Deranged Smurf Cake and Marshmallows Anyone ?

                                                                                               by the Konstant Kraver

My little Smurf nephew is one 1!! I called him Sulky Smurf from the day he was born , which is slightly ironic because he is usually laughing it is just the rare moments he is not all smiley he has this cute sulky look on his face and he is always in blue!. So for his first birthday my sister thought a Smurf theme was perfect. When we were kids my mum and dad had this whole operation for our Birthday cakes. Mum would bake it and Dad would shape it and icing it .

So seeing as Sulky Smurf has inherited his grand dads name I recruited him for the process . The Cake Boss I am not !  The cake recipe was one I got from taste.com.au. It was delicious. I adore a good butter cake it has to my favourite type of cake .The recipe  makes a large cake which was perfect for this process. Trying to get white for the hat and pants drove me slightly insane as you know normal butter cream icing is a pale yellow. So into that I ended up mixing marshmallow fluff which was great for the colour but then it started to slide and drip...arrrrghhh. So that had to be left well alone for more than a few hours to firm up.I spent two days covered in icing and food colouring ....erm ok I may have eaten more of the icing then what I was covered in, but hey someone has to make sure it tasted great!

The result of our little smurf adventure was far from perfect and he looks like a slightly deranged smurf (hence the title of this post), but I will mark it up to as a learning experiance it was so moist and yummy though so I can live  with that.  My mums Smurf inspired marshmallows made up for it.

Preparation Time

20 minutes

Cooking Time

150 minutes

Ingredients (serves 15)

• Melted butter, to grease
• 450g (3 cups) self-raising flour
• 150g (1 cup) plain flour
• 440g (2 cups) caster sugar
• 300g butter, cubed, at room temperature
• 310ml (1 1/4 cups) milk
• 6 eggs, at room temperature
• 3 tsp vanilla essence

Method

1. Preheat oven to 140°C. Position a rack on the second lowest shelf of the oven. Brush a round 25cm (base measurement) cake pan with the melted butter to lightly grease. Line base and sides with non-stick baking paper.
2. Place the self-raising flour, plain flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs and vanilla essence in a large mixing bowl. Use an electric beater to beat on low speed for 30 seconds or until just combined. Increase the speed to high and beat for 1-2 minutes or until the mixture is thick and all the butter is incorporated. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the surface with the back of a spoon.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 2 1/2 hours or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and set aside for 10 minutes. Turn onto a wire rack for 2 hours or until completely cool.