Frozen Cake and Pizza Party

Frozen Birthday Cake

I got the idea of having a Pizza Party for Elizabeth's birthday from kneadwhine, who took her little boy to Pizza Express for his birthday last year. I remember thinking, "I could do that". And I did!

Elizabeth was happy with the idea, but to be honest I could have convinced her to do anything for her birthday. She was just so excited about it full stop!

She invited 4 friends, so there were 6 children in total. All of them RSVP'd with their favourite pizza topping.

I had to buy in 4 extra rolling pins, 1 extra pizza baking tray and I bought 6 aprons from Poundland.

I made two lots of pizza dough in the breadmaker. And I used Tesco's pizza sauce and ready grated mozzarella.

For their toppings they had a selection of ham, pepperoni and pineapple.

I used 3/4 of the second batch of pizza dough to make dough balls to serve with the pizzas. They also had some salad sides and some hula hoops and cheesy crisps.

Pizza Birthday Tea

They all made their own pizzas and while they were cooking they played party games with Grandma in the living room.

Tesco had some ready made party game packs. I bought 3, a Pin the tail on the Donkey, Sleeping Lions, and Musical Mats - which was a musical chairs substitute. They also played pass the parcel. I was really impressed with the games from Tesco, and everything can be reused.

After they had their birthday tea, Elizabeth took all her friends upstairs to her room to show off her bunk beds. I came upstairs and found all 6 of them on the top bunk!

When they came back down there was time for one more game before the parents arrived. It all went brilliantly! Everyone was well behaved and happy. There was lots of giggling and smiling faces!

And to top it all off, Elizabeth had this cake (which I made):

Frozen Cake
I've been developing this idea since Rebecca's Scooby Doo cake, when Elizabeth said she wanted a Frozen Cake for her birthday. I wanted to make a palace, but it was just too difficult. I think I would have either had to have cake covered in sugar glass, which wouldn't have looked great, or I would have had to use non-edible crafts.

So I ended up with this design as a compromise by having the sugar glass at the back as ice shards and by making it in three tiers to give the height of the palace. And in the end it was MUCH easier than the Scooby Doo cake because I didn't have to make templates or cut out intricate designs and lettering by hand.

I first purchased snowflake cutters from amazon. Then I printed off several sugar glass recipes from the internet. I tried it with food colouring and without. And for the finished product, I wish I had put the colouring in because the glass caramalised a bit too much and so looks too yellow. I also tried a bit of chocolate tempering. I got it right a few times, but as the cake wasn't being served as soon as it was made it was a bit pointless. The chocolate kept it's shape, but it didn't snap when broken.

Ice Shards

If I was doing it again I think I would skip the glass shards. They didn't really add to the overall look of the cake. I wanted them there to make it look more like the palace, but the cake was lovely without it.

I already had sandwich tins that were 20 cm. I managed to find two smaller ones, because I didn't want the cake to be massive. The top layer actually used a pie tin.

I used buttercream to sandwich the layers together and to spread on the cake before covering in the ready to roll fondant icing.

I briefly experimented with royal icing, but ran out of time to perfect it, so the piping on the cake was done with Dr Oetker's Designer Icing Pouch. They are great! They come with 4 piping nozzles. And one pouch did all the white piping on that cake.

And I added the snowflake shapes using white fondant icing and sticking them on by brushing water on them with a pastry brush.

The Frozen figures were bought off amazon. I didn't make them. However I will try modelling with fondant icing soon!

Bullyland Figures

Even if it wasn't the Frozen Palace, it was obviously a Frozen Cake. And Elizabeth was really happy with it and her friends were dying to try it.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth

What did you think of the Frozen cake? I'd love to hear your comments or suggestions.

Dough Balls

My children both love dough balls. We had them at Pizza Express and I thought they must be fairly easy to make and they are! If you have a breadmaker...

I use the pizza dough recipe from Fresh Bread in the Morning. It's a really good pizza dough recipe and of course works well with the dough balls too.

Ingredients
1tsp fast acting yeast
450g white bread flour
1 tsp salt
2tbsp olive oil
250ml water

Method
Add the ingredients in that order to your bread maker. Set it to your pizza dough setting - mine is 45 minutes.

Once it's finished, turn it out onto a floured surface. I separate my dough into 3 balls. Onf for a mummy and daddy pizza. A smaller one for 2 little girl pizzas and the last one for about 20 dough balls.

Make the dough balls about the size of a chestnut. Cover them and leave them to rise - probably for about 40 minutes.

Bake them in the oven at 180 (fan) for about 10 minutes. I don't let them go brown.

Serve with some garlic butter. Or use them instead of bread with a pasta sauce.

For a bit of variety, you could put some mozzarella and chorizo in the middle of the balls.

Lasagne

Bolognese Sauce

• 250 g lean steak mince
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 medium sized onion chopped
• 1 carrot
• 1 stick of celery
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 250 mls beef stock
• A few sprigs of thyme
• A bay leaf
• Olive oil (although I sometimes use sunflower oil and sometimes marg)
• 120 ml Red wine (optional - in my case depending on whether I have some in the house)
• Salt and Pepper
• Plus any other veg that's needing used up

Method:

• Fry the onions in oil until soft
• Add the mince, fry until it has browned
• Add the tomato puree, give it a good mix
• Add the tinned tomatoes and stock and mix
• Add the rest of the vegetables, herbs and seasoning
• Bring to the boil, then cover it and put it on the lowest heat to simmer for as long as possible! Probably at least an hour. I often let it thicken up with the lid off towards the end of cooking. But that's a judgement call.

I make a cheese sauce for my lasagne. This sauce is great for macaroni cheese.

Cheese Sauce

• A knob of margarine (about 30/40g)
• 2 heaped tsp plain flour
• 70-100 g of your favourite cheddar grated - we like Red Leicester
• About 120-150 ml milk

Method

• Melt the marg in a small pot
• Add the flour and mix until it all comes together
• Add a small dash of milk and mix it until all the liquid has been absorbed. Repeat this until you have a runny liquid, probably double cream consistency.
• Add the cheese and heat it up until the cheese has all melted and the mixture has thickened.

Next up is constructing your lasagne. I use a small casserole dish. You will need lasagne pasta obviously. But also I sometimes add a layer of pepperoni or chorizo if I have some in the fridge. It spices it up a little.

• Put a layer of mince, then lasagne, then cheese sauce, mince, pepperoni/chorizo, lasagne, cheese sauce etc until the mixture is all used up. With the cheese sauce on top.
• Cook it in the oven at about 160 (fan) for 40-45 minutes.

I usually serve it up with dough balls. But crusty bread is also good.