Unicorn Cake

I started planning to make a nice red velvet cake for a birthday girl and it turned into THIS.  Well, she really loves horses and unicorns too, so I thought I would try to make it a little fancier than just a typical layer cake.  We have all seen all kinds of these unicorn cakes and they are sprinkled all over Instagram if you follow some of the bakers out there. I was not too sure how this would turn out, but was quite pleased for my first try as an amateur.

I was not sure where to start, so I researched different cakes on Instagram and online and came across this YouTube tutorial that was both entertaining and helpful. In the tutorial they made a funfetti cake, but I stuck with red velvet and followed other recipes for my cake, buttercream and made my typical marshmallow white chocolate fondant.

I made three layers of red velvet cake and a simple vanilla buttercream to put in between and then spread on top and the sides to get the fondant to stick. 

I made the white chocolate marshmallow fondant and cut out the ears, horn and used the rest to cover.  For the horn, I wrapped a piece of fondant around a plastic chopstick to hold it in place and affix to the top of the cake. 

After the cake was wrapped in fondant, it was time for the fun part - the flowers to shape the unicorn's mane. I also used little sugar pearls to put on the center of the flowers and the detail around the base of the cake. 

She looks like she's closing her eyes to avoid the sparks.  What a fun birthday cake! 

Banoffee Pie

Banana + Toffee = Banoffee! This is hands down my favorite dessert. And, apparently the invention of this amazing pie took place in the county in England where my mum grew up and where I studied in college.  In fact, the creation of this pie was at The Hungry Monk pub in Jevington, East Sussex, England, where I would often go to study in the evening.

Some American-ized versions of this dessert use ginger snaps or graham crackers for the crust, but it really needs to be made with McVitie's Digestive biscuits to get the nice salty crust to balance out the sweetness of the bananas, toffee cream, whipping cream and chocolate. And, for the chocolate, I insist on using Cadbury's Flakes to sprinkle on top.

I recently made it and just used the Carnation recipe as you need to use sweetened condensed milk to make the caramel/toffee mixture.