Birthday Cake

Baked this yummy vanilla flavored cake with Buttercream frosting and topped with heart shaped fondant for my husband's birthday. There are three steps in this cake preparation. 1. Preparing Sponge For Cake. 2. Preparing Heart shaped Fondant. 3. Preparing Buttercream Frosting..

The recipe follows..

Ingredients:

For Cake Sponge:

Dry Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour.   - 1 cup (Maida)
Baking Powder.      - 3/4 tsp

Salt                         - a pinch

Others:

Powdered Sugar.   - little more than 1/2 cup
Cold Milk.               -1/4 cup
Egg.                       - 2
Butter.                    -1/2 cup
Vanilla essence.     - 1/4 tsp

For Frosting:

Powdered Sugar           - 2 cups

Butter                              - 1/2 cup

Vegetable Shortening  - 1/2 cup

Vanilla Essence            - 1.5 tsp

Cold Milk                         - 4 tbsp

For Fondant Hearts:

Powdered Sugar           - 1 cup

Agar-Agar Powder        - 1/4 tbsp

Milk                               - 2 tbsp

Sugar Syrup                  - 1 tbsp

Shortening                     - 1/4 tsp

Vanilla Extract                - 1/4 tsp

Lemon Food Color         - as required

Procedures:

Procedure For Cake Sponge:

• Sieve all dry ingredients together. Separate  egg yolks.
• Take a bowl. Add white yolk. Whisk for some time. When it becomes fluffy add half of the sugar. Continue whisking for 3-4 minutes till it become very fluffy.
• Take another bowl.. add yellow yolk.. whisk it until it become pale. After that add remaining sugar.. continue whisking till the sugar gets dissolved. .
• After the sugar gets dissolved, add Butter and continue whisking.
• Add cold milk and vanilla essence. Stir the batter.
• Repeat the above process for another 2 times.
• Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius.
• Apply butter to cake pan. Dust it with flour. Remove the excess., add batter to pan. Bake it for 25-30 minutes. 
• Insert a toothpick in the cake. If it comes out clearly, your cake is ready!!!

  
  

  Quick Tips:

  
  

  1. The fluffiness of the cake depends on the time you beat egg.. so beat it well
  2. Eggs should be in room temperature. . So take  the egg out from fridge at-least before 30 minutes.
  3. And the bowl and the blender should be very clean. It shouldn't have any butter or fat. Otherwise egg white won't fluff.

  
  

  
  

Procedure For Fondant:

• Sift (Sieve) powdered sugar. Take a pan. Boil milk in it. When its hot add Agar-Agar powder. Cook it for a minute or so, till agar- agar is mixed well.
• Now add half of the sugar, sugar syrup and vanilla essence to it. Mix it well.
• Start adding remaining sugar in small instances and knead the dough. Kneading process is the most difficult step in this. Keep on kneading the dough till it reaches tight consistency.Always grease the work place with vegetable shortening before kneading. You can also use Butter instead. Cover fondant with a cling wrap and set it aside for 10 hours. After 10 hours knead for some time.Take a little dough and expand it with a greased rolling pin. Cut it with a cookie cutter. Your heart shaped fondant is ready.
• This fondant dough stays good for many days at room temperature itself.

procedure For Butter Cream Frosting:

•  keep the vessel in which you are going to prepare frosting and beater  hook in fridge for at-least an hour.
• Powder sugar.
• After an hour take out vessel, hook and start whipping the Butter and Vegetable shortening. You can find vegetable shortening in most of the super markets. You can also replace shortening with butter by adding a total of 1 cup of Butter. Adding vegetable shortening gives smoothness to the frosting.  And when its fluffy add Powdered sugar and vanilla Essence.
• Whisk well.. After some five minutes, add cold milk and start whisking again. 
• The frosting should be of free flowing consistency. If the frosting is too thick, add in 2 tbsp of cold milk or more. Adding milk is purely optional. Frosting should be easily spreadable. If the frosting is too thin, it won't stay on cakes. So be careful, while adding milk.
• Take the cake sponge in a plate. Cut the cake into two layers horizontally. Rotating the plate while cutting helps in correct partitioning of cake.
• Take a plate in which you are going to serve cake. Add frosting to the center. Place the bottom sponge layer to it. This is done to prevent the cake from moving
• Spread a good ½ inch layer of  frosting to it. 
• Now the second layer, keep it upside down .Take a big dollop of  frosting and then spread it on top as well on sides. Then make it smooth! If crumbs are seen, do a crumb coat.. 
• Now place heart shaped fondants where ever you wish. I added lemon food color to frosting and used it for writing on the cake. I also used Grated White chocolate and sugar balls for decorating. Your yummy Birthday cake is ready!!