Angry Birds Birthday Cake

You can buy plain uniced cakes from the supermarket or a bakery and this is the way I have been making my daughter's birthday cake for the last five years - except for the year when she wanted lots of different cupcakes instead of a big cake, but that's a whole other story!

First you have to plan what you're going to do with your cake, I just have a plan in my head, but you can do drawings if you find that easier.   The set opposite will look awesome on top of a rectangular or square shaped slab cake - I personally wouldn't try and use a round cake for this one.

 

To make butter icing or buttercream icing whichever name you use for it you will need -

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

2 cups icing sugar (confectioner's sugar)

2 tbsp hot water

1/4 tsp vanilla essence

Basically you just need to cream the butter until it's light and fluffy then add the vanilla.   Next gradually beat in the icing sugar until smooth.  

The hot water is to add at the end to get to the right consistency for spreading - isn't that just too easy?

Now if you want to make chocolate buttercream icing (highly recommended) you follow the directions above, but sift two tablespoons of cocoa into the icing sugar first.

White icing is super easy to make and can be adapted to different flavors really easily.   To make it you will need -

2 cups icing sugar (confectioner's sugar)

1/4 tsp butter (softened)

2 tbsp water (approx)

1/4 tsp vanilla essence

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and then add the butter, next you need to add enough water to mix to a spreadable consistency - do this gradually.   Finally flavor it with vanilla essence.

To make this into chocolate icing simply sift 1 tsp cocoa into the icing sugar.

To make this into coffee icing simply disolve 2 tsp instant coffee in 1 tbsp of hot water and then mix this into the icing sugar with the butter.