Verity's Birthday Cake

So as a general rule I think I'll only post the good cakes on here, but as this was the MOST delicious cake ... ever... I think I'll make an exception for this. First let me note what was not good about this cake.

1) I made it the day before. Normally this is fine, but I used a hell of a lot of food dye to make the colours as bright as I did (I could've used less, but hindsight is a wonderful thing) and when I actually delivered the cake they'd started to run into the other icing. Cue an unhappy Maag.

2) It was my second time using butter cream transfers and I did it slightly wrong in my zeal to do it correctly. I have, however, figured out what I did wrong and will not be doing it again. So my next one will be a lot better.

3) The cake board I used was actually a microwave plate (I'm a poor student and it wasn't a professional cake so I didn't bother with the formalities) and was too small. So quite a lot of the icing fell off the sides. It was a butter cream massacre. We took it to Nandos and the entire table got covered in it. Like I said, it was an amateur cake so I didn't bother with a cake board, but I really, really should've!

4) The Hogwarts crest was actually off centre because I was expecting to put another scroll underneath, but due to bad measurements it didn't fit. It looks okay with candles, but I was cringing when I did it.

Yeah. So as I'm a complete perfectionist, I deem this cake a big failure. Thankfully Verity was thrilled, so it wasn't a big deal in the end. And it tasted incredible (I'm really getting the hang of this gluten free thing) so it was completely fine.

Want a gluten free chocolate cake recipe? I tell you what, I won't bother because it is essentially the same as my chocolate chip cupcake recipe, but I replaced regular flour with gluten free flour and 2tsp Xantham gum (good stuff, cooking with GF flour is a lot harder without it) and doubled (maybe tripled?) the quantity to make a bigger cake. The butter cream was just regular butter cream with cocoa tipped in until I liked the taste.

That's how I cook people. By taste, look and instinct. :-)

So you probably want to see it?

Fine. But it isn't good.


Okay, well it looks okay in this one, but this was when it was first made and the lines hadn't blurred. And the coloured bits on the side were little 21's that looked RIDICULOUS, so I ruined it a bit more by replacing them with white chocolate shavings...


... and chocolate frogs. Less inventive next time Maag! Less inventive! This is the top the day I delivered it. Should've stuck with the first side design as well, I know. Well, chalk it up to experience. It's just annoying, as this could've been a really good cake!


Yeah, it bled too. I mentioned that didn't I? Well the candles helped sort out the off centre thing at least. Oh, and the crest thing? Hand drawn baby. All by me :)


Aaaand the inside. That giant blob of butter cream is... a giant blob of butter cream. Covering a couple of chocolate frogs.


There you go then. I have a Supernatural cake and an Xmen cake to make in the next few days as well :-)

Much love,

Maag x