A small birthday cake for C&C

The birthdates of my 2 teens were just one day apart in the same month.   As the friends of my girl had given her 2 small cakes and a dozen of cupcakes to bring home, I could not bake any more cake without first finished those 'stacking' on top of each other in the refrigerator.

They had previously suggested a cake decorated with Ferrero Rocher (of course
theirs favourite) ...Well, searched through some related recipes and decided to bake Nutella Butter cake that I had attempted before and to decorate it with Ferrero Rocher.

Readily available

Here's the recipe I adapted from Happy Home Baking for the Nutella Butter cake.
Ingredients:
225g cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
85g butter, soften at room temperature
3 tablespoons Nutella spread
150g (I used 140g) caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
120g plain, non-fat yogurt

Method:
1) Preheat oven at 180 degC. Line bottom of a 20cm (8") round pan with parchment paper. Grease and flour the sides of the pan, set aside.
2) Sift together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
3) Mix together yoghurt and vanilla essence.With an electric mixer, beat butter and nutella for 1 min. Gradually add in caster sugar and beat on high speed for about 3 mins. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl periodically.
4) Dribble in the eggs slowly, about 1 tablespoon at a time, beat constantly for about 2 mins.
5) On low speed, beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture. On medium-high speed, beat in 1/2 of the yogurt mixture. On low speed, beat in half of the remaining flour mixture. On high speed, beat in the remaining yogurt mixture. On low speed, beat in the rest of the flour mixture.
6) Pour batter into into prepared pan, smooth the top evenly with a spatula. Bake for about 40 ~ 45 mins or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.Let cool in pan for 10 mins before unmold. Invert onto a cooling rack and let cool completely.

As for the Nutella buttercream,  I improvised the buttercream recipe I had used for cupcake frosting and added some wafers (crushed) to the cake.
7 Ferraro Rochers for decor (or as you desired)
Crushed some wafers (enough to fill the sides)
Nutella Buttercream
Ingredients:
150g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
80g icing sugar
80g Nutella
3 tablespoons heavy cream or milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method:
Use electric mixer, cream butter until light an fluffy. Add in the icing sugar.
Add the vanilla and nutella (few spoonfuls at a time).

Well, here's the belated small Nutella + Ferrero Rocher cake for them! Happy birthday to C&C, with love always ... Mom.

Colorful rainbow fruit tarts

Ain't get enough of fruity tarts. This is my 3rd attempts in fruit tarts recipe. Using the same pastry recipe adapted from Joy of Baking, I have made fruit tarts with pastry cream, peach almond tart and this rainbow colours fruits topped with whipped cream.

Rainbow Fruit Tarts

Pastry Crust: (I'm using 5 small about 2.5 inch tart case as I do not have a 8-9 inch removable tart pan)

195 grams all purpose flour (sifted)

1/8 teaspoon salt

110 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature

50 grams granulated white sugar (I used 40g)

1 large egg lightly beaten

Method:

1. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour with the salt. 

2. Place the butter in the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, and beat until softened. 

3. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Gradually add the beaten egg, beating just until incorporated. 

4. Add the flour mixture all at once and mix just until it forms a ball.

5. Flatten the pastry into a disk, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 15-30 minutes.

6. Lightly butter the small tart cases. Cut out the tart size and evenly pat the chilled pastry onto the bottom and up the sides of the case. 

7. Lightly prick bottom of pastry crust with the tines of a fork (this will prevent the dough from puffing up as it bakes).

8. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 180 degrees C and place rack in center of oven. 

9. Bake crust for 10 - 15 minutes or until dry and lightly golden brown. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool completely before filling and decorate fresh fruits of your choices. 

My kids loved these lovely decorated yummy colourful fruit tarts, hope you will enjoy them too!

As this is the last series of the Aspiring Bakers, I am submitting this to

Aspiring Bakers #40: Rainbow and Ombre Party! (March 2014) hosted by Cynthia of The Baking Biatchhttp://www.thebakingbiatch.com/2014/02/aspiring-bakers-40-rainbow-and-ombre.html?m=1

Dorayaki

Made these yummy pancakes for breakfast last week ... love the cute round delicious Japanese cakes that sandwiched sweet red bean paste sold at those Japanese supermarkets like Yaohan, Sogo. With the pulling out of their businesses from Singapore, I could hardly find these yummy snacks in heartland malls or hypermart nowadays.

Bought a can of Anko sweet red bean paste and decided to make some. It was not too difficult, my first attempt. Adapted from this recipe but I omitted the sweet sake as I didnt have any. http://shizuokagourmet.com/japanese-cake-dorayaki-basic-recipe/
The taste was just as good. Will definitely be making more with choices of filling like chocolate,  peanut butter and kaya!