An Airplane Cake for First Birthday Boy, Liam

When my friend Jessica asked me to make her son's first birthday cake, I felt so honored. Every child's birthday is special and a first birthday is especially so! Jessica is such a creative person- the party could not have been more gorgeous. The invitations were plane tickets! The color scheme was blue and orange- absolutely perfect. Ahead of time, I made a gum-paste plane and white chocolate banner (actually I made several of each- to allow for breakage) as well as some teeny tiny gum-paste blue birds. The only non-edible part of the entire cake was the small piece of tooth-pick I used to spin the propeller on the plane. I felt it just had to be able to spin!

 I used a round tip 10 for the clouds and top border and a round tip 12 for the bottom border, piping with my recipe for Basic Buttercream.

Just before placing it,  I made a small 'rope' from gum-paste to connect the banner to the airplane.

 

Since the birthday boy loves birds, tiny blue birds adorned the clouds. They were challenging to shape due to their small size. I started with a pea-sized piece of gum-paste, rolling it into a cylinder, then pulling the wings from the sides and tail and beak from the front and back. I used a toothpick to add the eyes and a bit of feather texture on the wings and belly.

 

The birthday boy needed his own cupcake to taste, so I made him one using Wilton's 2D tip and a round tip #3 to make the white dots. Topped it off with a Number 1 candle from HEMA, one of my favorite stores in the Netherlands.

 

In order to create the curved banner in white chocolate I needed to have it dry on something curved in the same shape. I used a cardboard tube from a paper towel roll, cut in half and re-taped together to form the "S" shape. After piping the white chocolate banner on waxed paper I carefully lifted it onto the "S" and let it dry there overnight. The following day I piped the dark chocolate lettering, "Liam is 1!"

From the moment Jessica explained her request and theme I knew I was going to have a blast making this cake. It was a pleasure to create and I feel so lucky to have been a part of a very special boy's first birthday.

4th of July American Flag Brownies

 My country's birthday is coming up shortly, and I was fortunate to celebrate over the weekend with other expats here in the Netherlands. Instead of a recipe, this is more of a method to achieve a gorgeous American Flag that you can serve at a 4th of July Barbecue. These brownies start from my modification of a brownie product found here, but you can begin with anything baked (brownies, cake, bar cookies, etc.) in a 9"x13" pan. First, place the already baked brownies in the freezer while preparing the fruit and the whipped cream. Pick through about 500 grams of strawberries (1 or 2 quarts), until you have berries about the same size, that are the prettiest of the bunch, stems removed. Pick through a small carton of blueberries until you have about 50. Rinse and pat the fruit dry and set it aside.

Place 250 ml of heavy cream (at least 30% fat content, so to my friends here in the Netherlands, that is slagroom, not lite, not kookcreme). Whip the cream on high with a wire-whisk until soft peaks form. Add about 2 Tablespoons of powdered sugar and continue to whip until stiff peaks form(the sugar gives the whipped cream some stability).

 Remove the brownies from the freezer and spread the whipped cream evenly over the entire pan. Place blueberries in upper left corner, side by side, approximately 6 rows and 8 columns(if your pan curves at the corners, it wont be perfect, but it doesn't matter.) Next, at the top, place a row of strawberries. Make sure you can put another row of strawberries level with the bottom of the blueberries, and also at the bottom of the pan. Fill-in the remaining rows (I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't get two rows in between where the blueberries end and the bottom. I think it would have looked nicer, but my berries were too big for that.) to create an American flag.

 

Bring your work of art to a BBQ and watch it disappear. Don't wait too long to serve it because the whipped cream will melt in the summer sunshine.

God Bless America!

 Happy 4th of July to everyone in the USA and to Americans all over the world.