Angry Birds Ice Cream Cake

One of my cousin is 22 years younger than me. Yet we share one thing in common: the addiction to Angry Birds game. On his birthday this year I surprised him with an Angry-Birds-themed cake.

I started it out by making Angry Birds characters sugar models. They need time -- from hours to overnight -- to set, thus have to be done ahead. It took me 3 nights to finish the figurines. Phewwww!

For the cake, due to the hot weather of summertime, I decided to try making an ice cream cake instead of a baked one. It'd be a big challenge for me. Not only because it's my first ice cream cake, but yes the temperature of 35 C (104 F) degree here could make it much more harder.

One of the birthday boy's favorite ice cream flavor is cookie & cream. Good. The appearance of this flavor would well mimic the cross section of the ground as it appeared in the game. So I picked cookie & cream ice cream for the lower layer of the cake, then topped with green tea ice cream. The background of these little Angry Birds must be a field of grass to mimic the game. Moreover, green is my cousin's favorite color :)

Layers (from base to top of the cake) :
Oreo cookie crust + cookie & cream ice cream + green tea ice cream +
matcha buttercream

Because of the hot weather, filling the ice cream into the mold cake pan (I use a springform one) must be done quickly. Once each layer was filled and leveled, the cake must be frozen for at least 30 minutes to set.

However, the green tea ice cream melted too easily to be piped and hold its shape as grass on the cake surface. The grass then had to be made of buttercream instead. Since matcha is like espresso of green tea, I made matcha buttercream to enhance green tea scent of the cake.

Matcha buttercream

When the whole cake was completed, I wrapped it up with cling film and froze it overnight. Meanwhile I made some dark chocolate ganache for decorating the eyes of the sugar birds. I also kept some spare of the ganache to be used as 'glue' when putting these sugar models upon the cake.

The birthday boy requested to decorate the cake by himself. It was a bit awkward. As soon as the cake was brought out of the freezer, it started melting quickly. But finally he did it and was so excited about his cake.

Chocolate Mint Cupcakes

Though not a big fan of chocolate mint, I couldn't resist the color of its minty green frosting. Too cute. Thus, Chocolate Peppermint Cupcake was the first recipe I baked after I'd got the recipe book by Cupcake Carousel Bakery.

March of the {Royal} Swine Troop!

One of my BFF since childhood loves baking and making desserts, in fact it's been her life. She's been into it since at very young age. Almost every birthday celebration she's the one who baked. Everyone knew, without any actual agreement, that if she was invited, just left the cake issue on her. She would be the one responsible for it -- yet impressed us every time. Now she owns the phenomenal dessert cafes, with 4 branches in Bangkok and still growing.

Sadly, on the birthday of her who baked us decent cakes, we could only order some store bought cakes for her. So this year, as I'm climbing up my baking ladder, another friend of mine suggested I bake 'pig-theme' cake for the birthday gal.

At the beginning, I planned the theme would be a combination of piggy (her fav creature) + royalty (she's the dessert "princess"). Somehow at this point, I think it might be wonderful if I can personalize the cake to be more spoken -- to be hers, and hers only.

That further touch could be but her beloved famous dessert cafes. But the addition must harmonize with the main theme. Think.. think.. think.

Logo should be the most obvious element to stand for the brand. So I'd play around with it. The original one is ram head in scallop border. So I made a mimic one featuring a pig head in the same gesture ;)

 Let's see the work

The {mimic} logo and the heads

The crowns for little piggies

Here they come!

 

 The base cupcakes were Maple Walnut Cupcakes and Monkey Devil's Food Cupcakes (Devil's Food cake with bananas). You can see the recipe on my earlier posts.

• Maple Walnut Cupcakes
• Monkey Devil's Food Cupcake