The perfect way to celebrate! Personally, I always make the HFI birthday cake the centrepiece of the birthday party. I feel it is important that my HFI kiddies feel extra special on their birthday and creating a unique birthday cake just for them always brings so much joy! This recipe is for a large birthday cake.
- 500 g unsalted butter
- 500 g self-raising flour
- 200 ml milk
- 8 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract (make sure that there is no added sugar, I use Queen Imitation Vanilla Essence)
- 4 tsp baking powder
Icing
- 1 block Philadelphia Cream Cheese (depending on the size of your cake, you might need to use 2 blocks)
- 1 egg white
- Couple of drops of food colouring (make sure there is no added sugar, some brands add sugar to the food colouring)
Pre-heat oven to 170°C and grease cake tin.
Place all ingredients in food processor and mix. If using a thermomix use speed 6 for 30 seconds.
Spoon cake batter into cake tin and fill approximately 2/3 of the tin.
Bake for approximately 45 minutes. You will need to regularly check that the middle of the cake is cooked – I use a metal skewer.
Allow to completely cool prior to serving. I always make the cake the night before the birthday party and ice the cake the morning of a party. If you are going to do this, you can refrigerate the cake overnight. Take it out of the fridge in the morning and allow it to become room temperature – this will help with the icing process.
Icing
Chop up block of cream cheese into cubes and put into food processor or thermomix on speed 3. You can also add a couple of drops of the vanilla essence to the icing at this stage.
Add egg white and whip it until it’s nice and fluffy.
Apply icing to cake and refrigerate until served. It is important to note that you don’t want to refrigerate the icing for more than 1-2 hours as they cream cheese icing will dry and crack. I find it best to ice the cake at least an hour before the party then refrigerate to set the icing (keep an eye on it to ensure it doesn’t dry out).