I'll come up with any excuse to make a naughty treat and inviting our sister-in-law Bulelwa and her three boys Sabelo, Siyanda and Sesethu from South Africa was as good as any. Remember
baby Sese, of course you do, who can forget the best lip tremble ever?
I must have been craving Oreo cookies, because all I wanted to make was a
layered Oreo cookie cake that I read on Londoner once. I also wanted to practice my amateur baking skills and needed to rid my pantry of white flour and sugar. I don't know how I've accumulated so much white flour! I have like 5 bags of it of varying kinds, but I hate throwing out food. So I've been holding onto it for occasions such as these where I can put it to good use. Feeding others.
I used this recipe from
Add a Pinch and created an Oreo cookie icing with whipped double cream, sugar and crushed Oreo. I'm not a big fan of really sugary icing or butter icing, I much prefer whipping cream. It's more silky and not too sweet. Also, I can control how much sugar is added and I let the Oreo do the rest. I whipped up 2 tubs of 400ml double cream and then divided it into two batches.
I halved some of the Oreo cookies so I had only dark chocolate cookies and smashed these up finely for the icing to go on the outside of the cake. The remaining halves and whole Oreo cookies were smashed into chunky bits and mixed with the second batch of icing.
This was used in between my two layers of chocolate cake. I sweeten the icing slightly, adding a couple tablespoons of sugar.
Voila! Everyone loved the cake and Hub dubbed me a feeder that evening. It was fun letting the eldest Sabelo cut the cake and I was pleased with my creation. But don't worry I didn't have any apart from a few cheeky nibbles I sneaked off from the kids' plates. I was like Uma in the Truth About Cats and Dogs, but instead of ordering a cake I wasn't going to eat. I made it!
Helpful things I learned:
Always, always line your baking tray with baking paper if your bakin' a cake. Even if the recipe says to just butter the hell out of your cake tin, line it after buttering anyways. Otherwise your cake will stick and you won't be able to get it out and you'll have to grab someone like Hub and have him hammer it out with one of your hand weights. Doh!
If you are preparing your cakes in advance and icing just before serving, wrap them in cling film after they've cooled down and whack em' into the fridge. If you leave them out on the stove all day while you're at work, they will dry out a little especially around the edge and not be as moist.
If you are making a layered cake and your bottom layers have a slight dome from rising, level that off with a bread knife. Don't, um, lay the cake dome side down and hope that it just magically flattens. It won't and your cake will crack over the dome. But don't worry if you want to try anyway, cuz that's what icing is for. Covering up the mistakes!
 |
| before |
 |
| after |
