Preparing for Christmas

It's that time of year again, time to start preparing my Christmas cake. Actually according to the recipe I am following I should have started about 3 weeks ago! Oh well, better late than never. 

I have made a couple of Christmas cakes using this recipe before and they have turned out really well. It's from Ruth Clements' blog, The Pink Whisk. 

Christmas cake 2011

This year I am freestyling a bit with the fruit mix. My dad will not eat currants raisins or sultanas so I have missed them out the recipe. 

So at the moment I have a mix of cranberries,figs,dates,apricots,glacé cherries,dried cherries and fruit peel maturing in a brandy/sherry/orange sugar syrup. 

It's safely tucked away in a Tupperware box in my kitchen cupboard and It will stay there for next few weeks! 

I'll be back when it's time to make the cake. 

More Birthday Cakes for Little People

Here are a few more of the birthday cakes I have been asked to make...

Most recently I was requested to make a Peppa pig themed birthday cake.

Lyla, 3, specifically asked for a heart shaped chocolate cake with pink icing and Peppa sitting on the top...

I added the flowers to make it a little extra special. 

1st Birthday Cake

At the end of August my family celebrated my niece, Isla's, first birthday. It was a busy weekend as my parents were moving house and I also celebrated my 28th birthday. 

As the resident cake maker in the family, my brother and sister-in-law asked if I would make Isla's cake. They picked Isla's favourite story book, Dear Zoo, as the theme...

Being a perfectionist, or maybe just a faffer, it took me ages to make all the animals but I was pretty pleased with outcome and so was the birthday girl and her parents! Phew. 

Cakes for the Free Trade Inn

Having a boyfriend who manages a pub means I get roped into helping out sometimes. 

With a few special events planned I was asked if I could make suitable sweet treats. 

Cherry pie to go with the launch of a beer called 'Twin Peaks'.

Any of you who have watched the cult 90s tv series will know why this is relevant, the rest if you will just have to watch it to find out! 

IPA Day. With all the lovely IPAs on the bar, I was asked to make carrot cake 

but with the addition in cardemom to give  it a Indian spiced twist. The cardamom worked really well and the cakes were a success.

May 2013

Back in May, my oldest and dearest friend, Elinor, got married. She had asked me to be her bridemaid and I was absolutely thrilled. She also asked me to make her wedding cake and I was totally honoured ( and only slightly s****ing myself!). 

The bride and groom had decided on a two tiered cake made up of a lemon cake and a carrot cake. That was the easy part. The decoration was a little more complex! 

I do like a challenge! 

Stripes, stripes and more stripes....

It took a while but I was pretty pleased with the outcome! 

They seemed pleased! 

Remember me...

Wow, I have well and truly neglected my blog in the past 2 years! Now im not going to promise anything but I will try not to leave it as long between posts from now on!

So to start things off, again, i'll put up a few pictures of what I've been baking recently...

Christmas Cake

I know it is a little late to be blogging about Christmas related baking but I have had little interent access since moving house and really wanted to share this as I was very proud of handy work!

So this was my first attempt at a Christmas cake but I was really keen to have a go.
I got the recipe from The Pink Whisk blog and it was so simple. I loved how my kitchen was filled with the smells of Christmas in the middle of October as I prepared the fruit.

The cake was part of my contribution to my family's Christmas and I have never seen a Christmas cake disappear so quickly. Definitely a recipe to come out again next year!