Now We Are One

I can’t quite believe a year has passed since Ivy entered our lives but at the same time it feels like she’s been here forever. So our special little girl obviously needed a special cake! Oh the pressure, rather than a number One or some silly face I decided an Ivy leaf was appropriate. I made a leaf template on paper (with some tweaking by Lawrence) and cut the cake into shape. I had to add bits to the points of the leaf using the off-cuts, smothering the entire cake with fudge frosting. It was another ‘family chocolate cake’, it’s an excellent cake to shape, easy to cut but extremely moist and chocolaty. Ivy had a little taste of the icing but I’m afraid that’s all she got – how mean! Next year Ivy, I promise.

The icing was an issue, where on earth would I find non toxic green icing? It’s not easy it seems, I couldn’t bring myself to use the ordinary stuff, Dan’s had this issue too. We must be able to find  or perhaps invent some not so lethal alternatives. I had to settle for chocolate icing in the end with some white chocolate drops. It looked a little like a pearly King and Queen cake but I guess that’s quite apt for a first London birthday!

Fudge frosting
90g butter
80ml water
110g caster sugar
240g icing sugar
35g cocoa powder

Combine the butter, water and caster sugar in a saucepan and heat without boiling until the sugar is dissolved. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa into a bowl then gradually add the hot mixture. Cover and refrigerate until the frost thickens. Beat with a spoon until spreadable.
I do think I prefer the simple butter and icing sugar mixture though!