Daniel's 4th Birthday and cake recipes

On Wednesday, the first of August, we celebrated little Daniel’s 4th birthday!  Daniel is Smiley. He just has a smile that reaches his eyes and warms your heart!

We planned his birthday party for following Saturday and decided to just have fun on the day of his birthday, allowing the little ones to decorate cupcakes and play with bubbles on the beautiful sunny day!  

Heidi-Mari used a Lindt chocolate cake recipe for the cupcakes.  

Ingredients:

1 + 1/3 bars (100 g each) LINDT EXCELLENCE 70% Cacao Dark Chocolate, chopped

1 cup plus 1/2 tablespoon (120 g) butter, softened

1/3 cup (40 g) castor sugar

Pinch of salt

6 eggs, separated

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (180 g) castor sugar

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (130 g) flour, sifted (170g spelt flour)

Method

Preheat oven of 180°C. Grease baking pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.

Melt the chocolate (in a double boiler or over boiling water, off the heat - we don’t use a microwave) and set aside.

Cream butter, castor sugar, and salt.

Add the egg yolks one at a time to the butter mixture.

Add the melted chocolate.

Whip the egg whites, gradually adding the sugar and beating until shiny and just starting to make stiff picks - be careful not to over beat, then it will be to dry.

Carefully fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture.

Fold in the remaining egg whites and sifted flour.

Pour the batter into the baking pans (if baking a cake) and bake approximately 40 minutes. Baking time will decrease if using 2 cake pans. Check at 30 minutes. Cakes are done when a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. 

Or pour the batter into muffin pans lined with paper cups and bake for approximately 12 minutes. 

You may have noticed, this isn’t a healthy birthday cake. Its not diary, wheat AND sugar free, only wheat free. We tried numerous times to bake a cake with honey, with no success.  The enzymes in the honey just don’t allow the cake to set.  So we still use sugar in this recipe, the ‘cleanest’ chocolate we can lay our hands on - Lindt, and spelt flour, an ancient flour, not genetically modified like wheat and grown organically with no pesticides. 

Since Danika and Andrew’s birthday party, we’re not using icing sugar anymore to decorate cakes and cupcakes.  We use the chocolate ganaches from the Lindt workshops we attended for chocolate truffles and fillings for hollow chocolates. 

It works perfectly to decorate cakes and cupcakes.

Amarula/Vanilla Ganache filling

This ganache was originally for our filling and moldings of chocolate and contains Amarula. But we successfully replaced the Amarula with vanilla for the birthday cake icing.  

500g condensed milk

350 g milk courverture 37% (brown milk chocolate - Lindt)

75 g amarula or 15ml vanilla extract

Melt the chocolate over boiling water (take the boiling water off the heat, let the chocolate gently melt over the water, only stir occasionally and make sure no steam reach the chocolate)

Add the condensed milk

Slowly add the Amarula or vanilla. Mix until well combined.

Vanilla ganache filling

Using vanilla pods or a good vanilla extract will serve to enhance and give depth to the white chocolate base.

450 g white courverture 36% (white milk chocolate - Lindt)

200 g glucose syrup

200 g cream 35% fat

Vanilla extract

Simmer the, cream, glucose and the vanilla extract.

Pour the cream over the white milk chocolate and allow to stand for 1 min, then mix from the core to form a smooth shinny ganache.

You might ask, why using these ganaches, instead of icing sugar to decorate the cakes, while it still contains sugar.  We noticed the icing sugar used to decorate the cakes has a worse effect on the energy levels (hyperactivity) and side effects on children than the high quality chocolate. Years ago when CJ turned two years old, I tried a ‘Healthy party’. No sweets, only sandwiches with coloured fillings, coloured boiled eggs, etc.  The effect due to the coloring was even worse than the effect of the sugar. Not to mention, half of the children was disgusted with the menu - “where were the party stuff?”.  A party will always need the sweet stuff, and we just have to work with that.

When you plan a party you have to make peace that your children is going to take in sugar.  You need to boost their immune system before hand, supplement them with enzymes to digest the wrong stuff at the time of the party and will need to give them antioxidants after the party.  Then you need to try and get the best quality of cake and decorating ingredients where possible. For this reason we replace low quality icing sugar with all the bleaching, refining and accompanying colorants, with an excellent quality of sugar like Lindt chocolate.  

We also restrict colourings to the minimum. 

On Wednesday I made the huge mistake to buy thousand and thousands and all kinds of interesting decorating stars and circles from the decorating section of our local grocery store to decorate the cupcakes. 

The next 48 hours was a total disaster! We usually use normal sweets like smarties, astros and jelly tots to decorate cakes, this was the first time I bought these special decorating stuff.  It must have been the colorants (which clearly have of a much higher concentration of colorants than in normal sweets) which caused my children to go totally wild for 48 hours.  Their emotions were totally out of control.  They would cry for everything, got angry for nothing, and not be able to focus for any length of time! Never before did I experience this.  

This just confirmed to me, that when you need to use sugar make sure you use the best quality available. Stay away from the local baking supply store!  I noticed the other day, the products available in the baking section, very seldom have an ingredient lists. And the boxes with ready bake cake mixes, contains more preservatives, flavorings and colorants than actual flour.  

Bake from scratch and choose your ingredients carefully! 

For Saturday’s birthday cake I was blessed with Heidi-Mari and CJ taking full responsibility to bake and decorate the cake.  Danika and Daniel chose the theme.  Heidi-Mari used our traditional Basic French Sponge Cake for the cake, using spelt flour and NO baking soda and they used the ganaches to decorate the cake.  Since most of the cake was decorated with the brown ganache (chocolate which contains no colorants), we minimized the use of colorants.

For the first time ever I could go to bed at 10pm the evening before a child’s birthday party.  CJ and Heidi-Mari were still decorating the cake, but I knew they would create a show piece after observing and assisting me in decorating at least 50 cakes over the past 18 years. And they did!

Thank you CJ and Heidi-Mari for making Daniel’s 4th birthday a memory making event!

With love

Linnie

A Party and A Test of Faith

This year Danika and Andrew’s birthday party was a true test of faith, and once again God showed me He knows best and I can afford to trust Him - with everything! Even something as insignificant as a birthday party.

Six of my 8 children’s birthdays are in the winter months, and since we live in the Western Cape of South Africa, we not only suffer icy cold temperatures, but rain, rain and more rain!  Over the past 18 years, I got used to pray for sunny weather, weeks before birthday parties and always had a plan B up my sleeve.  Many of these party dates happened to be cloudy, rainy days, but God was always faithful - not one single time did it rain during the two hours of the party!  

Since the older three children started tennis in September last year, there is constant tennis fever in the house!  In February the children persuaded me to also get a tennis racket and tennis outfit and in March, Danika, Andrew and David started their tennis lessons as well!  In the beginning of the year Danika and Andrew, who have their birthdays one day apart, begged me to have a tennis party this year. I thought it a brilliant idea, but oh, it is the middle of the winter. Not quite the right weather for a tennis party!

Despite all this, we decided to go for it and prayerful planned the party.  Two weeks before the party I started to check AccuWeather. Saturday, the 9th would be a cloudless, sunny day!  But as the 9th approached, the weather changed. On the Wednesday before the party the clouds picked up, by Thursday it rained non-stopped and we measured 35mm in one day.  Friday wasn’t much better and according to AccuWeather the constant rain would become showers only by Saturday afternoon, and the sun would shine by Sunday!

I really tried hard to keep my faith and hope, but by Friday morning I had to face the facts.  The most interesting of all was that everything else about the party was playing out perfectly.  All the special friends could make the party. The party would be a celebration for 4 children’s birthdays. One, the boy of a Friend, who would have a newborn baby the next week. 

So there was no way we could move the party. I was stressed out. How would we be able to keep 30 children busy in the tennis club house, while it was pouring outside?  And what about Andrew en Danika who were passionately looking forward to their tennis party?

After crying it out on my dear husband’s lap, I realized I can do nothing about the weather, I prayed without cease for days and just have to trust the Lord and enjoy the preparations and the day with the children. 

With all the discipline inside of me, I managed to have an exciting Friday with the children, decorating the cake and cupcakes.

All the time I was waiting, hoping, trusting for the miracle. God opening the clouds and sending a bright, clear sky on Saturday morning. Came Saturday morning the first thing I heard after the alarm went off, was the sound of rain…  It rained even more than what was forecasted!  I started the morning like usual with my Hello Mornings Bible study - Love Like Him, and the whole time prayed that God will make a way, or give me peace to accept it and miraculously let the children still enjoy the party.

Came 9:30 the boys were sweeping the court and trying to get the excess water off the courts!  In this they were having a ball, even more when the party friends arrived, who grabbed more brooms to sweep the court, while it started to drizzle!

10:00 came and a sliver of sunshine broke through the clouds and the rain stopped.  We decided to take the chance to play outside and CJ, Heidi-Mari and Josua started the games.  

The children loved it and it struck me, that the weather actually didn’t bother them.

Twenty minutes into the games, it began to drizzle and soon it was pouring.  We quickly went inside the clubhouse and started the party, blowing candles, 

prayed for the birthday children,

handed out cupcakes.

Soon the children formed groups and were having fun, chatting and munching away party food!  

Half-an-hour later the clouds opened and the sun brightly shone down on the wet courts, all the children were out in seconds and the games started all over again.

  

It didn’t rain again, and by 11:30 the sun was shining warmly and the courts were dry.  The children had a blast and they were not bored for one moment or even concerned about the rain, to the contrary it added to all the excitement.  The rain was only bothering me…  It was my faith that was crumbling under my expectations.

This just reminded me again that God is more concerned about my holiness than my happiness.  God wants each of His children to grow in faith, hope, love, holiness - becoming mature Christians lacking nothing, who can go out and change the world.  

I experienced this first hand with my children.  When I’m only concern about keeping my children happy, I’m raising spoiled brats.  I want to raise young, content adults who show the fruit of the spirit, and that is not possible if I jump to every demand they have. Not long ago I read in an Above Rubies magazine, “Say No to your children, more.” The focus when raising children is not to keep them happy at all costs, quite the contrary.  They are born with the tendency to preserve themselves and be discontent - the sinful nature.  We as parents can only break that disposition by training them to lay aside their selfish nature and model to them a content, satisfied and peaceful character in every situation.

But do we as parents allow God to train us into content, satisfied and peaceful adults?  Aren’t we even worse than a two year old throwing a tantrum when things don’t go our way? I almost felt like a two year old who wants to throw all her toys out of the cot, when it seemed like God wasn’t going to change the weather! I had to remind myself quite a few times to practice patience and believe that God would turn this out for my good - He has a plan, clearly not my plan, but it is the best plan.

 

I think unknowingly we believe that when we are Christians all things will go well in our lives (after all God is on our side, isn’t He?) and we will not experience difficulty and hardship when we follow His plan for our lives.  When reading John 15 it is clear God prunes us to bear more fruit. Pruning isn’t without much pain and distress. When God prune us, He is taking away things in our lives, which we still like, so we can focus our lives more to Him.  Do we resist when God prunes us, or do we allow Him to take away what isn’t important in His eyes and be content?

Then we read in James 1 we ought to count it all joy when we fall into various trials to test our faith.  This is exactly what happened to me. God was testing my faith big time, through something as insignificant, but important to me, as a tennis party for my children.  How often does God do this?  The God I know does it quite regular in my life.  My response can be to throw a tantrum, make a new plan, compromise... or I can submit to God, which will produce patience and a growing in faith experience.  In 1 Peter 1 we get even more information on this testing of our faith.  It will only happen if need be, to test the genuineness of our faith, like the purifying of gold through fire.  A few verses further someone who submit to God in testing periods, is called an obedient child, someone who does not conform himself to his former lusts in ignorance.  He calls such a person, holy!

I am a mother, and I believe most of my readers are mothers, so in your lives most probably too, children is God’s main tool of putting me through trials and tribulations to test my faith. This makes me holy and prune my life from unwanted and unimportant activities. This isn’t surprising as we read in 1 Timothy 2 women will be saved (become more holy and content) in childbearing (accepting their role as mothers) if they continue in faith, love and self-control.

Therefore I want to encourage every mother who is giving her life to bear and train up Godly children, to lift your head up high! Your are doing a great and mighty work.  You are tested to your limits, but the reward is more than you can think or imagine! God began a good work in you and will continue this great work in you (Phil 1:6) if you allow Him. 

Don’t compromise dear mother, don’t fall for worldly solutions to fix you trial, keep your eyes on Jesus and He will bring it to pass. 

Danika, Andrew’s, DuPré and Yaron’s birthday party was a huge success! 

The children could easily play for a few more hours, especially after the two days of pouring rain! 

And I …

I have grown up a little more too!

Much love

Linnie

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