Happy Birthday to Me!

    
Today is not a recipe post. Today is my birthday! Actually this is my 2^nd time baking birthday cake for myself. Like other home baker I choose to bake on my own instead of store bought. I will try to keep record of my baked birthday cake in future. Hope to see progress in my cake making and deco skills :)
 

This time I make my own frosting from scratch instead of whipped cream. It is definitely a new achievement for me. Thanks to Wendy for her detail explanation on how to make Swiss meringue buttercream! Since it is my 1^st attempt I read and read...read... and make sure I get it right! :D 

Now I know the difference among buttercream used by professional baker, simple buttercream, Italian buttercream, French buttercream and Swiss meringue buttercream. Sounds familiar to you? Do drop by Wendy's blog for the explanation. Sure you can get the answers.

I'm using 4 eggs chiffon cake recipe and bake in 8 inch round pan as the cake base. I find that my chiffon cake which baked in normal cake pan shrunk a lot after cooling. Do you have the same problem as mine? I'm using the same baking temperature as tube pan as the cake done beautifully without much shrinkage. But this not happened in normal cake pan. Therefore I added a teaspoon of baking powder. It did help.



This is how I place my cake pan for cooling. Therefore no 'mark' on my cake surface :)



Just after remove from oven



After cooling. A bit shrink at the side but not much compare to the cake without baking powder.

Thanks for reading I hope I did share something useful today. Have a nice day!