water.
8. Cover with Chocolate Ganache and decorate with fondant or chocolate dipped strawberries.

Frosting - Ganache:

8 oz cream
1 tablespoon butter (optional but makes it stay really shiny even after refrigerating)
1 oz sugar
12 oz chocolate

1. Break chocolate into 1/2 oz pieces and place in stainless steel bowl.
2. Heat cream, butter and sugar to boiling. Pour over chocolate and let stand 5 minutes. Stir from center out until smooth.

After refrigerating 1 hour, use to ice your cake by spreading (allow to cool to room temp first).

This is an amazing cake, not my own recipe, both these I found on the net and tweak them every once in a while. Credits :Chocolate Cake- http://www.cacaoweb.net/ Chocolate Ganache- http://cakecentral.com/

Zack's Cupcakes

Zack from Rubicon was the happy recipient of this lot of cupcakes...he had done some neat photography work for us ( People for Animals,Chennai) pro bono. He loved them cupcakes ... told Shiranee that he'd be most happy to do anything for us as long as we paid in the preferred currency...cupcakes!
The design was inspired by Isha, my 4 n half yr old- its quite an accomplisment getting stuff done when u have 10 sticky little fingers itching to stick themselves into every batter n mix n demanding to help..with her on a stool next to me, peering over my shoulder n raring to participate, i wanted to make the design simple .. something that she could relate to n think was cool

Art Deco Cupcakes

Made this for Vijay's (the tubbyhubby aka Fatboy,Gundu,Fatty,Bastard Boy,etc,etc.etc.) colleague's mom...went overboard with the decadent look.. atrocious, bright pinky peachy frosting with fondant rosebuds n leaves n silver balls. needed a classy background so put the curtains in the front room to good use n draped them over the poufee and set the stand on them!

Mummy's Cake

Made this last year for mummy's birthday... absolutely yummy...rich chocolate cake soaked in rum n syrup, decorated with cocoa n chocolate frosting and white fondant rosebuds..the cocoa frosting was quite messy, so i cheated n covered it up with swirls n chocolate sprinkles...my mom - my worst critic- was totally floored!

Girly girl Cake

This was soo much fun to decorate ... m pretty crazy bout swirls, n went pretty overboard! Made this for a 16 yr old. her mom told me she was very girly n feminine so went all out for a girly n cool look. Chk out the silver balls in between n diff sizes ....pretty cool huh? The kid loved it, thought it soo pretty n did'nt want to cut it!

Elegant Cupcakes

jus luuurrve to dress up cupcakes...n of course the fav strawberry n chocolate drizzle ... i swear everyones gonna get fed up!
had to take close-ups...double-click on pic for a lil glimpse of heaven...the pink version was beautiful....
...n the wht ones were seriously elegant

Cupcakes with Sprinkles

Good ol chocolate cupcakes with fluffy white frosting n sprinkles n strawberries...made for Priya's ( my sis-in-laws )family when they came visiting to Chennai en masse to chk out vg's n pri's fancy new dwellings