Birthday Cakes Galore!

Another month another birthday. This month is my sister Rice Bowl's birthday. It is actually just a day after Cowie's brother Meta Knight's birthday.  So this year not only am I going to attempt to make everyone's birthday cakes, I'm going to do 2 in the same week!  Ambitious, I know.

I asked Rice Bowl what she wanted and she said something with chocolate but changed her mind when she remembered that our parents don't like anything too sweet.  I told her not to worry, I can figure it out.  So I decided on a chocolate sponge cake with whipped cream and a fruit filling.  Perfectly simple and more importantly perfectly safe.  I asked Meta Knight what kind of cake he wanted and he said anything was fine.  When I pressed further he said how about a jello mousse cake followed quickly by just joking!  But alas, like Cowie's other brother Wickwicki mentioned later, the challenge had been issued and the ambitious Piggley that I am, must accept.

And so the planning and research started.  I found a really good chocolate sponge cake recipe online and gathered up the ingredients.  Rice Bowl likes cartoon cats so I wanted to decorate the cake with one.  I wasn't sure how to do it yet and decided to worry about it when the time comes.  Meta Knight's cake took more thinking.  I wanted to do a coconut mousse on top of pineapple jello on top of a sponge cake.  The first problem I ran into was that you can't make pineapple jello because the enzymes in pineapples disrupts the formation of bonds needed for the gelatin to solidify.  Darn it, my great idea was foiled by chemistry.

The problem was solved as I was rummaging through my mom's kitchen and found a pack of piña colada jello! What luck!  I just love it when the Chinese think outside the box and makes simulated flavours like this.  And so the coconut mousse piña colada jello sponge cake was born.

I started with Rice Bowl's cake and that went quite smoothly.  So smooth, in fact that it fooled me into thinking that the next one would be literally a piece of cake.  Boy was I wrong!


For Rice Bowl's cake I started with the chocolate sponge.  It came out really light and fluffy.  After cooling, I trimmed the two layers and started assembling the cake. 





I made a whipped cream frosting and drained a can of fruit cocktail. 

On the first layer I placed a generous helping of whipped cream, the can of fruit, more whipped cream and topped it off with the second layer of the chocolate cake. 

I frosted the outside and used the rest of the whipped cream for decorating the cake. 

I wanted to do a black cat but I only had red food colouring so I turned it into a pink cat. 

I needed to make eyes but had forgotten to save some white whipped cream before I coloured it.  I scoured my kitchen for something to use and had an idea when I spotted the cake trimmings from Meta Knight's cake! His cake was white so it was perfect for making the eyes.  I looked around now for something to make it round and my eyes landed on the cap of a bottle of just the right size.  Yes, perfection.  A strategically placed chocolate chip on each eye completed the look I was going for.  For the whiskers I used a tube of red gel.  And to my surprise the result was more than I had hoped for.  Or perhaps I had low expectations to begin with!

Now we turn our attention back to the ambitious jello and mousse cake.  I started with the sponge cake and right away I had problems with it.  The egg whites took forever to stiffen; to the point that I thought I had done something wrong.  As I combined everything and shoved it into the oven, I thought it would come out rock hard!  Luckily it was fine.  In fact, it actually came out lighter than I've ever seen it before.  Which I can tell you is both a blessing and a curse.

As I left the sponge to cool, I worked on the coconut mousse.  As I followed the recipe step by step, as I poured hot water into a pound of dried coconut, blended it and then used my bare hands to squeeze out the liquid because I didn't have any cheese cloth, as I collected the liquid into a bowl, I realized, I could have used the pre-made can of coconut milk sitting on my counter top instead of making my own! Go figure.

Once I had the coconut mousse prepared, I assembled the jello on top of the sponge cake and placed it in a spring-form pan. 

The idea is to pour the mouse over top and out to the sides.  As I poured the mousse in, I had a terrible feeling that something wasn't right.  To my surprise, the sponge cake along with the jello on top came floating up! Apparently my super light sponge was too light.  I tried to force it back down by putting a heavy bowl on top but it worked for about a second when it slipped on the jello and the cake came back up, now sticking up on one side like an iceberg!  I gave up on trying to fight physics and decided to let it set with all the layers now mixed up.  I shoved it in the fridge and hoped everything will work out in the end.

The next day, I decided to just flip the cake over and I would still get the effect of the mousse on top.  I flipped it over onto a plate and as it began to settle down the unsupported sides began to fall. The top layer of the mousse was thin and the whole thing looked like a gooey mess.  Meta Knight's birthday was that day and I had to do something quick.  I scraped off the melting mousse from the sides and tried to rearrange the cake.  I cut the sponge into two and attempted to sandwich the jello and the thin layer of mousse in between it.  It actually looked alright but then the jello and the mousse started to slide! Cowie called and said I had to get going but my cake was a disaster.  I can't give this to Meta Knight.  It didn't even look like a cake, let alone the master piece that I thought I could make.  Why oh why did he challenge me!

I packed up the droopy cake and headed over to Cowie's house along with all the essentials that I needed to fix the cake with.  That's right, I haven't given up yet!  While they were all preoccupied with watching the hockey game I worked quickly to salvage the cake.  I whipped up some whipping cream, opened a can of fruit cocktail and almost screamed with frustration. It was a can of chunky fruit!!!  Okay, I can work with this, in fact, it might work better for structural stability.  I scraped off all of the mousse and left the jello.  I placed the whipped cream then the fruit and more whipped cream in the center and replaced the top of the cake.  By then the sponge was already breaking apart and drooping.  I strategically placed chunks of fruit in and around the cake to level it off.  I then covered it with whipped cream and using blue food colouring on the remainder of the cream, I decorated around the cake.  Finally, I used my red tube of gel and wrote happy birthday on it.  When everyone came out for cake, having seen the mess before, they were quite impressed!  I wonder if they would be as impressed if they didn't see the goopey mess before hand!

Lessons learned:
1. Do not accept jokes as challenges.
2. You can't beat chemistry: pineapple and gelatin do not play well together.
3. You definitely can't beat physics: denser items sink while lighter things float.