Birthday Funfetti Cake

In 5 odd years of my blogging, I have never documented this here! First post of its kind!! 

Birthday post!! 

Whose birthday you might ask (legit question)

MIIIIINE!!!

Now that I have your attention, I admit, I lied! I have shared a birthday post here previously. Check it out! In my defence this one is a live posting!! 

Yeppers! I'm the crabby cancerian!! Just celebrated my birthday today!! Infact, as I write this, there's still 20 minutes on the clock for the day to end- Live posting, you see! So my dear friends, this way YOU ALL are a part of my special day! Its so thrilling that I get the opportunity to share my joy with all my readers out there. For all those special wishes, for your support, your kind words of encouragement and your unconditional love, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. 

Like most times on a special occasion, I tend to get emotional and as always, I start counting my blessings and get so overwhelmed. Makes people awkward sometimes. I wish I was more like Chandler, make light of any situation with dry wit and sarcasm. Or maybe not. I thought life gives you answers as you get older.... Does that theory even apply to me?! *baffled* 

*Inane rambling continues in my head while my fingers rapidly just keep flying on the keyboard as I continue to write*

Birthdays in our home means lots of food!! Boy!! I think I must have put on atleast 5 pounds today, which also means I will have to starve myself for the next week. (As if!! As a matter of fact, I'm sneaking in a smallish slice of cake in my room this very moment!) 

CAKE!!! Thats what I'm here for today!! As traditions go, I baked me my own cake like I do every year. And I wanted to do something colourful and fun. The Funfetti cake was everything I wanted!! 

The road was quite bumpy and I had to improvise. But the end result was spectacular for everyone who had the cake. Stay with me to see what transpired. 

Serves: 8 slices

Time taken: 45-50 mins

Complexity: **

You'll need

1 cup butter, softened (I use salted) 

1/2 cup white sugar

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 3/4 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3 average eggs

1 tbsp vanilla

3-4 tbsp jimmies

Pinch of love

pinch of salt if you're using unsalted butter

1 cup white chocolate chips

1 cup cream

2-3 drops of yellow food colouring

Method

Preheat your oven at 150C or 300F and grease and line your cake tins. You will need two tins preferably for this. 

I always powder sugar at home in a mixer. Just add in the sugar and powder it as fine as you can. 

In a bowl or a standing mixer add in the butter and sugar. 

Cream the butter and sugar together. 

Add in the eggs. If you're using large eggs, you might want to use just 2 of them. Also add in the vanilla. Whisk till everything is combined. 

You want to see such bubbles of air when you whisk the eggs in. Air = fluffy cake

In a separate bowl, take the flour and add your baking powder to it. 

Whisk till both are well combined. 

Add this mix to the wet ingredients and whisk till everything is just combined. At this stage the more you whisk the more bread-y your cake will be. After adding the flour, limit how much you whisk the batter. Add in a tbsp or 2 of milk if the batter seems too thick. 

Next comes the FUN part!! Look at these cute sprinkles! Heart shaped!! Totally adorable and no, I don't care if they make me look like a 11 year old girl. I LOVE them!! 

Scrap down the sides of your bowl and add in the jimmies. I added two kinds. Different colours man! Go crazy!! 

Mix them in with a spatula/ whisk but do it manually. Transfer this equally in two baking tins. See the specks of colourful 'funfetti' adorning the cake?! 

Bake for around 25-30 minutes or till a toothpick inserted comes out clean. I like to turn my cakes upside down for 5 minutes or so in the wire rack. Remove the parchment paper when you do this. 

Turn them upside down on the wire rack to cool down completely before coating it in ganache. 

So till this step everything was fine and dandy. I wanted to top this cake with whipped cream. But I don't know what went wrong. I am blaming the humidity. I kept whipping my cream for almost 45 minutes but to no avail. The cream just wouldn't reach the 'stiff peak' stage. It was a mess. I will have to recreate this cake sometime again soon just so I can add the whipped topping. Ofcourse, I will get to eat it again under that pretext!

But a hurdle, albeit a huge one, didn't deter my spirits! I made this beautiful pastel yellow chocolate ganache. And might I add, this one looks way better than I could've imagined. 

For the ganache, simply pour slightly simmering cream onto the chocolate chips and allow to rest for 10 minutes and then stir the mix to combine the melted chocolate and cream. Add in desired food colouring. Ta da!! 

Let the ganache cool a little in the fridge for about an hour. Meanwhile, cut off the tops of the cakes to level them. Those tops are the chef's commission, the Cake Committee says so. I swear!! 

Spread a third of the ganache on one cake. 

Place the other cake upside down so you have a flat surface. Pour down your ganache over it. Sprinkle some jimmies over it and voila!! 

Pretty lil birthday cake done!!! 

Happy Birthday to moi!!!! Wishing me more sanity, more courage and more food to cook with!! Here's a cake slice, bite in!! Perfectly moist, light, fluffy all at the same time. 

Indulge!