Present Cakes

February rolls around once again, and marks my four year blogiversary.  Every year I like to celebrate the fact that Stasty.com is still alive and cooking 😉 with a special cake to mark the occasion. This year I made a chocolate flavored ‘Present cake’ with a colorful chocolate bow on top.  I am no chocolatier, but I was excited to try a new technique with these chocolate bows.  Ever since I bought these wonder chocolate transfer sheets online, I have been itching to try them. I watched a few videos on YouTube about chocolate bow making, and was ready to make my wonderful chocolate creations – I am very optimistic like that! In practice, the whole transfer sheet and chocolate bow process was lot more fiddly than I expected.  The upside is that I got to eat the first few disaster chocolate ribbons. There is always an upside with chocolate. In the end the final ribbons looked pretty festive, and it was fun to learn a new technique.

The cake itself is a simple chocolate sponge with a creamy butter icing. I made the cakes in some pretty paper loaf tins, so they are the perfect portable present if you ever want to give someone a present cake!

 Ingredients

Makes 2 small loaf cakes (15 ounce each) 

All in one sponge cake

• 150g of plain flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 150g of butter
• 150g of castor sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2-3 drops of vanilla essence

Frosting

• 70g of butter
• 140g of icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons of milk
• a few drops of vanilla essence

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 340 F/ 170 C.
2. Line two small loaf tins with parchment paper. You can skip this step if you are using disposable paper loaf cases.
3. Sieve the flour and the baking powder into a large bowl.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients, and beat with an electric hand whisk/ food processor until thoroughly combined.
5. Once mixed, the cake mixture should easily drop off the back of the spoon when tapped against the bowl. If not, add a tablespoon or 2 of warm water and whisk again.
6. Divide the mixture between the two loaf tins/ paper cases.
7. Cook the cakes in the oven for 30 minutes.
8. Test with a cake tester, sharp knife, by inserting it into the center of the cake. If the cake tester comes out clean the cake is cooked.
9. Place the cakes on a wire rack, and leave to cool.
10. To make the frosting, beat the butter until smooth, then add half of the icing sugar and beat well.
11. Gradually add the rest of the icing sugar, milk and vanilla essence and beat until creamy and smooth.
12. Once the cakes are full cooled spread the icing on top.
13. Garnish with candy or chocolate bows if you are feeling adventurous.