I have just returned from holiday after spending 2 weeks in Mauritius and after relaxing with OH and doing nothing but eating, reading, drinking & sleeping (in that order), we have come back all refreshed.
I have a christening cake to do in a couple of weeks for a little boy so I will have to pull my finger out and get all the stuff I need ordered and then birthday season kicks off again in September!
In the meantime I will be sleeping off jetlag and eating shop bought cake! Oh the shame.......!
Be back soon!
Friday, 29 July 2011
Friday, 8 July 2011
Chloe's 8th Birthday Mermaid Spetacular
Today is my beautiful niece, Chloe's birthday. She is 8 years old and after much deliberation, I decided to make her a mermaid cake as she loves things to do with the sea for her birthday party on Saturday. She also loves nearly all the cakes in my various cake decorating books and I frequently find post-it notes marking the pages with her favourites on...which is nearly all of them!
This took me about 5 and a half hours in total to do. The trickiest bit was actually the 'sea', I mixed white and blue icing together with blue lustre dust to try and create a swirl pattern and then because the base of the board is iced as well with sand coloured icing, I had to cover the actual sponge separately and then pick it up and place it in hopefully the middle of the covered board. Fiddly to say the least!
I made an octopus and seashells with pearls and glittery starfish!
The sand was created by mixing a small amount of brown icing (which is chocolate flavoured!) in with some white and then covering the board and kind of scrunching the icing up a bit towards the edges and then sticking bits on here and there. OH kept trying to tell me that there were creases in it!!
I got some brilliant little fish cutters which came in 3 different sizes and I used these to cut out fondant shapes and glittered them up to go on top of cupcakes which will be given out to Chloe's party guests to take home.
I used a mixture green, blue and gold lustre dusts on the mermaids tail.
Hope she likes it!!
This took me about 5 and a half hours in total to do. The trickiest bit was actually the 'sea', I mixed white and blue icing together with blue lustre dust to try and create a swirl pattern and then because the base of the board is iced as well with sand coloured icing, I had to cover the actual sponge separately and then pick it up and place it in hopefully the middle of the covered board. Fiddly to say the least!
Monday, 4 July 2011
Last Minute Retirement Cake!
Saturday was a back to back baking day! A friend needed a retirement cake fairly quickly (for Monday) for someone who she works with and she only called me at 3.30pm on the Saturday! But I don't think I did too bad, four hours later, Carol had her cake....
Ruby Anniversary
My parents celebrated their Ruby Wedding at the weekend. 40 years together.....what's that saying...you get less for murder!! Well we had a family lunch out and gave them their presents & cards and their cake and I think on the whole they had a lovely day. Even got a text from my Dad to say the cake was lovely! High praise indeed!!
I embossed the white cake icing with a pattern and then dusted all over with lustre dust to give a nice pearlised finish and then hand made all the roses. I had made the hearts the week before to give them time to set on the wires and dusted the white ones with a lustre dust.
Friday, 1 July 2011
Patch the Puppy Dog
Little Mr Harry Holden is 4 next week and for his party this weekend I have made Patch the Puppy dog along with his cakepop friends!
Patch was made using a basic sponge mix recipe and dividing between 2 pyrex bowls (one slightly smaller than the other). You just have to keep checking after 20 minutes as to whether the sponges are cooked all the way through. The smaller bowl took around 35 minutes and the larger one around 50 minutes. Leave to cool which takes quite a while before spreading buttercream on and then I used a pre-rolled icing sheet to cover.
The cake pops were tricky to do. They taste great though but does that outweigh the fussiness in making them? Its all very fiddly if I'm honest, the candy melt stuff sets very quickly so its a rush to get the stuff on the cake and then if you put too much on its difficult to even the covering out. It took me 3 and a half hours to make 18 of them! You can now buy the candy melt chocolate in Hobbycraft but at £3.99 a bag, its not cheap stuff, especially when you want 4 different colours!
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
A June Birthday Cake
My Mother-In-Law's birthday falls at the end of June and as they are going on holiday in a few days time, I made her birthday cake for her at the weekend to enjoy. I was very impressed with the Hummingbird cake so I decided to make one for her birthday cake as well as I think it looks rather impressive. Instead of the usual pecans, I added various sized blossoms all over the cake in white, pale pink and bright pink fondant.
This time I have remembered the recipe!
Hummingbird Cake
300g caster sugar
3 eggs
300 ml vegetable oil
270 g mashed bananas (about 3 large ones)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
300g plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
100 g tinned chopped pineapple
100g pecans (or walnuts) chopped (or mixed nuts) plus extra to decorate if doing the plain version (I used mixed chopped nuts in the cake & just pecans to decorate on the previous cake)
2 quantities of cream cheese frosting * See later recipe
Preheat oven to 170°C or Gas 3 - I do 160°C as I have a fan assisted oven.
Put the sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, oil, banana & cinnamon in a freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment and beat until all the ingredients are well incorporated (don't worry if the mixture looks slightly split). Slowly add the flour, bicarbonate of soda & salt and continue to beat until everything is well mixed.
Stir in the chopped pineapple and chopped mixed nuts by hand until evenly dispersed.
Pour the mixture between 3 prepared cake tins (greased). Don't worry the batter is quite liquidy but it will go amongst 3 tins. Place in oven for 20 - 25 minutes or until the sponge bounces back. Leave to cool slightly in the tins and then turn out to completely cool on a wire rack.
When the cakes are cold, place one sponge layer on a cake stand or whatever you are going to use (plate, board etc) and spread an amount of cream cheese frosting on top. Then place the next layer on top and repeat until all 3 layers have been used. Top the last cake on top and then spread the frosting down the sides to cover. Make the 'lines' on the cake by running a palette knife up and down the sides. Finish with either the pecans arranged on top or fondant cut outs, which ever you prefer.
Cream Cheese Frosting
300g icing sugar
50g unsalted butter at room temperature (soft)
125g cream cheese, cold (Philadelphia or supermarket equivalent)
This makes up one amount of the frosting. This is enough to do about 12 cupcakes. For the Hummingbird cake you need to double these amounts. You will have some left over though but it keeps well in the fridge for a few days.
Beat the icing sugar and the butter in a freestanding mixer until well mixed then add the cream cheese and beat on a medium speed. Continue to mix until the frosting is light and fluffy (at least 5 minutes) but take care not to over beat as it can quickly go runny.
This frosting also works really well with red velvet cakes.
This time I have remembered the recipe!
Hummingbird Cake
300g caster sugar
3 eggs
300 ml vegetable oil
270 g mashed bananas (about 3 large ones)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
300g plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
100 g tinned chopped pineapple
100g pecans (or walnuts) chopped (or mixed nuts) plus extra to decorate if doing the plain version (I used mixed chopped nuts in the cake & just pecans to decorate on the previous cake)
2 quantities of cream cheese frosting * See later recipe
Preheat oven to 170°C or Gas 3 - I do 160°C as I have a fan assisted oven.
Put the sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, oil, banana & cinnamon in a freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment and beat until all the ingredients are well incorporated (don't worry if the mixture looks slightly split). Slowly add the flour, bicarbonate of soda & salt and continue to beat until everything is well mixed.
Stir in the chopped pineapple and chopped mixed nuts by hand until evenly dispersed.
Pour the mixture between 3 prepared cake tins (greased). Don't worry the batter is quite liquidy but it will go amongst 3 tins. Place in oven for 20 - 25 minutes or until the sponge bounces back. Leave to cool slightly in the tins and then turn out to completely cool on a wire rack.
When the cakes are cold, place one sponge layer on a cake stand or whatever you are going to use (plate, board etc) and spread an amount of cream cheese frosting on top. Then place the next layer on top and repeat until all 3 layers have been used. Top the last cake on top and then spread the frosting down the sides to cover. Make the 'lines' on the cake by running a palette knife up and down the sides. Finish with either the pecans arranged on top or fondant cut outs, which ever you prefer.
Cream Cheese Frosting
300g icing sugar
50g unsalted butter at room temperature (soft)
125g cream cheese, cold (Philadelphia or supermarket equivalent)
This makes up one amount of the frosting. This is enough to do about 12 cupcakes. For the Hummingbird cake you need to double these amounts. You will have some left over though but it keeps well in the fridge for a few days.
Beat the icing sugar and the butter in a freestanding mixer until well mixed then add the cream cheese and beat on a medium speed. Continue to mix until the frosting is light and fluffy (at least 5 minutes) but take care not to over beat as it can quickly go runny.
This frosting also works really well with red velvet cakes.
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Hummingbird Cake
This cake is the signature cake from the Hummingbird Bakery, London and I have been wanting to try this cake for ages but kept finding I had parts of the ingredient list missing. Eventually I had everything I needed so on Saturday afternoon this was on the baking agenda.
What a simple cake to make! Very much along the lines of a carrot cake in taste & texture but with a few added ingredients (and no carrots!). The addition of pineapple chunks and bananas keep this cake super moist and the cream cheese frosting works really well to complement the overall taste of the cake.
I made this for my Dad for Father’s Day and it looked very impressive indeed. There is plenty of mixture for 3 tins as it is quite a liquid batter so don’t worry that you are going to run out.
If you are making a cake for a special occasion and don’t want to go down the fondant icing route then I would thoroughly recommend you make this cake as it both looks great and tastes fab!
(Oops, forgot to take down the ingredients list for this cake as well!! ....will re-post tomorrow with the details)
(Oops, forgot to take down the ingredients list for this cake as well!! ....will re-post tomorrow with the details)
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| You can see the pineapple chunks in the cake which keep it lovely & moist. Sandwich all 3 layers together with the cream cheese frosting |
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| Decorate with Pecan nuts. The lines were done with a small palette knife |
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| Arty shot!! |
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