Barnyard Cake

I can’t believe that my tiny little boy is already 2! I still remember how little my baby was. He was just as big as 1 ltr pepsi bottle. Most of you already know that my lill boy was born 5 weeks earlier than the due date. Today my super active toddler is all grown up & running all around. He has already mastered all skills that are needed for him to outshine. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family & the last 2 years as a full time mommy has been super fun. 

My first fondant decorated cake was Zion's 1^st Bday cake. The theme was Jungle safari & I was really happy with the outcome. (Click here) However there was a lot of scope for improvement & over this last 1 year I have learnt a lot on my own in cake decoration.  Baked & decorated so many cakes for my friend’s parties. I never knew that this field would make me so popular.

Coming back to today's post, I had decided that for Zion’s 2^nd Bday I have to make a very special cake. The ideas kept changing in my mind. My son’s fav Cartoons are Team Umi zoomi & Tayo the little Bus. I initially thought that I will make Team Umizoomi cake, but later changed my mind & decided to go ahead with Barn yard cake. Why Barn yard? Coz farm animals are the topic of discussion in Zion’s school for this semester. I thought it would be great idea to make this cake for his school celebration as all the kids would love to see these animal figurines.

I dint want to bake a lot of cake & waste. Hence I decided to make the Barn house with rice cereals & for the bottom I made a 9 inch round vanilla cake.  The cake was more than enough for 25 people. Every child including teachers loved the cake. It was such a joy watching all the kids enjoying eating it. The teachers were all praises & couldn’t believe that it was home made. Both my hubby & I had gone to the school for the cake cutting. Z was acting like a leader in class & I could see that he was trying to show off that it’s his cakeJ. He was after the tractor & had already eaten one tractor at home & now was game for another one too:)

 

I Baked a Vanilla Butter cake very similar to my Pound cake, with some extra butter in it. The cake had a 3 layer filling of Chocolate Butter cream icing. I definitely don't have any step by step tutorials for this. Please feel  free to ask me if you have any questions.

 

For Pound cake recipe click here.  I baked 2 batches of cake to make it this tall.

Chocolate Butter cream recipe:

300 gms Butter (I used Amul Butter)

7 - 8 Cups sifted Icing sugar

1/4 cup heavy Whipping cream

1 Tspn Vanilla Essence

1/4 cup +2 Tbsp Coco powder

Pinch of salt

Method:

1. Make sure butter is at room temperature & not very soft.
2. In the bowl cream butter until smooth and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes with an electric beater on medium speed.
3. Add 7 cups icing sugar one cup at a time. Once the icing sugar is well mixed add whipping cream, coco powder and vanilla; mix until light and fluffy. (for 3 to 4 mins) If you feel the frosting consistency is not right, then add in some more icing sugar.
4. With a spatula fill each layer with 1/2 inch frosting & crumb coat the entire cake with this icing.
5. Let the cake rest in the freezer for 10 mins until the crumb coat sets.
6. Now remove cake out & do the final frosting around 1/2 inch thick on the outside.

 

Note:

1. Most of the figurines were made out of home made Marshmallow fondant. For recipe click here
2. The figurines were made 4 days in advance & I put them in a air tight container.
3. Rest of the fondant that I used for decoration was home made Fondant. I just followed Veena's recipe for this. Check her site here for the recipe. This fondant turned out so good & tasty. I could eat the fondant just like that. This is the best fondant I have ever tasted. Thanks Veena again for sharing your recipe.
4. The Barn house is made of Rice cereal. I just used 5 cups of rice cereals & 2 cups of marshmallow to make this. Pop the marshmallow in the microwave for 1 minute until its melted. Now mix in the rice cereal & make it a soft dough. Now you can shape it to any shape you want
5. To make the farm animals, I watched some tutorials on youtube. Pig Tutorial