Elmo Birthday Cake

My baby girl had a birthday recently and knowing that I've got lots more birthday cake making opportunities to come, I decided to do it right and find a buttercake recipe that tasted great with a wonderful soft texture yet was firm enough to hold together when I cut it to bits molding it to make car cakes or princess castles.

I found a bunch of basic buttercake recipes online and after looking through them all settled on 2 recipes which were very different and started baking.

Recipe #1
2 eggs
125g butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 cups self-raising flour
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla essence

Recipe #2
1/2 cup custard powder
2 cups self-raising flour
2 cups caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup milk
250g butter, softened
4 eggs

Since I was just testing at this stage I halved all recipe ingredients and baked them in loaf tins so they would both fit in the oven at the same time on the same shelf. Experiment #1 produced 2 cakes, both very dark on the outside. Recipe #1 gave a pale yellow inside which was firm - great for cutting, slicing and dicing, in fact perfect for molding pieces into a specified shape however....tasted very bland and dry. Recipe #2 gave a beautifully moist delicious cake which was so tender and light the slice broke in half as I was cutting it - not at all ideal for shaping a cake but boy did it taste good! This cake also took 10 mins longer to bake which produced a thicker crust so not only did the recipe need tweeking but also the baking conditions. Onto experiment #2.

First adjusting the recipe. Flour and sugar were fine, custard powder made #2 taste great to it would stay, and something in the middle for the butter. Also I switched to vanilla extract for a richer flavour and reduced the oven temp to try and bake the cake without over cooking the crust so much.

Experiment #2 produced just what I was after, a moist light yummy scrummy cake that was firm enough to cut and mold in to shape. The outside was still dark and the middle of the top of the cake had a big crack in it but I knew I could fix this by adjusting the baking conditions slightly again.

I'd been baking every few days over the week leading up to the birthday party so knew that I could refridgerate the cake but I'd have to let it come to room temp before serving it otherwise it'd have a stale texture. I could also just leave it covered at room temp if baked the day before the party but then I couldn't put cream in it before icing it as the cream would go off. In the end I baked it first thing on the morning of the party and left it to cool completely while organising breakfasts, showers/baths, and food and decorations for the party. I whipped the cream for the inside of the cake and put it in the fridge to chill completely and made a strawberry sauce by chopping a punnet of strawberries and heating it on the stove with a few tablespoons of caster sugar until the strawberries melted down into a delicious thick fruity sauce. I let this cool on the stove. Then about 30 mins before the party I made the butter cream icing and put the cake together. I was still icing the cake as guests started to arrive but it was only family so noone minded. So here's my version of buttercake:

M-A's Buttercake Recipe

Ingredients:
1 egg
3/4 cup caster sugar
100g butter, softened (I took it out of the fridge the night before)
1 cup self-raising flour
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup custard powder
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven (fan forced) to 170C. Grease and flour the sides and base of a cake tin then line it with baking paper.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Sift all dry ingredients straight into to the mixing bowl and add remaining ingredients. Beat on low to combine then on high for 6-7 mins (cake batter will lighten in colour and increase in volume) and then pour into the prepared baking tin (I acutally used a springform pan since I wanted really straight sides and it made it so much easier to get the cake out of the tin).
4. Put the cake into the oven and drop the temp to 160C. Bake for 40-45 mins or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. For a regular oven use temps 10C higher but you might need to adjust the baking time.
5. Allow it to cool completely before cutting or decorating. This cake came out perfectly cooked and with a much lighter golden crust - much more appealing if you wanted to serve the cake undecorated.

Butter Cream Icing

Beat 125g softened butter in a bowl until lighter in colour then add 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and 2 cups of sifted icing sugar in half a cup portions, combining each half cup before adding the next. Beat on high for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Colour as needed with food dye.

To decorate the cake:

I had made a few cupcake sized cakes as well as the big cake to use as eyes and a nose for the Elmo cake. I just cut away at them to make round eyes and a tear drop shaped nose. For the big cake, I sliced the top third of the cake off and carefully put it to the side. Then using a teaspoon and starting 1cm inside the walls of the cake, I scooped out the centre to a depth of about 1.5cm and spread the strawberry sauce over the base of the hole then filled in the hole with chilled whipped cream. I put the top third carefully back on and spread the top and sides with the butter cream icing which I'd made earlier and coloured bright red. I iced the eyes with uncoloured icing and then dusted them with icing sugar to make them really white and added a choc chip for the pupil. I also iced the nose with orange coloured butter cream icing. Using some baking paper with a semi-circle cut out of it as a template I sprinkled chocolate sprinkles in place of Elmo's mouth and then put the prepared eyes and nose in place. To finish it off I used my finger to 'fluff' up the icing to create his fur and vuala!!

Little Lady just LOVED it and on seeing it for the first time when singing Happy Birthday to her, she interrupted the singing to tell everyone "Mo! Mo!". I would have taken more pics of the inside of the cake but both kids and adults alike ate it so quickly I didn't get a chance. And it was delicious! I got loads of complements and apparently I'm now booked for my future nieces and nephews b'day parties...when my sister-in-laws get around to getting married and having kids that is. In the meantime I've got another 6 months or so before I need to start practicing Iggle Piggle for Little Sir's birthday.

Stagnant...

I haven't had much of a chance to do any sort of craft work lately. Having 2 little ones is pretty full on, they rarely nap at the same time and when they do I take the opportunity to have lunch or take a shower rather than break out the sewing machine or paint brushes. Current projects that I'm in the middle of are:

• Nicola's baby quilt
• Emma's baby quilt
• painting Little Lady's table and chairs, and toybox
• make a cushion booster so Little Lady can sit at the dining table

Future projects include making washable, waterproof craft smocks or aprons for the Little Ones, making an Elmo b'day cake for Little Lady and another baby quilt for a good friend due in April.

So much to do still so this is a kick up my butt to find the time and DO something!!

Tutorial - Sewing a 3-Point Corner

I'm currently making another baby quilt for a friend and I didn't realise that I'd designed a crazy block that required a 3-point corner to join 3 of the pieces together until I started cutting material. Up until now I've been careful to make sure that all pieces can be sewn together by simply adding each individual piece to the growing block with straight sewing lines - much easier to sew. The 3-point corner isn't very difficult to sew but it can be a bit fiddly. Here's how I did it:

Here are the 3 pieces that need to share a corner.

I sew 2 pieces together first and press the seam - in this case towards the blue piece as the flower piece actually forms a corner of my crazy block.

Then I sew the third (pink) piece to the flower piece, starting at the outside edge sewing towards the blue piece, taking care to stop exactly when I reach the seam joining the first 2 pieces. I sew back for a few stitches then forward again to reinforce the seam. Note: this is NOT how most would sew this. Usually it's recommended to sew from the existing seam at the middle of the 3 point corner outwards in case the sides aren't exactly the same length but whenever I try to do this I wind up fighting with my machine and saying many bad words in the process. So this works for me.

When I open up the seams you can see the junction of the 3 pieces and the remaining seam still to be sewn.

This is the fiddly bit as you may need to tug the material a little to get the 2 sides of the last seam to line up and you will also need to fold the first piece out to make sure you don't catch it in the seam about to be sewn.

Here is the last seam lined up ready to be sewn.

Again I sew from the outside towards the central corner and reinforce the end of the stitching so the corner won't gape or come loose. I don't bother reinforcing the start of the seams as with the addition of more pieces to the growing block all these ends will be incorporated into new seams preventing them from unravelling. However, if you're starting the seam from the centre of the block then obviously reinforce your stitching before sewing towards the outside and no need to reinforce the end of the seam.

Press the seams to one side - in this crazy block the flower piece is a corner, the pink piece forms part of a side and the blue piece is a centre piece so all seams are folded towards it.

The finished product - a 3-point corner.

The Playmat Part 5 - Finished!!

Well it's been a very busy end to 2009 with little time for craft. I have a very good reason for downing tools - I had a baby! Now that things are settling into a bit of a routine I hope to start up again. Got some great ideas already and a few gifts to make this month. But to continue the playmat story....

All the hand sewing was done and it was time to finish off the mat with a border and a backing. Since the background to the mat was a neutral pale lemon I wanted to add some colour and after fumbling around organising and reorganising bordered cells in an excel file I came up with a triangle motif border in bright vibrant colours.

I sewed all the pieces together in colour order first for each side....

...then attached each bordered side to the mat...

...leaving the corner seams to last.

Using the same 6 colours I made a long strip of paralellograms attached to each other for the hoop covers and lined it with some thin wadding. I folded each strip in half lengthwise with right sides facing and inserted a skinny tie (made of the lemon material folded in on itself and hand sewed together - it was way to skinny to be able to use a sewing machine) at intervals along the strip. I then machine-sewed each strip to form a long skinny cylinder. Then came the fiddly part of trying to turn the cylinders inside out which turned out to be easy compared to pulling it over the half hoops as I had made the cover very snug. I hand sewed each end closed, incorporating a thicker, longer tie at each end - thankfully I was able to make these with the sewing machine so not as tedious to do.

The skinny ties are to hang toys from and the longer ties at each end of the hoop half is to attach it to the mat.

Each corner of the mat also got a longer tie which I sewed on in a box-cross pattern to secure it.

Next I cut a piece of thick wadding and some backing material made of polar fleece - both designed to provide warmth and comfort when the mat is on the floor. Each layer of the mat was sprayed with adhesive and carefully layered together - normally I would only spray one side of the material to form a temporary hold but since I wasn't going to quilt the mat, I needed a firmer more permanent hold to keep the layers together.

I used the same lemon material to create the binding and sewed it in place before trimming the mat edges, folding the binding over and hand sewing to finish it off.

Last things to add were some novelty buttons to cover the reinforced sewing on the ends of the longer ties on each corner of the mat and since I sewed through all layers of the mat, this also helps provide extra strength as the mat is stretched fairly taut when the hoops are tied on. Pictured here is the flower button - the other corners were a sun, a pig and a zebra button.

And after 3 months of scheming and sewing it's finally complete!!

Little Sir has already had a play and loves laying under all the hoops, taking random swipes at the toys tied on. I'm so pleased with how this has turned out, I just wish I had had the idea to do this with Little Lady when she was a baby. Ah well, there's still plenty of things I can make for her. Hmmm...speaking of which...

The Playmat Part 4

Next up were the butterflies. I sewed the big butterfly's wings together first with batting and cellophane inside - actually it's not regular wrapping cellophane as this didn't have a satisfying crackle when played with. I used a Glad oven roasting bag which is slightly thicker, will stand up to being washed and has a lovely snap when ruffled. The wings are three dimensional so they were sewn together then attached to the butterfly body on the playmat which had 4 layers of batting under it to make it really stand out.

The little butterflies were next sewn in place similar to how the flower leaves were. They have a single layer of batting under the wings but not the body...

...which I defined using a matching embroidery floss that contrasted nicely when sewn around the wings.

A little bit of back stitchng to sew the centre of the big butterfly's wings down and the edges are free for bubs to tug on...

...and this corner is complete too.

Next up was to sew all the worm's body segments in place and this went fairly fast. When I came to the blue fur I used a tiny blanket stitch as this is the only piece that doesn't have a folded edge so I couldn't use the ladder stitch and the fur covers the stitching anyway so it can't be seen.

My worm looked a bit naked once finished...

...so he wound up with antennas and feet and morphed into a caterpillar.

Last corner was the tree. The truck and branches were ironed in place with HEATnBOND...

...and then due to the nature of the material used which had such a loose weave that frayed very easily, I used a crossed back stitch with the wrong side of the stitch facing to secure the edges. This brown material has a lovely coarse feeling to it - great for a tree trunk.

And lastly, I secured the base of the felt leaves with a double cross stitch in a matching thread which leaves them free for ruffling tiny fingers through.

So all the hand sewing is finished....

...and now it's back to the sewing machine to add a border, backing piece and cover the half-hoops.

The Playmat Part 3

So to recap - I've got all the bits and pieces ready and have started sewing them in place.

The flower stems were ironed on with the HEATnBOND and then I hand sewed all the petals on using a ladder stitch (loveloveLOVE this stitch).

For embelishment, and coz I wanted a bit of texture, I then took some emdroidery floss and using a back stitch variation I added in the veins on the leaves and also a border around the stems and each leaf with a stem stitch.

For more detail on the leaf stitching see the pics below

Next the petals went on...

...stem stitch around each petal to give it definition and then the flower centres were sewn on - lots of pins, I like to know exactly where pieces will wind up...

...and stem stitch around the centres too.

Taa daa!!

I am so stoked with how this came out - love the vibrant colors and the soft puffiness of the petals. Bubs is going to love it too!

Lincoln's Quilt

Friends of ours had a beautiful little boy a few months back and after finding out first hand how useful all the playmats and throw rugs that I'd been given are, I decided to make a cot sized baby quilt that can double as a floor mat for little Lincoln to lay, play on and sleep under.

For inspiration I googled quilt blocks and saw examples of crazy blocks which I thought looked great. Knowing it was for a boy, I chose colours in blues and yellows with a very pale yellow for the internal borders to set off the vibrant coloured blocks. The large external border and backing were made from a gorgeous star and moon themed material which I thought tied in perfectly for a cot quilt.

I made cardboard templates for the crazy block pieces and since I only had limited material for some of the yellows I wanted to use, I traced each piece onto the materials making sure I had equal numbers of each shape in each material, and then cut them all out by hand rather than use a rotary cutter. It took a practice go for the first block before I worked out which order to sew them in and which side to iron the seams to. The first block had to be unpicked and resewn but once it was all sorted out I was able to sew the blocks in production-line style.

Since there were so many pieces that make up the blocks, the edges weren't exactly even so I ironed the blocks, stretching some slightly where needed, to all be at least the same minimum width and height and then trimmed the edges so they were all exactly the same size - it made piecing them together with the pale yellow borders so much easier. I laid all the blocks out and spent some time reorganising them like a jigsaw puzzle so that each block was oriented differently to the ones next to them and/or had different coloured same shaped pieces within the block.

I used the same material for the wide outer border and the backing piece and the quilt was sandwiched with cotton batting inside. Then came all the pinning. I know I could use a basting spray but I like to flip the quilt a number of times when pinning to make sure that I'm not incorporating any bumps and lumps and I lift and resmooth the front and back as needed. And before you say it, yes the basting spray isn't permanent so the material can be lifted and repositioned but I don't trust it to not pull at the batting. I also prefer to machine quilt by sewing in the ditch of the blocks rather than quilting the traditional way by randomly sewing swirls all over the quilt - I don't really like messy look of traditional quilting and tumble drying then puckers it further, detracting from what I really want to show off which is the blocks. As a mum being able to throw things into the washing machine and then tumble dry is almost an essential quality in anything baby related. I also used a hidden knot to keep things nice and tidy front and back. When I get some time to take the photos I'll post a tutorial on how to do the hidden knots.

The reverse side of sewing in the ditch - you can't tell where I started and ended sewing with the hidden knots.

And I completed the quilt by machining the binding onto the front and finishing it off on the back by hand with hidden stitches. Over all it measures about 90cm x 115cm and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I had great fun making this quilt so will definately be making more with crazy blocks in the future.