Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge #8 is............

Hello everyone, it’s time for a new Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge!

But before I announce the new challenge. I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who entered the pervious challenge - Snazzy Snacks.

You can now vote for the winner here.

The new challenge is......

Something for a child.

That’s right, anything creative or nice that a child would like.

 The prize is a Food Lovers’ Cooking for Children recipe book!

Cooking for children and want them to love your food? Then this is just the book you want! 

This Stylish cookbook offers a collection of delicious recipes that are straightforward to prepare, doesn't require hours in the kitchen and appeal to children of all ages. Whether you are making a meal for two or laying on a party, you will love using these exciting recipes to get great results.

Each mouth-watering recipe is clearly set out with a list of ingredients, preparation and cooking times, step-by-step instructions and a beautiful photographed serving suggestion.

My example is a Jumping Castle Birthday Cake! It is one I helped make for David’s 5th birthday on the 29th of October.

Now this is a beautiful cake that took a while to make. You don’t need to go to such extremes! Any snack or cake etc. will do the trick!

You need 2 sheet Moist Sponge Cakes

Soft Icing

Lots of candy of your choice 

I used Marshmallows

Jelly-Tots 

Licorice- All Sorts   

Astros 

Ingredients for Moist Sponge Cake 

Butter and flour for the cake pan 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

¼ cup milk or heavy cream

3 tablespoons butter

3 whole eggs at room temperature 

3 egg yolks at room temperature 

¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar 

1 cup spelt flour or ¾ cup all purpose flour

Method

1 If making a sheet cake, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F or 200 degrees C and line a 13 by 17 inch / 33 by 43 cm sheet pan with baking paper. If making a round cake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F / 170 degrees C and butter and flour a 9 inch/ 22 centimeter round cake pan.

2 Combine the vanilla, milk and butter in a small saucepan, bring to a simmer and cook just long enough to melt the butter. 

Remove from the heat and set aside.

3 Using a stand mixer, beat the eggs, egg yolks and sugar on high speed for about 5 minutes or until the ribbon stage, when the beater is lifted, the mixture falls in a wide band into the surface, forming a figure eight that stays for 5 seconds before dissolving.

4 Carefully transfer the beaten egg mixture to a lager bowl to make it easier to fold. 

5 Pour the milk-butter mixture down the side of the bowl all at once and fold it in with a rubber spatula quickly but gently.

6 Sift the flour over the bowl and fold it into the egg mixture, ⅓  at a time, making sure the last batch is incorporated before adding more.

Be sure to scrape the spatula along the bottom of the bowl - flour tends to settle there.

7 Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. 

8 If you are making a sheet cake, smooth and spread the mixture with an offset spatula. 

9 Bake a sheet cake for about 12 minutes and a round cake for about 25 minutes, or until firm to the touch.

10 Let the cake cool for 10 minutes until it pulls away from the sides of the pan and then turn it out onto a cooling rack. 

11 If you are making a sheet cake, gently pull the parchments paper away from the surface of the cake.

How to make a Jumping Castle Birthday Cake:

1 Cut the one sheet cake in half, put on top of each other and cut circles out of the corners. 

2 Cut 16 circles out of the other sheet cake. 

3 To keep the “towers” from falling, put jam in between and fasten with skewer sticks.

 4 Use the left over piece of cake for the slide.

5 Put icing everywhere on the cake and start covering with the candy.

We covered the surface of the cake, with marshmallows cut in half to give the impression of the blown-up jumping castle. 

The Marshmallows that stands in the air, is Marshmallows on sticks, stuck to the towers of the cake.

We covered our plastic tree with cut Marshmallows, too.

David loved his cake!

This was a Marshmallow, Jumping Caste cake, since we hired a jumping castle and Marshmallows are bouncy!

The cake looks a lot like the real jumping castle doesn't it?

Well now it’s your turn to show me your Something For A Child baking. I can’t wait to see with what you can come up with!

How it works

-You can link-up using your blog or if you don’t have a blog, e-mail your entry to me.

-Create a post on your blog with the recipe and at least one picture of the finished product.

or

e-mail the recipe, with at least one picture of the finished product and I will enter your recipe in the challenge (remember to come back and check out your entry).

-One recipe per person/blog please.

-You are allowed to have help with your baking.

-Please use the blue frog below to enter. Be sure to add the link to your direct blog posting/recipe and not your whole blog as this makes it much easier to find your recipe. 

-Please comment on at least 3 other entries.

-Each recipe needs to be linked back to Heidi’s Crafts or has to have the button in the post.

-This is a fortnightly challenge, you have two weeks to enter.

-Entries need to be linked up by Monday the 13th of November for this Something For a Child challenge.

-After the challenge has closed, I will announce the entries in a separate posting and you will be able to vote for your favourite recipe.

-You are all allowed to advertise anywhere you like for people to vote for you, on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

-I will have a personalized blinkie, specially for the Winner. As well as the PRIZE!! I ship anywhere in the World!

-Age doesn’t matter, from little girls to grandmas are welcome to enter!

-The aim of the challenge is to encourage mothers and grandmas with their girls to enjoy making food in the kitchen, to share recipes, find new ones and have lots of fun together!

Baking Greetings!