A Quarter of a Century

It's my 25th Birthday today!!
Yaaay!

After I turned 20 I didn't really want to age anymore. I felt like I didn't really need to get any older to do the things I wanted to (voting), and I felt like the older I would get the less opportunities I would have.

In the last year however I've managed to change my mind. I no longer feel like getting older is bad, and I've learned to embrace my "old soul". So today I couldn't be happier about the fact that it is my birthday. After all it does mean that I get cake. My family has gotten me a princess cake from the best pastry shop in town. A princess cake is a traditional Swedish layer cake filled with pastry cream and topped with delicious marzipan. It is easily the best cake ever!

Because it is my 25th I felt like I needed to go big, so I also made a cake. A chocolate layer cake filled and topped with caramel ganache frosting, and decorated with gorgeous sprinkles. These sprinkles are from Sweetapolita's sprinkle etsy shop (here), and I could not be happier with them. In fact, I bought a whole lot of sprinkles from Sweetapolita, basically emptying my wallet. But it was worth it! These are the prettiest sprinkles I've ever seen. And they did make the cake look amazing!

The cake itself is adapted from the incredible and super talented Manuela Kjeilen's blog Passion for Baking. Her instagram is also one of my favourites to drool over, she's at @passionforbaking. I changed a couple of things about her recipe, I decreased the amount of sugar in the cake, and decreased the amount of butter in the frosting. I also added the cocoa powder with the flour and sifted it, instead of mixing it with the coffee and sour cream. The cake is delicious and wonderfully rich and heavy. It is perfectly chocolatey! You can find Manuela's original recipe here.

Chocolate Caramel Ganache Cake

Recipe adapted from Manuela Kjeilen's blog Passion for Baking

Chocolate sponges

INGREDIENTS

• 250 ml coffee
• 140 ml sour cream
• 335 g flour
• 85 g cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 285 g butter (salted)
• 300 g sugar
• 200 g dark brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 3 teaspoons vanilla sugar

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 160°C.
Line three 20 cm round baking pans with baking parchment.
Make the coffee, let cool and mix it with the sour cream. Set aside.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl. Set aside.

Beat the butter until pale and fluffy, add the sugar and continue beating, until fluffy.
Gradually add the eggs, one by one, beating until it is all well combined. Add the vanilla.

Gradually add the flour mixture and then the coffee mixture, alternating between the two, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.

Divide the batter into the three pans and bake for 30-35 minutes.


Caramel Ganache Frosting

INGREDIENTS

• 200 g sugar
• 65 ml water
• 250 ml heavy cream (whipping cream)
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar
• 450 g dark chocolate, chopped
• 400 g butter, room temperature

DIRECTIONS

Add the sugar and water to a saucepan and place on medium heat until sugar has dissolved. Increase to high heat and bring to a boil, until sugar syrup turns golden brown, do not stir at all at this point. Take the saucepan off the heat and add the heavy cream. Be careful as it will bubble up, and it is very hot. Pour in the vanilla and set back on heat. Let it boil for another minute or two.

Pour the caramel over the chopped dark chocolate. Blend it until smooth. Then gradually add the butter, letting it melt in the hot ganache. Place in fridge for about 30 minutes to 1 hour, when all the butter is added.

Remove from fridge (the frosting will have set at this point) and beat until frosting is smooth and creamy.

Spread some of the frosting onto one of the cakes, place another on top and do the same before adding the last cake. Spread the rest of the frosting on top of and around the cake.

Add some sprinkles and you're done!

This is how happy cake make me!
I just love to bake and eat cake. I find it fun to bake and delicious to eat. I wish I could have shared cake with all of you, but instead I'm going to wish you all the best of days! I hope you guys indulge in something yummy today and celebrate my Birthday with me!

I hope you all have a beautiful day!

Much love,