Every kid should have birthday cake...

When I was a little girl - it was the highlight of my year when my birthday came around - and not so much because of the presents - but because every year, we were allowed to go through Mum's massive library of cook books and choose ANY cake we wanted - and she would make it for us.

So after growing up with this tradition and experiencing the Barbie Doll ice cream cake, Frog Pond Cake with Green Jello, Excavator cake (yes, Mum did actually build an excavator out of cake, complete with Mint Slice wheels and a moving bucket thanks to skewers) as well as the famous Death by Chocolate cake when I old enough to truly appreciate a 6 tier masterpiece, I have always felt that this was a tradition I would continue when I had kids.

With M's birthday fast approaching - I asked her Mum what kind of cake she was baking to celebrate and was horrified when she told me that she doesn't ever make them a cake - she goes to the Bakery, gets a "My Little Pony" embossed cupcake and sticks a candle in it - adamant that they don't know the difference. *Cue my heart breaking*

So being completely childish - I pulled the Aunty card and went home to bake up a storm. I decided on White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Frosting that I have made a few times - but remembered my Mum bragging that she had recently made Marshallow frosting and it had been a huge hit. So with my Mum's recipe in hand, I set about creating a sugar fest for little M's birthday.

White Chocolate Cupakes:

125g Butter, softened
110g (½ cup) Caster sugar
3 Eggs
100g White chocolate, melted
110g (¾ cup) Plain flour
1 tsp Baking powder

1 tsp Vanilla

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each, then add white chocolate and vanilla, and stir to combine.

Fold in the flour and baking powder. Line a muffin tin with 8 paper cases, then divide mixture among cases and bake at 180C for 20 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Marshallow Frosting:

3 tbsp Gelatine
1 cup Cold water
4 cups Sugar
1 ½ cups Hot water
1 tsp Vanilla essence

Food Colouring

Soak the Gelatine in cold water. Bring sugar and hot water to boiling point.
Add soaked gelatine, boil gently for 20 minutes.
Pour into large mixing bowl. Cool and add vanilla.
Beat until thick. Add drops of food colouring until you get the colour you want. (I used pink)

*NOTE: Now while my cupcakes were supercute - and M loved them! - the Marshmallow Frosting didn't really work for me... I beat the living daylights out of that mixture for almost an hour and is just didn't get any thicker - I was imaging a soft, fluffy mixture similar to pavlova eggwhites - however, I just got sticky goop. It tasted FANTASTIC - but didn't look anything like I expected.

I called my Mum to complain only to have her tell me that maybe she gave me the wrong recipe - totally not the first time she has done this. She gave me her famous Brownie recipe once only for EVERYONE to tell me that they didn't taste anywhere near the same... I'm still convinced that she doctored the recipe before she gave it to me and she suspiciously changes the subject everytime I bring it up...

While we don't have kids yet we do have 3 gorgeous nieces that we adore, even if they do remind us that we are not ready to be parents. (I'm sooo not ready to give up my lazy weekends and sleep-ins...)