Hummingbird Bakery’s vanilla princess cake. The biggest, pinkest, gayest cake I’ve ever baked!

It’s not every day I bake the biggest, pinkest, gayest cake I’ve ever made. And it’s not for just anyone that I would do that either, but this was a special occasion. My friend Melissa was getting married… in Australia. Why was I making a cake in London? Well, it’s all very complicated… and this is definitely not the wedding cake!

Melissa, known affectionately as McMuffin (cute, right?), lived in London for a year in 2008 and she was my favourite eating buddy. We ate together everywhere humanly imaginable, and she was The One who introduced me to Lantana. Mostly, you would just find us at Hummingbird Bakery in South Kensington, sharing a slice of vanilla cake, red velvet cake and choc fudge brownie. Yep.

This is McMuffin! And our Hummingbird Bakery vanilla cake! And I had long hair!

Anyway Mel got married on Saturday to the fabulous Chris and it sucks so bad that I missed her wedding, but when you live abroad, there’s only so many weddings you can go home for. I decided to celebrate Mel in a different way, a way I knew she’d wholly approve of, and so on Saturday night I baked for her her favourite cake, the Hummingbird Bakery vanilla “princess” cake.

Caveat! Hummingbird Bakery don’t call this cake a princess cake, it’s just a vanilla cake but come on. It comes with sprinkles and stars or scattered with flowers so um, princess much?

So I baked this crazy three tiered cake on Saturday afternoon, blasting Bon Jovi loud. There’s totally nothing wrong with that. It took me almost three hours because I only have one cake tin and look, it has three fracking layers! so I had to bake the cake three times. Mel if you ever get around to reading this, I did it all for you. Because I sure as hell didn’t make a big pink cake for me.

The cake is so huge that one slice gave me sugar headache and because Mel isn’t actually here to eat the cake (I offloaded a quarter to Su-yin thank god), I still have about 5kgs worth of pinkness to get through. I’ll be living on fruit for all eternity.

Which reminds me. Check out this infinitely healthier dessert – the most colourful fruit salad I’ve ever seen! SoFeminine.co.uk landed on my radar recently and I actually quite like the site. Lots of healthy eating, beauty, fashion-y girl stuff.  And I especially love that fruit salad. How many fruits are in that thing?

Anyway, vanilla princess cake. Pretty? Pretty. Too pink? Too pink. But if nothing else it gave me a valid excuse to wander around John Lewis’ foodhall (my happy place) and buy those adorable little sugar flowers

vanilla princess cake
Quantity for ONE layer of cake: 120 grams plain flour 120 grams castor sugar 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 40 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature 120 mL whole milk 1 egg 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract  Quantity for ALL THREE layers (if you want to make it in one go): 360 grams plain flour 360 grams castor sugar 4 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 120 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature 360 mL whole milk 3 eggs 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract Vanilla frosting: 500 grams icing sugar 160 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature 50 mL whole milk 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract red food colouring (optional)
Preheat oven to 170°C/340°F. Beat together flour, sugar, baking powder and butter on a low speed until the ingredients are mixed in a sandy texture. Gradually pour in half the milk and beat until incorporated. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg/s, vanilla extract and the rest of the milk briefly and then pour into the flour mixture. Continue mixing for a couple of minutes until the mixture is smooth. If you have three cake tins, pour one third of the batter into each. Bake in pre-heated oven for about 20-25 minutes. If you’re baking all three tins, swaps the tins from tray to tray so they all cook evenly. The cake is done when light golden brown on top and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool slightly before removing from cake tin to completely cool on a wire rack. If you’re making each layer separately (like I did) repeat steps 2-8 (make sure all layers of the cake are cooled before making the frosting). For the frosting, beat the icing sugar and butter together on low speed until combined. Combine the milk and vanilla extract in a separate bowl and add to the butter mixture slowly. Once all the milk has been added, turn the mixer up to high speed and continue beating until the frosting is light and fluffy (at least 5 minutes). The longer the frosting is beaten, the fluffier and lighter it becomes. If you’re making pink frosting, add a couple of drops of red food colouring and continue beating. Place the bottom cake layer on a plate or cake stand. Cover it with a thin layer of frosting, then add the second layer on top. Cover with frosting and add third layer. Cover the entire cake with the remaining frosting and decorate as desired.
Serves 12-16.