My cousin’s birthday was last weekend and I wanted to be the cake person! I already knew that I was going to have a simple chocolate cake with whipped white chocolate ganache filling and white buttercream as frosting. I have done this combination many times, which is inspired from November’s Jude cake, but little did I know that I would find ready-made marzipan at Sultan. And oh the excitement! I was going to make made-from-scratch marzipan for a certain somebody’s birthday later this month so initially I bought the packets for that project.

I baked my chocolate cake, whipped my filling and frosting and it was time to decorate. My cousin (sister of the birthday girl) and I thought this cake needed something extra! Our initial plan was to use a very small piece of the marzipan and roll it out into a square to write the birthday message but then because I had some time and still energy and enthusiasm we decided to cover the entire cake with marzipan. I took my red food coloring and put two drops in the marzipan dough and rolled it out thinly (too thinly we later found out). Placed the rolled out marzipan on the ready cake and decorated with white chocolate and dark chocolate. It was SO much fun!

Here’s the cake all lit with squiggly candles…

And an inside look…

I still need to practice on marzipan and eventually start making my own! But this one is so easy to use and it’s not ridiculously sweet. It actually complemented the cake.

P.S. If you want the recipe for this cake, let me know in the comment section below.

**UPDATE**

Cake Recipe (take from Little Cakes from the whimsical bakehouse):

Preheat oven 175 degrees Celsius and butter and flour a half sheet pan or a brownie pan.

Mix on high speed 1.5 sticks butter, 1 cup sugar, 3/4 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup cocoa powder until light and fluffy. Add one at a time 3 eggs and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Sift 2 3/4 cups cake flour*, 2 teaspoons baking soda and 1.5 teaspoons salt.

Add low speed alternate between dry ingredients ad 1.5 cups buttermilk.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean.

* Substitute for cake flour: For every 1 cup cake flour = 3/4 cup all purpose flour + 2 tablespoon cornstarch (cornflour)

Whipped White Chocolate Ganache Filling:

Chop 225 grams White Chocolate (I recommend Green and Black’s)

Heat 1 litre whipping cream right before boiling. Remove from heat and add the chopped chocolate. Leave it for 5-10 minutes and then mix until all chocolate pieces have melted. Refrigerate or freeze until cold and then whip it.

Buttercream Frosting:

Beat together in an electric mixer using the flat beater 6 cups icing sugar, 2 sticks room temperature butter, 5 tablespoons milk and 2 teaspoons vanilla extract until light and fluffy. Add more milk if you need to thin it out. I never really measure the milk afterwards because I like my frosting more creamy.

Tips:

1. Bake cake a day ahead, wrap it in cling film and refrigerate it.

2. Make the frosting and filling the day of .

3. After filling the cake. Freeze the cake for at least 30 minutes before putting the first layer of frosting

4. If you’re not going to use marzipan, make sure to have the first crumb layer and then freeze it so that the final layer of frosting comes out clean with no crumbs in sight!