It was Youngest's birthday at the beginning of the month, so of course a cake had to be made. I had very strict instructions - it had to be chocolate and it had to be a number 5, and no pink! Not much room for creativity there then. I used a recipe from my Australian Women's Weekly Childrens party cake book, with a slight adaptation, in that I reduced the quantity of sugar in the cake by about 100g. When I have made it before it has been over sweet, and with butter icing on top it was just too much.
Having made the cakes, and trimmed them as per the instructions to get the number 5, I was left with quite a few off cuts that were too nice to not use. After decorating the cake I was left with a large quantity of butter icing. I had a vague recollection of seeing/reading something about cake truffles, so after a quick internet search I found this. I used the recipe as a base - crumbed all the left over pieces of cake and then stirred them into the butter icing. I scooped them into balls and put them in the fridge on a lined baking tray. Whist they firmed up I melted a little plain chocolate and put some 100's & 1000's (sprinkles) in a bowl ready for dipping.
By this time I had a couple of 'helpers' lured by the possibility of sneaking any leftovers! When the chocolate had melted we stuck cocktail sticks into the cake balls, then double dipped into the chocolate, then the sprinkles, and put them back into the fridge. These were then taken into school the next day as birthday treats. The treats went down very well as did the birthday cake itself, however, this seems to be the only birthday cake I have made that I haven't taken a proper photo of.
