Friday 25 January 2013

Dog Birthday Cake


Hi everyone! I'm back in London safe and sound. I have been meaning to update my blog for days now but have not gotten round to it. Sorry! It's been quite hectic since my return - catching up with friends, dealing with admin and more importantly looking for a new place to stay. I found a lovely new place and will be moving in this weekend so will be offline until I can get myself set up. Normal blogging services will resume after a few weeks. 

This is a special cake that I made for my brother's birthday a few weeks ago. He loves dogs so the obvious choice was a dog cake. The family pet dog is a silky terrier but my cake decorating skills won't stretch that far so this is what I came up with. Glad he loved the cake! 

 family pet dog


I have to thank Daisy from Never Too Sweet who suggested I look at Not Quite Nigella's blog for inspiration. I  had actually bookmarked the recipe but forgot about it when I was deciding how to make a dog cake. If you used a bit of imagination you could say there is a resemblance between the dog and the cake :) 

I'm submitting this to AlphaBakes a monthly blogging challenge hosted on alternate months by Caroline from Caroline Makes and myself.  The letter this month is "D" for Dog cake. 




 easy swiss roll recipe from my aunt - thank you 

 perfect roll - phew! :)

 adding cupcakes for the head, tail and ears. 

 cover in frosting 

 use a grass tip to pipe "fur" over the dog 



For the face you will need 2 giant chocolate buttons, 3 M&M's and a piece of strawberry rollup cut to shape.   I made some additional decorations using a candy mould I found - bone, food bowl, dog house and  puppy. I also coloured dessicated coconut green to resemble grass. 


 cross section of the swiss roll 

For the swiss roll

4 large eggs, separated
60g self raising flour
55g caster sugar 
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sunflower oil 
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

  • Preheat the oven to 180C. 
  • Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until stiff.
  • In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks, sugar, milk, oil and flour until smooth. 
  • Fold into the egg white mixture and spread onto a swiss roll tin. 
  • Bake for 14 minutes.
  • Spread jam or cream and roll into a swiss roll. 


For the peanut butter cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

75g butter
130g smooth peanut butter
190g dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
120g plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
60ml semi-skimmed milk
  • Preheat the oven to 160C.
  • Line a 12-hole muffin tray with cupcake cases. 
  • Cream the butter, peanut butter and sugar until well blended. 
  • Add the eggs, one at a time and then stir in the vanilla extract. 
  • Combine the flour, salt and baking powder in a separate bowl.
  • Add 1/3 of the flour to the creamed mixture and beat well.
  • Pour 1/3 of the milk and beat again.
  • Repeat until all the flour and milk have been added. 
  • Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases - I used a large ice cream scoop. 
  • Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 

11 comments:

  1. welcome home!... this is just so sweet and reminds me of the Dougal (dog from Magic Round-about) cake that mum used to make for me. She used a ready bought swiss roll and then angels fingers for the hair, which she soaked to get them to shape nicely... stunning cake!

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  2. Ros, what a gorgeous puppy! He looks so sweet and lovely. Your coconut grass look fab too and much easier than piping all that grass (my hand hurt after doing that!). And welcome back!! :D

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  3. Welcome home! Great puppy cake - I love his big round eyes! Bet your brother loved this. Hope the move goes well, and I'm looking forward to you blogging some more. :) x

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  4. This is such a cute cake, you've done a great job...it looks so realistic! Welcome home too! :-)

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  5. Welcome back! Wow that cake is amazing!! Puts my dog one from last year to shame, definitely following your lead (arf arf!) if I ever have to do another!

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  6. WELCOME BACK darlink! I missed you! And that cake has made me SMILE! It's brilliant! Karen

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  7. Super impressive - very realistic! I love your grass too!

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  8. how to you keep the tail face and ear to stick thx :D

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    Replies
    1. I used buttercream icing to stick the tail, face and ears as shown in the picture above.

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