Okay, so you're probably wondering why I've been a bad girl? Well, it's fairly obvious really...I've not updated my blog quite a while (as you may have noticed!). However, that isn't to say I haven't been baking. Quite the opposite really. I've been very busy baking, cake decorating, and trying to fit in a little college work inbetween (eek!). I was planning to wait until college was over until I made my next blog post, but tonight I decided that would be far too long, and that I would get straight to work on a new update. So here it is! As I have made quite a lot of sweets and treats in the past few months, I thought I would share a few of the best with you.
Last week we celebrated a special occasion, as my (not so) little sister Helen turned 21 years of age. With help from my sisters boyfriend Rabbi, me and my parents organised a suprise jungle themed party for Helen last Saturday, which, luckily we managed to keep a suprise until the big night! The party was a success and everybody seemed to have a brilliant time.
I put myself in charge of the sweets and cake (not suprisingly) and created a birthday cake that tied in with the jungle theme. I'd actually been planning this cake for a long time as last year, I said to myself that Helen's 21st birthday cake would be the best cake I've ever made! I really wanted to live up to my own expectations...
The finished cake consisted of three tiers made from different types of sponge: fruit cake, chocolate cake and victoria sandwich. The best three types of cake in my opinion! I decorated the cakes in animal print designs and made jungle animals out of marzipan (I also sneaked in a Tigger, did you notice?)
Everybody was certainly very impressed with the cake (including Helen) and although it took a lot of work, I felt a great sense of achievement once the finished piece was put together- the hard work always pays off in the end- especially when you eat the first slice!
I managed to get a few close up shots of the marzipan animals as I think they are kinda cute. What do you think?
Last week we celebrated a special occasion, as my (not so) little sister Helen turned 21 years of age. With help from my sisters boyfriend Rabbi, me and my parents organised a suprise jungle themed party for Helen last Saturday, which, luckily we managed to keep a suprise until the big night! The party was a success and everybody seemed to have a brilliant time.
The finished cake consisted of three tiers made from different types of sponge: fruit cake, chocolate cake and victoria sandwich. The best three types of cake in my opinion! I decorated the cakes in animal print designs and made jungle animals out of marzipan (I also sneaked in a Tigger, did you notice?)
I managed to get a few close up shots of the marzipan animals as I think they are kinda cute. What do you think?
A good chocolate cake is one of lifes little pleasures that nobody should go without. This is one of the reasons I really wanted to have a go at making one that tastes delicious but is also gluten free. I have some great recipes for moist and fudgy chocolate cakes but instead of using one of these and trying to make it gluten free I decided to find a new recipe. I came across one on taste.com that contains both cocoa powder and melted dark chocolate to give a really deep chocolate flavour so I thought this would be a good one to go for.
The cake is made using the creaming method but instead of adding the eggs whole, they are seperated and the whites beaten until they form soft peaks. These are then folded into the mixture once all the other ingredients have been added. I guess this is to help the cake rise and give it a light texture. However, although the cake did rise, I found that the sponge was actually quite dense- not necessarily a bad thing though!
The cake did have a lovely deep chocolate flavour and was fairly moist, however my search for the 'perfect' gluten free chocolate cake is certainly not over. There are plenty of recipes out there and I will continue to experiment until I find my favourite!
What makes a perfect chocolate cake for you? Let me know!
It's that time of year again and I've been looking forward to getting in the kitchen and baking some halloween themed goodies. I haven't made cupcakes in a while so I decided on baking these, plus some tombstone shaped shortbread.
I also made a batch of chocolate cupcakes and decorated them in butter icing that I dyed with red food colouring for a devilish twist! For the devil horns I used broken bits of Cadburys giant buttons-yum!
Along with the cupcakes I baked some shortbread which I flavoured with orange peel and cut into tombstone shapes. I then half coated these in milk chocolate and finished them off by icing 'RIP'- quite difficult to do when the biscuits are coated with sugar as the icing does not stick very well!
Next week I'll be using up the flesh from the pumpkin I carved- I'm thinking pumpkin pie maybe? If you have any other suggestions for baking with pumpkin please let me know :)
I have always loved the smell of fresh coffee and coffee flavoured things but it wasn't until I was 18 that I actually started drinking the stuff. A iced vanilla latte from starbucks at university was my first coffee experience and the beginning of my love for it! I'm not a fan of tea so for me, coffee and cake is a perfect combination. My mum often made coffee cakes with butter icing when she had her catering business and they were delicious so I thought I'd get into the kitchen and make my own. The recipe I have used in the past is Delia's Austrian coffee and walnut cake. I think this is a great recipe because once the sponge has come out of the oven it is soaked in an espresso syrup which makes the cake beautifully moist and gives it a lovely coffee flavour.
I decided to increase the ingredient quantities of mine and bake the mixture in three sandwich tins so give a triple layer cake. Delia uses mascarpone and fromage frais to sandwich the cakes together but I went for a classic coffee butter icing as I don't think you can go wrong with that! Most coffee and walnut cakes are decoared with walnut halves but I find them rather ugly so I thought coffee beans might look a little more attractive. However, crunching on coffee beans isn't all that nice and chocolate ones are expensive so I opted for making them out of marzipan. I think they look pretty realistic, don't you?
"Kelly, what kind of things does your partner like?"
"He likes going to the pub"
Hmmm...a cake with a pint of beer iced on it? Nah, maybe not..
"Anything else he likes?"
"Well, he supports Nottingham Forest."
Aha. This was better. I could do a white cake with a Nottingham Forest logo iced in the middle and 'Happy Birthday Richard' written around the edge- simple(ish) but effective!
I decided to consult my mother. After a short discussion we decided that the best thing to do was make a plaque out of roll out icing to cover the mistake and start again on top. This time, I really couldn't mess up! Luckily my second attempt was much better and I am fairly happy with the finished cake. Most importantly, Kelly thought it was lovely and has even requested another cake for christmas. Sometimes these things are just meant to happen. We learn valuble lessons from our mistakes!
I have a great recipe for an american carrot cake from Leith's Baking Bible which I have made a few times and always goes down well. However, I thought I'd experiment a little this time and make a gluten free version. From what I have read about gluten free baking, cakes made without wheat need a little more liquid in the mixture and are likely to be more denser and crumbly than a cake with wheat. As carrot cake has a lot of moisture from the vegetable oil, brown sugar and carrots I thought this would be a good recipe to try using gluten free flour.
The resulting cake was still quite moist but a bit more crumbly than the normal version. I iced the cake using cream cheese sweetened with a little caster sugar as I didn't want it to be overly sweet and I find that adding icing sugar turns it into a sloppy mess! For the final touch I made little carrots out of marzipan to decorate- I knew these would sell the cake, and they did! I got some really good feedback so this is definetely a cake I will try baking again.
My first attempt at photographing the cake...
My friend Jo, a keen photographer gave me a hand with taking a few pictures of the cake, as this is something I really struggle with. She showed me how to make a 'mock studio' using large sheets of white cardboard as the background. The idea is that the light reflects off the paper onto the object you're photographing- I think! Anyway, this seemed to work and I'm quite happy with the photos, thanks Jo!
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