Frosting on the Cake

Prior to Matthew’s birthday party last weekend I had no clue how to correctly frost a cake. I wanted Matthew’s first birthday cake to not only be a nutritious whole food delight, I also wanted it to be as beautiful as a store bought cake. So, after scouring the internet, reading demos and watching how-to videos I devised a plan.

The following is how I created this masterpiece.

First I baked two 9-inch almond flour banana cakes from this cookbook.

After letting the cakes cool in the pans for at least an hour I inverted the pans and lightly rubbed all sides of the cake to remove any remaining crumbles that could make their way into the frosting. I discarded ate the crumbs and placed the first layer, rounded side down, on my cake stand.

Isn’t this cake stand from my mother-in-law beautiful? She used it for her kids’ birthday cakes and now I get to use it on our children’s birthdays.

To frost the cake you will need a large spoon for scooping the frosting and a flat icing spatula.

Then it was time to frost. Using my spoon, I placed a thick layer (1/4 – 1/2 inch deep) of frosting on top of the first layer. I then placed the second layer on top of the first layer, rounded side up. You want to ensure that both of the sunken sides of the cake are facing one another in the middle of the cake. This will ensure that you cannot see the sunken middle when the cake is frosted.

Next up I lightly frosted the sides of the cake. The idea here is to seal in the crumbs from the side of the cake. You want the frosting on the sides of the cake to overlap onto the top of the cake by 1/4 inch, so that when you frost the top of the cake, you don’t have to worry about having a bare edge where the top meets the side of the cake. To do this, I used my spoon to apply the frosting and the spatula to spread it.

After the sides were frosted, it was time to frost the top of the cake. Using a large spoon, I dolloped big globs of frosting onto the top of the cake and spread it out in a thick layer  (1/2 – 3/4 inch thick).

Once the entire cake was covered in frosting I then went back with my spoon to ensure that it was evenly thick throughout. Adding additional frosting with my spoon as I went. I also added additional frosting to the sides of the cake, as needed. Do not worry about being tidy. We will take care of the extra frosting that lands on the cake stand at the end. Just ensure that every square inch of the cake is covered in deliciousness.

After using up all of the frosting, I then went back with my spatula and created a design on the cake. Using a wet paper towel i removed any access frosting that ended up on the cake stand and not the cake.

No birthday cake is complete without sprinkles. I bought these colored sugars on Amazon, they are all natural and colored using fruits and veggies.

Delicioso!

How should we style Matthew’s hair?

Allan and I are trying to decide how to style Matthew’s hair. It is getting long and curly and we know that at some time in the near future he will need to get a haircut to keep it out of his eyes. I would like to grow it out long and Allan wants to keep Matthew’s hair short.