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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.

Iced cookies...trickier than I thought

So last week I made some rolled cookie dough to practise making some cookies for a summer fete in a couple of weeks. I have since found anothe recipe which I'm going to try out again this weekend as I found this dough hard to manage - I think my butter was just too soft. I'm also trying to work out whether to put the sticks in before or after cooking. I tried both and it didn't seem to make much difference but any advice would be gratefully received!
So, here's the first batch of cookies.


















Then on Friday myself and the kids did a bit of decorating. Millie turned out to be quite interested and quite good at it actually. Hettie had fun putting as much as possible on the top of her owl shaped cookie and then scraping it off and eating it.

It's harder than it looks icing cookies... I tried the Royal Icing method after a kindly taste tester at work (Tony) told me he thought something crunchy on top would work well as the cookies were quite soft.

So here's my attempt at icing cookies. I think I need to get the icing consistency better for piping but some of them weren't too bad. They tasted nice anyway and bagged up in celophane with a ribbon I expect they'll look better too!
























Coming up next...skull and cross bones for a 14 year old's paint ball party....

Success!

Wow, that was a week testing baking skills and being organised! I spent most evenings last week making all the sugarpaste decorations for the engagement party cakes so that I was as prepared as possible! I now have lots of tubs of different coloured sugarpaste toppings as I made rather a lot, not really knowing how far sugarpaste stretches yet.

Here's a selection of the toppings I made. I was trying to fit as many colours in as possible but managed to end up making most of the colours match which was quite useful!

I made the following cake flavours: vanilla bean, rich chocolate, maple syrup and pecan, blackberry and vanilla, gingerbread and lemon curd making a batch of 12 or so cakes of each. Some of them had to be tested for consistency so I ended up with 66 cakes to ice and decorate. I made couple of different icing flavours too so I ended up with the following cake and icing combinations:

Vanilla and chocolate

Chocolate and mint

Maple syrup, pecan and vanilla

Lemon and vanilla

Gingerbread and lemon

Blackberry, vanilla and lemon

Here are some of the naked cakes. I'm not sure about the chocolate ones I think the balance of cocoa powder to flour wasn't right so I'll adapt that next time.

The lemon ones weren't quite cooked long enough and were a bit sticky on top but I decided (or rather Phil advised) me to make them more sticky by scooping out the middle and putting in a dollop of lemon curd before putting their lids back on. I think it worked well!

Here's a lovely montage that Phil made for me....

Mum bought me a really nice metal stand to display cupcakes in which will come in handy as I think I have my first paid gig!

And here's the final cakes all of which received a really impressive amount of praise from the testers at the party. But most importantly, Lizzie and David liked them so hopefully I've got a wedding job next May!

Next...

This Friday/Saturday I shall mostly be baking cupcakes for Lizzie and David's engagement party. I'm being a bit adventurous and going for vanilla, chocolate, lemon and coconut and gingerbread flavours with vanilla, chocolate, mint and lemon buttercream swirls.

Wish me luck.

Almost perfect!

I've actually made three batches of cupcakes in the last week but only managed to photograph one. Fortunately I saved the best until last! I made one batch to take to a coffee afternoon for mums and kids and to take home for my sister and mum. The second batch I made for the masterclass I held with Sarah and her friend Jo. These weren't as successful cake mixtures unfortunately and were hard little pebbles. Oh well I guess there have to be some mistakes along the way.
The third batch I made when we got home on Saturday night, having so little time to make them before lunch on Sunday. But I am so proud of these!


I hope Lizzie doesn't look at my blog this week as I'll be reproducing these on Friday for her Party on Saturday!





Irene at her birthday meal on Sunday.

Lemon Meringue Pie for a family BBQ

For the family BBQ this weekend I made lemon meringue pie (with raspberries). The recipe came from BBCGoodFood again. I really must expand my recipe research horizons!

I was quite pleased with the pastry as it was just on the right side of biscuity. I had misread the oven temperature though so cooked it on a bit too high a heat so it was a little singed looking. For a first stab at lemon meringue I thought it was ok. I didn't make the lemon bit from scratch owing to time pressures and frankly, that's just too much to do on a Sunday morning. Perhaps it would have been a bit more solid if I'd made it myself but the Tiptree Lemon Curd was good enough.

I had some left over pastry (as always) and made those lovely little jam tarts with sponge hats on which I remember mum doing when we were kids with the left over pastry. Millie and Hettie enjoyed messing about with the spare pastry (and eating it of course).




I've also been asked to make some cakes for a friends engagement party so I'll be stocking up on fondant flowers and hoping my ebay delivery of petal cutouts arrives before Saturday! I'm also going back to my own recipe for cupcakes - the tried and tested 8 8 8 and 4 rather than Fair Cake's recipe. I'll add the tablespoon of cornflour as I like the texture that gives but I'm going to leave the baking powder out as I don't think it's necessary. I tried my old batter mix without the creaming of butter/adding flour and eggs alternatively and just putting it all in the mixer together and it seems to work fine.

Here's another photo of a savory dish I made recently too - a chicken, mustard, leek and creme fraiche plait.

Phil made me very happy this weekend putting in cupboards in our kitchen which now house all neatly and orderly my baking tins and cake making equipment. A tidy cupboard makes for a happy home.

30th Birthday cupcakes

This week I mostly made cup cakes for our old Nanny Julie's 30th birthday party. I made these as a present for her on Saturday as we were unable to go to her party. I'm quite pleased with the icing decorations I made although I still think I need to do more swirls. Also I think that a flooded cake looks better with a swirl on top, its just neater.



It was good practise though, especially at making a larger quantity. I made about 60 cakes in all although I wasn't concentrating on the first batch and they came out a bit too doughy.


I'm going to do a bit more experiementing with the cake batter as I'm not convinced I've got the right mix yet.


Also some of the cakes came away from the paper which I've never experienced before so not sure what happened there. Storage is a big issue too, how to store them carefully overnight to ice the following day - or should I make and ice in one day and put toppings on at the last moment. All verycomplicated.
The text worked though and I enjoyed the royal icing piping. I think the swirls need to be a bit more solid too, perhaps the butter was too soft.


I had fun experimenting with what I could draw in icing and did a range of my favourite modernist furniture - see if you can spot the Barcelona chair, the Artichoke light, the Thonet B33 chair, the Eames molded plywood chair and a couple 50s inspired leaves and an owl in there too.

Cupcake USP

I'm trying to work out what my USP (unique selling point, mum) for cupcakes will be and have been scouring the net to see what people do out there other than the big swirls and roses. I've come across a number of people that I really admire that do different things and this weekend I had a go at painting on fondant. Here are the results....





More research to do, I'm thinking of looking at 1950s patterns next...