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! 

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!

Birthday Cakes

I LOVE my Primrose Bakery cookbook and I've been baking from it again! I know cupcakes are everywhere at the moment but I couldn't help myself!
I bought some gorgeous cupcake cases from Lakeland and Raspberry cupcakes with White Chocolate buttercream seemed like the perfect recipe to fill them.
To make them extra special for the Birthday Girl, my Beautiful Big Sis, I decorated them with edible glitter for lots of sparkle!

They went down a treat, even after a massive Italian meal!

The Cake...

The cakes were baked, vanilla, fruit and chocolate brown ale, and ready to be iced.
After all my practicing I was still a little nervous but magically it all went amazingly well! I took my time and tried not to panic!



I attached the roses ( using inspiration from images of other wedding cakes) and I was pretty chuffed with the final result. And after it was transported and delivered I was even happier!

The Wedding Cake

So after all my prepping and practicing the time finally came to get cracking!
I spent a lot of time making the sugar roses and they didn't come without their problems.Argh!
The main issue was the colour of the flower paste. I first attempted to dye my own but for various reasons that didn't work, so I used a ready made colour, Ponsettia, but the colour still wasn't right! As time was running out I had to go with that colour. My mum, the saviour that she is, then painstakingly painted each rose with red food paste. I've definitely learnt my lesson for the future, be super, super organised!

Claire's 30th Birthday Cake

My oldest friend and best bud, Elinor, asked me if I would make her sister, Claire, a cake for her 30th Birthday.

My brief, to make a 'posh style victoria sponge'!

I used a recipe I saw on a Hairy Bikers programme, I think they visited the WI and they passed on the recipe. Its pretty simple.....

Weigh 3 eggs for a 6 inch cake
or
4 eggs for a 7inch cake
Use the same weight as the eggs for the...

Butter
Caster Sugar
Sifted Self Raising flour

then...
A pinch of baking powder
A few drops of Vanilla Extract

Cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat the eggs together and beat in a little at a time to the butter and sugar, adding a small amount of flour at the same time to prevent the mixture from curdling.
Add in the Vanilla Extract.
Fold in the rest of the flour and baking powder gently with a metal spoon. ( Be very gentle with it at this stage)
The mixture should be a soft dropping consistency, if it's a little stiff add a small amount dash of milk.
Divide the mixture into two lined and greased tins.
Bake in the centre of the oven 180c/gas 4 for approx 25-30 mins until golden and springy.
Remove from the tins and cool on a wire rack.

When the cake cools this is your chance to go to town. Most recipes suggest to sandwich the cake with jam and then sift icing or caster sugar over the top.

I filled the cake with raspberry jam, whipped cream, strawberries and raspberries. On the top I piped a little more whipped cream and then piled on the leftover strawberries and raspberries. I left a few of the stalks on strawberries to give it some extra colour. To finish it off i sifted some icing sugar over the top.





I hope this answered the brief, I was pretty happy with the outcome.

Happy Birthday Claire!

A Success

I'm feeling really pleased with myself and more confident about making Laura and James' wedding cake. I had a go at Nigella's Chocolate Guinness cake replacing the guinness with Newcastle Brown Ale. The method isn't the usual way you would expect to make a cake but I went with it and it turned out really well.





The cake is really moist which I think will work well for the wedding cake because I will have to make it upto 2 days before the wedding. Again I've iced it with ready-to-roll icing and was much happier with the way it turned out. I left out the marzipan this time as I think it with be too much with the other flavours.



Although I am pleased with the icing I still need to practice as it's still a bit bumpy. After discussing this with my mum we came to the conclusion that I will have to double ice the cake or make sure the icing isn't rolled too thin.

The Wedding Cake

My friends,Laura and Brian, got married in May and asked me to make their cupcake wedding cake. As it was the first time i'd attempted anything like this on my own I was pretty nervous but I think it turned out ok in the end!

The cupcakes were simple vanilla but with ingredients including yogurt and ground almonds meaning they stayed moist and fresh for the big day. The icing was white choclate butter icing. Super simple and super tasty!

Mum helped me with the top cake. Bismark fruit cake. A recipe passed down from my Grandma. Unlike a traditional fruit cake Bismark is full of brazil nuts, pineapple, coconut, cranberries in a light, moist sponge.