The Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Cake

When  my precious granddaughter turned one, her mum wanted to have a hungry caterpillar themed birthday party as I was thrilled to be tasked with making the birthday cake.

This is in theory not Sri Lankan cooking so does not belong in this book but let me justify it by saying that the birthday cake used my favourite Sri Lankan ribbon cake recipe.

I browsed Pinterest for ideas to make the cake and found many sites that provided instructions on making the decorations for the cake. I found one which is Bronnie Bakes which is written by the lovely Bronnie who has explained how to create all the caterpillar food and the caterpillar using very easy steps. I found her blog after I started making my caterpillar food but I wish I saw it before so that it would have been a lot easier to make them. I did use some of her hints to assemble the cake.

 I used up ideas from several cakes I had seen to create a two tier cake. I used 9" and 12" cake pans to bake the cake but it was huge and we had plenty left.

I made a three layer cake using pink, green and yellow layers and used 12 eggs for all 6 layers. I used vanilla butter cream to sandwich the three layers of each cake and crumb coated both cakes with more vanilla butter cream. I made butter cream using 1.5 kg icing sugar. Recipe below,

After crumb coating, I wanted to use white chocolate ganache to cover the cakes before I covered with fondant icing but since the cake was already quite large decided against it and just covered with a layer of fondant. I used 4 wooden dowels to support the top layer.

We used a tiny round cutter to cut out all the dots using several colours (red, orange, sky blue, dark blue, pink, yellow, two shades of green and brown) of bought fondant  a week before and dried them before storing them in an airtight container. They were stuck to the bottom of the cake using royal icing (used 1 eggwhite, 1 tbsp water, half a tbsp lemon juice and icing sugar whisked till stiff).

The caterpillar food decorations were all pre-made using fondant icing and gel colours. We made the following:

1  green leaf - cut out using green icing

several strawberries - using a small strawberry shaped cutter and red and green icing with the tips using a toothpick and black gel colour

1apple - a small circle cut out of red icing with a brown stem and green leaf

1 pear - a green circle shaped into a pear with a brown stem and green leaf

1 orange - an orange circle of organe icing pricked all over with a toothpick with a brown stem and green leaf

1 plum - a circle of purple icing with a brown stem and leaf

1 icecream cone - a triangle of brown icing and a half circle of pink icing. Made markings on the cone with a toothpick

1 piece of cherry pie - using brown and light brown icing and tiny pink and red dots

1 lollipop - thin sausages of blue and yellow icing rolled and stuck into a toothpick covered with brown icing

1pickle - green icing pricked with a toothpick

1 slice of salami - two shades of brown with tiny dots of white and pink stuck to the centre and smoothened and polished with a little cornflour

1 piece of chocolate cake - two shades of chocolate brown icing and a cheery with red icing

1 slice of watermelon - a triangle of red fondant and green with the seeds painted using black colour and the tip of a toothpick

1 slice of swiss cheese - yellow fondant cut out with a toothpick and a straw

1 cup cake - brown and blue icing

I cut out the caterpillar holes using a straw in each item. Bronnie's blog gives a really good tutorial to make these foods which I wish I saw earlier.

I made the caterpillar using red fondant for the head, two shades of green marbled fondant and a third portion of green/blue marbled fondant for the body. I also used green and yellow fondant for the eyes and purple fondant covered ends of two toothpicks for the caterpillar ears. I used a thin floral wire to strengthen the caterpillar's body and a few toothpicks stuck into the head and body while they were still wet to later stick the caterpillar to the cake I dried the caterpillar for a couple of days and stored in an airtight container.

I cut out baby's name in different colours using a template I made as I didnt have cutters for the top cake and we used a bought dotted candle which was perfect.

Photos by my talented photographer son in law Mark Thode.

Sri Lankan Love Cake

I usually bake the Sri Lankan version of Christmas cake for Christmas. However, last year, I didn't get to make one and decided to bake my popular love cake instead. I wanted to write about it after a friend emailed me asking me for my recipe.

Love cake 

If you are not Sri Lankan, you may wonder about why love cake is special. Sometime ago, I came across a love cake in the local health food shop and out of curiosity bought one. The $6 piece of "love cake" baked in a tiny oval shaped mould looked pretty attractive but it was not anything like what we Lankans call love cake. Our version is a delicate and very sweet and rich concoction made out of roasted semolina, butter, finely chopped cashew nuts and flavoured with spices, lemon rind, honey and rose water.

There are several versions of Love Cake given in recipe  books. The Sri Lankan version of the Joy of Cooking, the Daily News Cookbook has two version and my mother used to make one of them. I have adapted this recipe but add my own flavours by adding a handful of finely chopped winter melon preserve (or puhul dosi) and use nutmeg and cinnamon as well as finely grated lemon rind. I have used the love cake recipes by Chamaine Solomons and Peter Kuruwita which are both delicious. I like the way Kuruwita bakes his in tiny friand moulds and was going to make mine in them but since I couldn't find my friand tin which is hidden away somewhere so I made two small cakes and will cut them into tiny squares.

Peter Kuruwita's love cake baked in friand moulds

Love cake is a typical example of the fusion of the diversity that is Sri Lanka. It is a Eurasian recipe made mostly by the Burgher community who are descendents of the Dutch and Portuguese. The use of semolina instead of flour could be from the Middle East while the use of honey and rose water definitely has links to the Arab world. The spices used, cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg have roots in the island which was famous for spices even centuries ago. Possibly the original recipe used almonds but the local version uses cashews but many recipes use almond essence as well as rose essence possibly as a substitution for using ground almonds.

A Dutch cake which we call Dutch fingers has a very similar texture to our Love Cake and is sold in New Zealand and Australia but does not contain any spices and uses ground almonds.

Here is my modified recipe for making my version of Love Cake.

250 gms cashews chopped fine
250 gms roasted semolina
125 gms butter, softened
400 gms soft sugar
10 egg yolks and 6 egg whites
a pinch of salt
grated rind of 1 medium lemon or lime
50 ml honey
50 ml food quality rose water or half a tsp of rose essence
half tsp each of cardamom, nutmeg and cinnamon, ground finely
100 gms of preserved melon - can be obtained from Sri Lankan groceries) - this is optional but adds a lovely texture and taste

Method:'

Line a 18 square cake pan.

Roast the semolina till lightly golden but don't allow it to brown. Cool and mix in with the butter and set aside..

Whisk the egg yolks with sugar till light in colour. Add the semolina and butter mixture and combine well. Stir in the cashew, chopped melon, rind and spices. Stir the honey and rose water. Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt till light and fluffy but not stiff. Fold into the mixture lightly. Pour into prepared cake tin and bake in a preheated 160 deg C oven for 50 -60 mts. Do not let the top brown. Cool in tin for 10 mts and then on a wire rack. Store in airtight container for about 2 weeks.

Enjoy