Pom Pom Cake Toppers

Hello friends! Yesterday was my birthday and I wasn't really planning to have an extravagant celebration because it was also Good Friday. But I still asked my sister to bake a cake for me so I can at least blow my birthday cake on my birthday. Hehe.

And of course, my birthday cake has to have some personal touch which is why I made these yarn pom pom cake toppers.

For the cake, we just made it with regular vanilla batter with buttercream frosting. While that one's chilling in the fridge, we made the pom poms.

You can actually make yarn pom poms with a fork. If you want to learn how to make them, click here. There are tons of tutorials that you will find on Pinterest. It's very easy!

And then, you can stick your pom poms on wooden skewers with hot glue. But in my case, our bamboo skewers were too thin so I decided to use plastic drinking straws instead.

And here's a bouquet of pom poms for you! Cut the tip of the straw diagonally so you can easily insert them on the cake. Paper straws will also work if you have the thick and sturdy ones.

Take the cake out of your fridge and decorate it with your awesome pom poms! 

Your regular white frosted cake just got colorful. I like how white the birthday cake is. It's like a blank canvas. And then the cake topper is the subject of the painting. Haha.

Let me know what you guys think of this tutorial. :) Spruce up your plain birthday cake with easy DIY pom pom cake toppers.

Orange Madeira Cake

Today I decided to bake a cake and I tried the recipe of orange madeira cake from Frankie Magazine. The recipe is posted below.

Ingredients:

Cake:

- 4 eggs

- 1 1/4 cups sugar

- juice and grated rind of one orange

- 1 1/2 cups flour

- 3 tbsp milk

- 125 g butter, melted

- 2 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line the base of a round 23 cm cake tin and grease the sides.

Beat the eggs and sugar until pale and thick (about five minutes), then add orange juice and zest, flour, milk and melted butter. Beat again for a couple of minutes. You need to get air into the mixture.

Add the baking powder and beat again for a minute.

Pour into the tin and bake for about 45-60 minutes, until a skewer plunged into the middle comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, then carefully turn out the tin and leave to cool completely on a rack. When the cake is cold, ice it with orange butter icing. Store in an airtight container in a cool place.

Frosting:

- 100 g soft butter

- 2 cups icing sugar, sifted

- 2-3 tbsp orange juice

- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

- 2 tbsp orange zest (optional)

Beat the butter until soft and creamy, then beat the sifted icing sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the orange juice and vanilla and beat again. The mixture should be a soft, spreadable consistency. Add a little more icing sugar if it's too runny. 

Dollop over the top of the cold cake and swirl it in pretty patterns with a knife. Sprinkle the top with orange zest if desired.

I used coconut sugar as substitute for confectioners/icing sugar that's why it looks darker. And to make the icing a little more zesty, I used lemon juice instead of orange juice.

If you're not a fan of icing, then you can just sprinkle confectioners sugar on top of the cake and it will still taste good.

The cake actually turned out great. My family likes it. I love it since lately I'm into citrusy flavors and scents. Hope you try them and let me know how it turns out!

Birthday Pillow Box

Making your own pillow box is a good idea if you have gifts that do not come with a box. For example, you might want to give someone cookies, jewelry, or clothes. It's very simple, you don't have to use tape to seal it because you can easily fold the flaps to close the box.

You can download plenty of pillow box templates in the internet. Here is one example - Click the link 

Found this template from about.com. Score the dotted lines, and fold the solid lines. The small flap at the top of the template is where you will connect the edges of your box.

You can print the template to make the pattern on your paper. However sometimes when you want  to make a bigger pillow box, the A4 sized printable template would not be enough. So just make your own template on a bigger paper using a ruler and a compass.

Construction paper is a good material for your pillow box. The heavier your paper is, the better. It's always a good idea to recycle materials so what I did was I used that brown paper bag that I got from the bakery. 

You can also use scrap gift wrappers, stickers, and ribbons to decorate your pillow box. Just be creative with it! And I hope the person who will receive your gift will like it. Have a nice day!