Gloverly Cupcakes

Owl Woodland Cake

Last year was a busy year and I didn’t get round to uploading photos of most of the cakes I baked. October and November were especially busy – with Emily’s 1st Birthday too. We had a small family party on the weekend of her Birthday and I made a baby friendly cake to eat – chocolate and beetroot. I wanted to do something woodland or owl themed and something where all the decorations could be made in advance, so this design was perfect. I had seen an idea on Pinterest and added some extras and changed a few things to make it fit the theme of the party. Click

I baked 2 tall 6″ cakes that were sliced in half to create 4 layers which I sandwiched together with orange cream cheese butter cream, which worked really well with the chocolate beetroot flavour of the cake.

I shaped the cake by cutting around the top to make it a little bit narrower and then used some bits of left over sugar paste to create the shapes of the tree trunk at the bottom. For the bark and the rings of a sliced tree trunk I used the same method that I used a couple of years ago for Anne and Chris’s wedding cake, details can be found here.

The cake recipe was from a book I bought on baby led weaning and it sounded very yummy despite not having much sugar – I think the butter cream I used made up for that! Emily seemed to really enjoy the cake though.

Chocolate Beetroot Cake
200g Gluten free self raising flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
100g Xylitol (branded Total Sweet in the supermarket)
1/2 tsp salt
2 medium eggs
180ml olive oil
170g good quality dark chocolate
225g grated raw beetroot
Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Line a 20cm tin with baking paper and grease the sides.
Stir the flour, baking powder, salt and xylitol together in a bowl.
In a separate bowl, mix the eggs and oil.
Melt the dark chocolate in a bowl over simmering water. Do not let the bowl come in contact with the water.
Stir the egg and oil mixture into the flour mixture, then add the melted chocolate and finally the grated beetroot.
Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 30 mins until well risen and firm to touch. Allow to cool in the tin before removing and icing.

Orange Cream Cheese Buttercream (from Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days)
600g icing sugar
100g butter
1 tbsp finely grated orange zest
250g full-fat cream cheese
Beat the icing sugar, orange zest and butter together on a very slow speed until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. I always put a tea towel over the top of my KitchenAid to prevent icing sugar going everywhere! Then add the cream cheese and beat on a medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Be careful – if you beat cream cheese icing too much it can become runnier rather than thicker, so don’t over-beat it!