I love the cake smashing photos of babies covered in cake, icing and chocolate ! I also like the idea of giving then some sugar for the first time and capturing theirs reaction on the camera. What I don’t like is the though of all of the sugar that they will eat! That’s why I decided to make my own cake and get a “healthy balance” between sugar and healthy cake. I decided to make a bannana cake and cover it in normal icing. That way Chloe wouldn’t have that much sugar and icing would give her a taste of the forbidden thing.
Cake came up very tasty but I must admit bcause of the texture it’s not the best one for smashing…. Especially if your baby doesn’t like to get dirty ….
I was expecting Chloe to go gravy for the icing and the cake … But she didn’t ! She wasn’t too bothered about it (which outside of the photoshot is a good thing) and it took us a long time to try and get her a bit messy. I had to get pretty messy myself trying to I courage my daughter to play with the cake … That’s how uninterested she was about it!
Considering the amount of cake they actually eat (which isn’t a lot) and the texture needed for a good smas cake session I would recommend to make a normal sponge cake just with less sugar.
Below recipes for the healthy cake and obviously some photos of Chloe.
BABY BANANA CAKE
Ingredients for the cake :
– 5 ripen bananas
– 1 1/2 cup flower (you can use white flower or whole grain
– 3/4 cup Apple juice with no added sugar)
– 3 tsp vanilla extract
– 1 tsp cinnamon
– 2 egg whites – bitten
– 50g of fondant icing of a desired colour(if using)
Ingredients for the icing:
– 250g icing sugar
– 125g soft butter
– 1 or 2 tbsp of milk
– 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
– food colouring (if using)
Cooking method:
Preheat your oven to 180C.
Mash your bananas (I blend them for the creamy texture)
Combine all of your ingredients (except egg white) together until smooth. Beat eggs white until quite stiff and fold in very carefully. Pour your mixture on to your forms which has been sprayed lightly with cooking pray. I have used 2 forms for the big cupcake cake and filled then half full, but you can use 2 small round baking tins (depends on what cake you want to make)
Put the cake in to the oven and bake for 25 minutes.
Prepare your icing my mixing your butter with half of the sugar, then add the rest of the ingredients and combine it well. If you are using food colouring add at the end.
When your cake is cooked, cool it and then start decorating.
I went for the cupcake cake. I have used fondant icing on the bottom of the cake and butter icing on the top of it.
If you are using fondant icing you will need to put a very thin layer of butter icing on the cake first so that the fondant icing sticks to the cake. A good tip when rolling out your icing : use a little bit of corn flower it will stop the icing from sticking to the worktop.
I have used a thin layer or butter icing to keep both of the cakes together ; it acts as a very good and tasty glue π. If you want to use something healthier soft cheese will do exactly this same job.
At the end I have decorated the top of the cake with turquoise butter icing. I was very pleased with the result …. Not so much Chloe π
NEW YUMMY MUMMY 