Ah Boy is 1!

Today is Ah Boy's first birthday. Time really flies. He's 'talking' alot more and making lots of sounds. Crawls really fast and cruising steadily. He's able to stand unaided for a short while so I think he's not far making his first baby step. We actually celebrated his Lunar birthdate instead which was 2 weeks+ back. It was just a small celebration at my parents'. I made Chirashi Zushi and a birthday cake.

























This picture exposed flaws of my piping skills. I bought this cake pan during a spree. Ah Boy loves bears and Barney. Going by the Lunar birthdate, Ah Boy gets to celebrate his birthday first. Ah Girl said it wasn't fair that her brother celebrated his first since the actual date is in September. Hers, August. Guess she remembered the month sequence really well now. As their birthdays are only 10 days apart and to appease her, the poor bear had another 5 candles pounded into its tummy. *Ouch* She loves birthdays and she's already counting down on her next! My dear, you just celebrated it 10 days ago.



















Abit blur at first.



















Getting excited.



















Chuckling when we sang 'Happy Birthday'.



















'Hey, Jie Jie! That's my cake yo!'



















Can't wait to take a bite.

I used my sis's Sponge Cake recipe, the one she which she called her own. She's generous to allow me to share the recipe in my blog. Thanks S! The recipe shared here should be enough to fill an 9 inch pan. I used the whole recipe as I do not know how much batter the bear cake pan would need. In the end, I had enough for the bear pan and a short 6 inch cake. Also, her original recipe was a Lemon Sponge, but I used vanilla instead. This recipe is using egg separation method.



















This is the texture of the sponge. Wonderfully soft. Ah Boy likes this alot. I will be baking this more often but perhaps I will reduce the recipe and bake them into cupcakes.

S’s Sponge Cake
Ingredients(A)
5 Egg Whites
100g Fine Sugar
½ Tsp cream of tartar

(B)
5 Egg Yolks
80g Fine Sugar
1-1/2 Tsp Vanilla Essence
125 ml Milk
4 Tbsp Melted butter

170g cake flour
½ Tsp bicarbonate of soda

*Sift together

Method
1) In A clean bowl, whisk egg white and sugar. Add cream of tartar and whisk till peak.

2) In another bowl, whisk egg yolks, sugar till pale and fluffy.

3) Add vanilla essence, milk and melted butter to egg yolk mixture then fold in sifted flour mixture.

4) Fold in egg yolk mixture into egg white mixture.

5) Bake at 180°C for around 50 minutes to an hour.

*Note : The bear pan is my first silicone bakeware. It may be the size of it or silicone bakeware bakes fast. It took 25 minutes.

**Note : I used dairy whipped cream (150ml + 1 Tbsp Icing Sugar) and chocolate ganache (65g chocolate + 65g dairy whip cream) for the piping.