The blog has moved

The blog has moved to www.clairegevaux.co.uk

It has arrived!!!

My new Kenwood Chef Premier has arrived and is wonderful. I am so happy. I've already baked a batch. It's so much better to beat and whip....I'm going to enjoy doing large batches in this 4.8L capacity bowl! Hurrah!

Corporate Logos!

Last night I made a few cupcakes for work as I was going to a training session on our Compete For web portal which allows a transparent process with equal opportunity for all businesses to register their intereste in bidding for services and goods opportunities. I made these cupcakes as they were offering some nasty synthetic doughnuts to tempt people to come to a session. The dognuts(!) put me off..

Here's naked cupcakes and fondant iced cupcakes ready for their toppings.


Here's some of the left over sugarpaste made into flowers.

And here's the Compete For log in sugarpaste! They went down well and hopefully I'll be invited to make some more!

Chocolate Mud cake

Last weekend I tried out white chocolate mud cake recipe as I have been thinking of expanding my repertoir of cake flavours.

These rather dense, white chocolately cakes were lovely with their strange crispy top. I debated long and hard, and on facebook, about what icing should top off these very sweet cakes. Lots of people made suggestions but I went with coffee. I thought lime but Phil disagreed. Next time I'll try raspberry, coconut or lime.

I think I'm going to ditch the big swirls, I get too many complaints about buttercream to cake ratio...too much generally. Also I just can't get them perfectly round so might just stick to roses and small pipe crowns for now.

Teacher's pet

These were made for my sister-in-law so she could give them to the teachers at her daughter's school to say thank you. If I were a teacher, I'd be happy with that...Apparently they were. My first paid gig too, thanks Emma!

Wedding taste test box

My first attempt at a wedding sample box, these ones were for a friend at work so no charge...I know it's a bad habit to get into...Phil does the money, I am useless.

Lots of baking...good for post operative recovery...

This week I have been off recovering from a small operation which involved some stitches and recovery has been easier standing up than sitting....so, what else to do but bake in between resting of course.

First I tried out an idea for the wedding cake test box I'm making next week. One of the suggestions was to use fresh strawberries so I used strawberries in the buttercream and added a dollop of strawberry jam hidden in the cake itself.
The strawberries added to buttercream was a bit of trial and error to then get consistency right again as the berries added so much liquid.
I'm going to experiment with using a reduced strawberry coulis rather than just throwing them in the mixer next time. Other than that they tasted delicious - according to my panel of testers across the road.
Next...Phil wanted some cupcakes to take into work for a presentation learning session he was running last week. So I make the cakes and toppings and he iced them when I was in hospital.

Nice joint effort. I did point out that I would have flooded them up to the top of the paper cases but he didn't mind...

Next...One of our friends was having a birthday party for her 3 year old daughter and I offered to make some cupcakes for the party. There was a sport theme but I didn't rise to the challenge of making sports day equipment in sugarpaste! It was slightly easier to make lovely girlie coloured toppings and icings.

Next....and finally Pirates and Princess cupcakes for Maddie's 4th Birthday party on Saturday. We've all been partied out this weekend and had a great time. I really enjoyed making these cakes with thanks to all the inspiration from Flickr and Blogs on what pirate faces look like and how I could make them. It was labour intensive but lots of fun.

The princess cakes were simple with jewel encrusted glittery crowns and a range of flowers. Pirate faces along side coins, hooks and anchors were displayed on the other stand which gave it a retro 60s feel! All went down very well and I'm very happy that I did a children's themed party...




Next week a wedding taster box and a couple of dozen cakes for some lucky teachers....

Scary cupcakes....

The challenge this weekend was to bake cupcakes for a group of 13/14 year old boys for Sam's Birthday party at Skirmish paint ball. I know, the last thing on a 13/14 year old boy's mind is eating cupcakes but I couldn't resist the challenge.

In the end I just went with dark colours and one cutter which I had of a skull and cross bones. I did think about doing targets for shooting but couldn't work out how to do it without buying lots of circle cutters....

Anyway I think these are ok, and Sam liked them which was just great.

Next weekend, Maddie's birthday party and the school summer fete....major baking...Oh and I have to squeeze in a little minor surgery in the middle of the week which should make life interesting.