Sour cream vanilla cake with vanilla butter cream frosting and a Tala cake pan review

As cliche as it sounds, here's wishing all you guys a Happy Valentines Day in advance. I used to get all excited about the day during my school and college days when cards, flowers, gifts etc. were all part of the fun. Now, if the husband wishes me, its celebration time :) Other than the one time just after we got married, we have never actually celebrated V-day. This year isn't any different and so the most I could do was make these cute lil heart cakes and call it a day.

Talking of which, how adorable are these hearts? I think they are the perfect size, especially in households like mine where its just two of us and don't want to bake a huge cake to satisfy those sweet cravings. Tala is a very popular brand in UK and their retro-looking products are a fave of mine. This mini heart cake pan is from their bake ware range and is perfect for a V-day treat. The springform base makes it easy to release the cake and the non-stick interior does its job really well. The only issue I had was the batter seeping through the base when it went into the oven, but like all springform pans, its better to line the interior or place it on a baking tray to catch all the drips. Other than that, I am very happy with the cake tin.

I didn't want to actually bake a cake in the pan, I wanted to do something different, but lack of planning and a busy schedule meant a normal vanilla cake it was. I had some sour cream in the fridge and thought of putting it to good use. Hence the sour cream vanilla cake. The husband will be disappointed because a lot of vanilla-ness has been doing the rounds here. He will have to bear with this one too. I, on the other hand, love plain vanilla cakes and this one was great as well. 

About the frosting...I hate butter cream icing and that's the very reason why its not made its mark on my blog. Today however, I broke my vow, and went ahead and made it. Since a very small quantity was needed, I thought it should be fine. The taste, I still am not a fan, but the fact that you can pipe it out in whichever design, shape etc makes it a winner. I shall not be trying it out again, but maybe incorporate butter into my cream cheese frostings to make it hold firmer..yes that's a possibility.

Recipe adapted from here (makes 2, 10cm hearts)

 

Plain flour- 3/4th cup

Sugar- 1/2 cup

Baking powder- 3/4th tsp

Salt- 1/4 tsp

Butter- 4 tbsp (57gms), unsalted and at room temperature

Sour cream- 1/4 cup

Egg- 1 small

Egg yolk- 2 small

Vanilla extract- 3/4th tsp

Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a the bowl of your mixer using the paddle attachments.

Into it add the remaining ingredients one after the other and continue beating on medium speed everything is mixed well. There shouldn't be any traces of butter or flour visible.

Increase speed and beat well till you get a smooth and satiny mix.

Transfer the batter into the pans (greased lightly) and bake in an over pre heated at 175C for about 30 minutes or till a skewer comes out clean.

Take the hearts out of the oven and after 10 minutes release them onto cooling racks. 

Once completely cool, wrap them in cling film and refrigerate till ready to frost.

Vanilla buttercream frosting (recipe adapted from here) makes enough to fill and frost the cake as in the pic

Butter- 70gms, unsalted and at room temperature.

Powdered sugar- 85gms

Vanilla extract- 1/2 tsp

Milk- 1 tbsp

Red gel paste- a pinch

Beat the butter till light and fluffy.

Add the sugar, vanilla and milk and continue beating till they all come together. It should be smooth but stiff.

Add more milk (but by bit) to loosen the mix if needed or if too loose then add more sugar.

Add the red colour and mix till the colour is evenly spread throughout the  ix.

Fill the piping bags and pipe away.

Assembly

Bring the cake to room temperature and slice into half. It was really easy to slice these darls.

If you want, moisten the cake with some sugar syrup, or even coffee.

Fill with the butter cream and top with the other half. Pipe on the sides, and also fill the top if needed.

With thanks to Tala for sending me the heart shaped cake tin to review.

Cupcake decorating class

I was on the look out for a cake decorating class here in London and that's when I came across the class at Bea's of Bloomsbury in Holborn. I have had so many failed attempts at making butter cream and cream cheese icing that I realized unless someone showed me how to go about it- procedure and consistency wise- I wouldn't succeed. Trust me, this is talking from experience...I have wasted icing sugar, cream cheese and butter by the truck loads because I goof up quite often when it comes to frosting. 

Bea...one of the sweetest people I've met is a pastry chef and owner of the quaint lil tea shop called Bea's of Bloomsbury and her basic class on cupcake decorating was all that I was looking forward to. She even let a friend join in absolutely free of cost, making up for rescheduling the class. We got there at around 5.45 and was totally made to feel at home. Bea brought over a plate full of cupcakes for us to dig into and we did, shamelessly, rather! The red velvet with cream cheese was brilliant and so was the vanilla with passion fruit frosting. So after we had our mouths full we cleaned up, put on our aprons and Bea gave us a small introduction about herself, her transformation into being a pastry chef and what her class would cover. She conducts different classes at her restaurant, details of which are on the website and I assure you, it would be absolutely worth it, if ever you want to give it a shot.

The class started off with Bea showing us how to make the perfect, silky smooth chocolate ganache, followed by taking us through the processes of getting the perfect Italian butter cream consistency and then of course my favourite, the cream cheese frosting methods. We were then taught how to make cones with butter paper, fill it with melted chocolate (white and dark), fold it and draw designs, write out names etc etc. Once that was perfected, Bea showed us how to fill, hold and use a pastry bag to frost cakes and cupcakes. Then came the best part, we were given an array of cupcakes to decorate on...with Bea showing us some easy piping ideas and decorating methods throwing in quite a lot of interesting tips for storage, colouring and fixing issues which I thought was incredibly useful. She laid out about a hundred different sprinklers with various themes, glossy glitters, shiny dusts and fancy flowers...all for decorating. I literally went crazy decorating and so did the others. She cleared any doubts we had and asked us to take our own sweet time decorating the cakes...so yes we were at Bea's of Bloomsbury till around 9pm  decorating, laughing, eating and having a jolly good time. I left the shop happy, high on sugar and with 2 boxes full of cakes decorated by yours truly. So hopefully the next time I bake a cake, I wouldn't be stuck when it comes to frosting and will remember all that Bea taught us. Here are some of the cakes I perfected, and some I destroyed :)

Vanilla cake with raspberry icing

Vanilla cake with vanilla icing

Celebrating Pinktober, the National breast Cancer Awareness Month with this raspberry butter cream frosted cupcake.

Red velvet with cream cheese frosting

...and these are some I did after I lost my patience

(from left to right: blueberry frosting, cream cheese, vanilla, chocolate ganache)