Strawberry Jam Birthday cake and Smeg 50's style stand mixer review

 I have to make Birthday cake for my niece every years, ^^. Well, first it's not her request, me or my sister is the one who decide what kind of cake that we want to do.

But this year she started to have her own decision, she wanted to have Hello Kitty (with strawberry cake inside). I had to make large one because she invited her friends to her Birthday party (about 20 of kids and 10 of  their parents^^") Well it's not hard to make as this time I have a new partner, hehe.
I just got this Smeg 50's style stand mixer last month (well, still in testing process, but I really want to own it now). The first thing that came to my mind is it's very beautiful. Mine is in baby blue color (there are a lot of colors to choose from: cream, red, silver, black, baby blue, mint green and pink). 
The body is die-cast aluminium powder coated, and it's not too heavy (it's about 9.5 kg, I love this fact because now I can move it around without asking for my brother to help me). 
The power and speed selector made of stainless steel, 10 variable speed with Smooth start function, means it start from the lowest speed before going to the speed that you select.
The power of this stand mixer is 800 W, so you can do a lot of thing with it. Such as whipping 1 litre of whipping cream, mixing 2.8 kg of cake batter or 1.3 kg of bread dough and whipping 12 egg whites. 
It comes with steel wire whisk, aluminium flat beater,  Aluminium dough hook, stainless steel 4.8 litres bowl and Pouring shield. You can buy optional Accessories, such as Pasta Roller and Cutter set (pasta roller, tagliolini cutter and fettuccine cutter in one set - you can buy each one separately if you want) and Spaghetti cutter . They can be attached to the stand mixer in the front attachment hub.
Actually when I used it for the first time, I had a little problem. Because when locked the bowl to the base I thought that it has to stay in place firmly, and I locked it quite hard ( until I couldn't move it) and after that I couldn't remove the bowl. So I asked the technician for the advise, and he said that the bowl won't be firmly lock as it meant to be loose a bit. It will create centrifugal force while using, (you can see from the Video that the bowl will move slightly while using) wow, I never known about it before.

With my niece's birthday cake, it's a good chance to try it with a lot of batter (about 2.2 kg of the batter) and yes, making Italian meringue butter cream mean it had to stand the long working time (but it has Overload motor protection, so I didn't have to worry, right?). 
This time I make strawberry jam swirl butter cake, and fill it with strawberry jam, butter cream and cover with butter cream. I made the Hello Kitty face and flower using chocolate. Well, I think I have to tell you what I think after spending my days with this stand mixer ^^.
The first thing that I love about it is, it's not too load. As I always listen to the songs and dance around while playing in my kitchen, this is the best. I can mixing the cake batter and hearing the music at the same time, hehe. The second best is it's not running around the table, (thank to Anti-slip feet and die-cast aluminium body) you can understand why I feel so impressed if you had the same experience before. The speed selector is very smooth (both in touching and working, haha). 
The bowl is not too heavy, for a woman like me, it's good that I can use one hand to hold it and pour the batter into the pan ^^.
So, for me I think I love it, and beside from its performance it's so cute on my counter too, haha.

Now SMEG Thailand has a promotion for 

Smeg 50's style stand mixer

From 32,500 Baht, now it's only 25,900 Baht

until 15 Jan 2016

*Guarantee for 2 years

 Strawberry Jam Birthday cake

Make 1 - 2 tier cake and 6 cupcakes

Cake
360g .................................. Butter*
510g ................................... Icing sugar
6 ......................................... Eggs
300g ................................... Cake flour
240g ................................... All purpose flour
15g ..................................... Baking powder
180g ................................... Whole milk
240g ................................... Whipping cream
300g ................................... Strawberry jam (I use 2 batch of this Strawberry jam)

Butter cream
150g ................................... Egg whites
285g ................................... Granulated sugar
60g ..................................... Water
450g ................................... Butter*, soft, cut into small pieces
1tbsp .................................. Vanilla extract

Assembling
........................................... Simple syrup
........................................... Strawberry jam

Note*: If using unsalted butter add a pinch of salt 

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Line the base and side of 1- 7 inch, 1-8inch cake pans, and have ready 6 paper cups.
Sift both of flour, and baking powder together.
Mix the milk and whipping cream together.

 Put the butter into a bowl of the stand mixer, beat until smooth.

Add the icing sugar, mix with low speed until fully combine.

 Increase the speed and beat until light in color.

Reduce the speed, slowly pour the eggs into the bowl.

 Increase the speed and beat until fully combine.

 Add 1/3 of flour mixture and mix at low speed.

 Add half of the milk mixture, and mix at low speed.

Add 1/2 of the flour mixture, and mix at low speed.

Add the rest of the milk mixture, and mix at low speed.

 Add the rest of the flour mixture then mix at low speed until fully combine.

Increase the speed and mix until smooth.

Fold the strawberry jam into the batter.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake.

 22-25 minutes for cupcakes.

 55-65 minutes for the large pans.
Let the cake cool on a wire rack while preparing the butter cream.

 Put the egg whites into a bowl of the stand mixer.
Beat until soft peak form.

 Meanwhile put the sugar and water into a saucepan and place over medium heat.
Let it become boil until the temperature reach 114C.
Slowly pour the hot syrup into the bowl (beating all the time).

 Beat until cool.

 Mix in the butter into the meringue.

 Pour the vanilla into a bowl.

 Beat until smooth.

 Decorating the cupcake.

 Slice each 7inch and 8inch cake into 2 layers.
place 1 layer on cake on a cake board.
Sprinkle with syrup.

 Spread the jam over the cake.

Cover with butter cream.
Place another layer on cake over the butter cream, sprinkle with the syrup and cover the top and side of the cake with butter cream.
Do the same for another cake.
Place the small cake over the large one and decorate as you want.
Mine is decorated with chocolate Kitty face and flowers. ^^

Strawberry Jam Birthday cake and Smeg 50's style stand mixer review