21 Mar 11 (Mon) - Purple Vanilla Cake with Blueberry Jam

Well... this month I was doing intensive baking practices mainly because I was thinking of baking a cake for someone dear to me on her birthday. Only have one more practice session next week before the actual event next Monday and I wasn't quite successful so far. Then yesterday I was in the supermarket doing some groceries shopping and I saw a buttercake mix which only cost $3.90. Therefore, I bought a box just in case I'm not successful again I still have the cake mix to fall back on.

Didn't have to work today and so decided to bake again. So decided to stick to the basic vanilla cupcake recipe with a couple of tweaks. Firstly, I used buttermilk instead of just milk and secondly, I added red and blue food coloring to make it into purple color.

Wasn't careful and added more than one drop of blue food coloring so in the end I had to add more red food coloring to make it purple. Set the temperature to 165 degree celcius and let it bake for 20 minutes. Initially it was rising nicely but after 10 minutes, the top started to crack again. At the end of the baking time, did the satay stick test and it didn't come out clean so let it baked for another 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, I did the satay stick test and this time it came out clean. So took it out to cool on the counter and something strange happened, it started to shrink. When I took the cake out, it was rather flat and I was very disappointed so didn't have the motivation to do the frosting.

So the next best thing to improve the cake was to cut the cake into halves and spread some blueberry jam in between. Took some photos and tasted my creation. Though the satay stick came out clean, the bottom of the cake actually wasn't well risen. I only found out about it when I cut the cake.

The taste wasn't as good too and it was only when I wrote this post that I realised that although I wrote that I should add 25ml of milk, all along I had always been adding only about 15ml of milk instead. So I don't know if the shrinking problem is due to the buttermilk used or the amount used. Anyway, I have decided that I'm going to use my insurance policy - the buttercake mix - for the event next Monday to be on the safe side and also to stop wasting all the flour, sugar, butter, etc due to the ever rising inflation.

Outside

Inside

Ingredients:

50g butter - soften

50g castor sugar

59g self-rising flour

1 eggs
25ml buttermilk (refer to http://fly2food.blogspot.com/2011/03/19-mar-2011-sat-marblecake.html)
a couple drops of red food coloring
a couple drops of blue food coloring

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 165 degree celsius

2.  Grease one 4cm deep x 12cm wide round cake tin
3.  Place all the ingredients in a large bowl

4.  Beat with an electric mixer for 2 mins till smooth
5.  Pour cake batter into prepared cake tin
6.  Bake for 25mins until risen and firm to touch

7.  Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool
8.  Cut cake into two halves
9.  Spread blueberry jam on one half and replace the top half of the cake