My son’s birthday is two days after Christmas. All these years we have celebrated it with our family as we travel home for our holidays. He was fine with this arrangement for 6 years. 

But this year, he wanted a birthday party (“all my friends have one, Mommy!”) and the two of us have been planning from June for that. My worry wasn’t the food, the cake or the games.

It was about managing 10 plus kids in a closed area!!

But then, the kids were nice and thank fully, everything went out smooth. 

After a lot of coaxing, my son agreed to have the party a week ahead. 

I made the birthday banner 2 weeks before, made the cake bunting 10 days before, decided the menu a week before, started cooking 3 days before, decorated the house a day before and left only minimal work for the day of the party.

It was a tea time party and the menu was

• Corn Capsicum Sandwiches
• Mixed Veg Soya Cutlets
• Cupcakes with dulce de leche butter cream frosting
• Chocolate Pudding
• And the birthday cake – Yellow cake with butter cream frosting

For the cake bunting, I followed the instructions the net. I am not able to find the exact site from where I did this, but it’s more or less the same as here. I added a stitch like pattern to the flags for an extra nice effect.

The cake banner/bunting saved me from having to pipe on the cake and ruin the whole thing!

My son wanted the cake to be ‘cricket related’. He didn’t want the cricket bat cake I had made earlier. He then wanted me to make all the tools players use. His list was long and I had no idea how half of them look like. More than that, the ready made fondant that my brother got for me was almost over. I had only a tiny bit left.

So I made a cricket bat, ball, pads and a cap. Then I had just enough for a pair of shoes and there it is….the basic things that a player would need.

For the birthday banner in the first picture, my husband took colour print out of the letters (“Happy Birthday Shreyas” in big bold letters placed in a colourful circle). Cut out the circles with letters.

I used scrap-book paper of different colours for cutting out the flag pattern for the base layer. I cut out flag patterns from white thick papers for a second flag on top of the base one. This one was slightly bigger than the circular print out with the letters.

Using a double-sided stick tape, stick the circular print out into the white flags and then using the same stick tape, stick the white flags to the base flag. Do it for all the letters and you have a beautiful banner ready!

Coming to the cake recipe, this has become my go-to cake for all occasions.I made two batches of the dough and baked the cake as well as 2 batches of cupcakes.

Recipe Source: America’s Test Kitchen – Family Baking Book

Ingredients:

Ingredients:

• Flour                                  :        2 1/2 cups**
• Corn Flour                      :        1/4 cup**
• Baking Powder              :        2 tsp
• Salt                                     :        1/2 tsp
• Butter                                :        200 gm (2 sticks), softened
• Sugar                                 :        1 3/4 cups
• Eggs                                   :         4
• Vanilla Essence             :        1 tsp
• Milk                                    :        1 1/2 cups, at room temp

**Cake flour : 2 3/4, approx substitution for that.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease two 9″ pans.
2. In a big bowl, cream the softened butter and sugar. Once light and fluffy, add the eggs (one by one) and beat with the hand mixer. Add the vanilla essence and beat it in.
3. In a separate bowl, add the flour, corn flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk thoroughly.
4. Add one-third of the flour mix to the creamed butter and beat in with the mixer. Add half of the milk and beat again.
5. Add half of the remaining flour mix and beat in again. Tip in all the milk and mix. Add the remaining flour and beat in until it’s all incorporated.
6. Mix with a spatula and pour the batter into the moulds.
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out free of crumbs when inserted in the middle.
8. Take off the pan and let it cool in a wiring rack. Once completely cool, frost the cake.
9. I used butter cream for the green part and dulce de leche(DDL) icing for the cricket pitch. I made the rectangular pitch first and then used butter cream for the remaining parts and sides.
10. After coating the sides, I felt something was missing and then just went ahead and piped patterns all around the cake with the sandy DDL icing.
11. The toppers were made using ready-made Wilton fondant. I had enough to make a pair of shoes, pads, a cap, a bat and a ball. The stumps are tooth picks and not edible.
12. The buttercream recipe is here and the DDL frosting recipe is here.