This week it was my mum's birthday so a great excuse for me to get baking because everyone deserves a cake on their birthday. The unfortunate thing is that my mum is trying to eat quite healthily at the moment so I wanted to make her a cake that she could enjoy but not feel too guilty about! After much consideration I decided on a sticky toffee and pecan cake which contains dates (they're healthy right?). We didn't have any pecan nuts so I used ground almonds in the cake mixture instead, and used margarine rather than butter to help cut the calorific content. To sandwich the cakes together I used low fat cream cheese mixed with brown sugar and maple syrup to sweeten it. I had already made model dancing ducks out of icing and marzipan (as my mum loves ducks) to put on the cake but this proved to be very difficult as they kept falling over ! I also tried to ice 'mum' on the cake in royal icing but it is NOT a good idea to do this on cream cheese icing (I should have known) as it runs! Nevertheless, my mum was still very impressed and thought the cake tasted lovely. I wasn't overly keen-it just wasn't indulgent (or sweet) enough for me (!) but it turned out perfect for my mum which is the important thing.
The icing ducks are now falling apart which gives me an excuse to eat them, and besides, my mum doesn't like fondant icing anyway!
