Clown Faces – a Team Effort

I made these for the Cake Walk at our school. Taste-wise the little cakes are pretty basic, but they were a lot of fun to decorate.

This is the recipe ( makes about 12):

Preheat oven to 350 F, spread parchment paper on baking sheets

Cream 130g butter and 180g sugar, add 1 tsp of vanilla and a pinch of salt. To this mix add slowly 4 eggs, wait for one egg to be incorporated before you add the next. In a separate bowl mix 500g flour with 5 tsp of backing powder. Stir the flour into the dough with 3/4 cup milk.

Using a large ice-cream scoop portion the dough onto the baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches of room. Bake for 15 minutes then brush the cakes with milk. Return to the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes.

To decorate I used icing sugar with a bit of milk added and spread this on the bottom of the cakes. For the dark icing I just added cocoa powder.

My son piped the hair and mouths, while my daughters added the noses and eyes. I was very grateful about their help, since they did a great job and it was quite late when we started.

 My latest knitting project is a cardigan for a toddler. The pattern is called Devan and can be found here. The yarn is my own hand dyed. It is fingering weight and therefore relatively slow going, but then the stockinette is pleasantly mindless.