Princess cake / doll cake

I'm volunteering again this week for Free Cakes for Kids Sheffield and this time it's a cake for a girl turning 6. The brief: she likes princesses, pink and yellow.

I chose a design I liked and needed to find a plastic crown but I couldn't find one anywhere. The shops are all stocked up for Halloween and Christmas but then I came across a cheap doll and decided to have a go at a cake I've always wanted to make : the doll cake. I'm sure you've seen plenty of these around but basically the cake element is the doll's dress with a toy doll sitting in the middle

I found an amazing tutorial on good old google. This is one of the best tutorials I've ever seen so if you fancy a bash at a cake like this, then definitely use this

https://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/how-to-make-a-princess-cake-using-buttercream/

I followed most of the tutorial but used my own cake recipe. I used an 8oz/8oz/8/oz/4egg recipe to fill a 7" cake tin and my Pyrex bowl. The cake took 20 minutes but because of the depth of the Pyrex bowl, that cake took about 50 minutes. After about 40 minutes I put some foil over the bowl to stop the cake browning too much.

Like in the tutorial, I split the cakes by hand and filled with pink buttercream. I didn't take many photos but here's on the assembled cake with it's crumb coat 

I also wrapped the doll in cling film like in the tutorial before putting it in the middle of the cake then piped the dress on, piping it all the way round the middle of the doll.

I added a Happy Birthday in pink fondant to the cake board and she was finished. It was so lovely to do a really girly cake. With two boys, I don't get much chance! I really hope Lexi has an amazing birthday. I was told today that it's her first ever birthday party and she's not long been back with her mother. Happy Birthday Lexi!

Baklava

The GBBO technical was baklava this week and when my friend asked me if I could make it, I wasn't likely to say no, even though I haven't actually ever made it. But today was the Free Cakes for Kids meeting so what better timing than to make some for the meeting and share out with friends and family first.

There's a fair few recipes floating around but in essence it's just filo and nuts. In the end I made my own recipe up combining the ideas of several different recipes. 

1 packet of filo pastry (250g)

300g bag whole pistachios or 150g shelled pistachios 

1 tsp ground cinnamon

125g butter

200ml water

200g caster sugar

100g honey

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp orange extract 

Makes 12 pieces

Preheat oven to 180/160 fan. 

Whizz up the pistachios with the cinnamon until coarsley ground. 

Melt the butter and using a pastry brush, paint a 15 x 25cm tin/ovenproof dish. Then take the filo sheets and cut in half, folding each half in half again and put into the dish one piece at a time, slathering each piece in butter as you build up the layers. Once you've used half of the sheets, tip the pistachios in and level out then continue to layer up the filo sheets with butter slicking each layer and make sure the top layer has butter on it too. 

You then need to cut the baklava before it bakes. I think tradition dictates diamonds but I just did squares (makes life much easier). Bake in the oven for an hour turning the oven down to 160/140 fan if it's browning to quickly.

In the meantime make the syrup. Add the water, sugar, honey, cinnamon and orange extract* to the pan and simmer for 15 minutes. Pour into a jug and put in the fridge to cool.

*recipes tend to use rose water, orange blossom water or both. I bought what I thought was orange blossom water but turned out to be orange extract 

Once the baklava are cooked, take out of the oven and pour over the syrup. Leave to cool before demolishing!

Mine seemed to go down really well at the meeting. There are times I really do wish I could taste my baking, and this is definitely one of those times :(

Not the prettiest photos, I must learn to take some decent ones for my blog :)

Macmillan 2014

Very nervous to host this year as I got a bit stressed after last year's coffee morning. Plus there's always pressure to raise as much as in previous years. I raised £248 in 2012 and £244 in 2013.

But do you know what? I absolutely loved being back in the kitchen and doing what I love - baking! September was a month for decorated cakes, which is fun, but I'm a baker at heart and I love love love trying out different recipes. And a Macmillan coffee morning means I can bake to my heart's content.

The big issue lies in what to bake as I have literally 100s of recipes I want to bake. After several weeks (yes weeks!) I whittled it down to 12 bakes.

So here's my 2014 selection:

1. Chocolate caramel shortbread. Amazing! I love this recipe. I struggle with the caramel in these recipes and it always ends up oozing out but this one holds brilliantly (and tastes lush too). The recipe is by former GBBO contestant Ruth Clemens and I will 100% be making this again

 

2. Chilli chocolate cookies. I have to fess I did overcook the first batch. I wasn't sure going on colour so did end up trying a bite (yes they were overcooked so went in the bin and a fresh batch was made), but they had a lovely warmth to them. I think people were hesitant to try, or because of their position on the table but they were the last to go. The recipe is by Jo Wheatley 

3. Dulce and banana cake. Not being a fan of bananas, I had to still include a fruity cake and this one sounded nice if you like bananas. Some of my bananas slipped about but it looks fairly pretty don't you think lol?! Recipe by Lorraine Pascale

4. Lemon and lime Poppy seed loaf. You may know I'm a huge fan of loaf cakes. They're so easy!!! Another Lorraine Pascale recipe, apparently this was a hit with both my parents

5. Blueberry crumble loaf. In this situation one loaf is never enough! So more fruitiness was required and I baked this little lovely by Joanne Wheatley 

6. Carrot cake. So I totally messed up the frosting (cream cheese frosting is a bugger anyway) so I served it at the side lol. But this cake turned out super super moist. Yet another Jo Wheatley recipe.

7.  Chocolate and salted caramel bundt cake. Shhh but I have a chunk of this stashed in my freezer to try post diet. Can't wait to try it. Note to self: when Ruth Clemens says sift the icing sugar for the frosting, sift the bloody icing sugar. Woops, anyway, this one went down well!

8. Peanut butter squares. Oh I wish wish wish I could have had a piece or ten of these. Mmmmmm I love peanut butter. These will definitely be made again. Another Lorraine Pascale recipe.

9. Cinnamon roll cake. Not actually a cake, it's just a giant cinnamon roll which you slice like a cake. From an American website I use called Sally Loves Baking. Loved making this, so much fun

Ready to prove

After proving, before baking

10. Mint cupcakes. 11. Mocha cupcakes

My own recipes. And I used baking cups for the first time which I love and will def use again. Oh and I made my own chocolate buttons for the mocha cupcakes 

12. Chocolate cardamom and strawberry Swiss roll.

 

Erm, I have no photo. And no one saw it. And no one tried it! Because numpty here forgot to take it out of the freezer where I had placed it to cool for 5 minutes while I answered the door. Oops!!! It had a home the next day though so didn't get wasted. Just gutted I'd made it fresh that morning and it was my most impressive looking cake.

So after all this baking, I was so pleased so many people came round to support me. And I raised a grand total of £310. 

I'm super super pleased with that and looking forward to 2015. If only someone could come and tidy up afterwards!!!!

Janice & Paul's Wedding

I was very honoured to be asked to make another wedding cake for Saturday September 20th. The theme was the seaside and so a slightly untraditional wedding cake was discussed. Or maybe that should read, I found a cool cake and was given the go ahead to make it. 

I was also asked to make the wedding favours and after a few different ideas were discussed, the decision was made to make starfish cookies. I actually think these turned out really well and when packaged up with the matching label, looked really nice on the wedding tables (I got to sneak peak them while the room was being set up). 50 biscuits and I counted the dots. That'd be 3200 iced dots. But aren't they pretty? (And I wished that wine glass had actual wine in it)

Onto the cake. I made this an 11" square cake with 10" round cake on top. Two thick layers of cake for each cake (4" deep). The bottom was Victoria sponge with raspberry jam and buttercream and the top was lemon sponge with lemon curd and buttercream.

The trickiest bit for me is always the fondant. I needed to roll out an 18x18" square of fondant for each cake. That's huge! That's almost 2.5kg of fondant on that cake. Cakes are supposed to be light as air but once you whack some fondant on they're deceptively heavy. I coloured the fondant using caramel colour food colouring gel. I love love love the colour.

The shells are made with candy melts. These are my favourite part of the cake. I bought two moulds, one for the large shells and one for the small. Using white candy melts I filled the moulds several times over then once set, painted them very lightly with sugarflair gel colours in dark brown and chestnut. I'll definitely use the moulds again. I think using moulds might be one of my favourite things 

I made them a few days in advance and kept them in a Tupperware box. 

Next job was the coral. I made some more royal icing (as used on the starfish biscuits) and piped out coral shapes onto acetate. These needed to set for 24 hours and I wish retrospectively that I'd piped them thicker as they are the most delicate thing ever! I broke half of them just lifting them off the acetate so decided that I'd attach a few round the cake but not put the ones on top until I'd got the cake to the reception. In fact I broke 5 more when I was assembling the cake at the reception. Grrrrrrrr. Luckily I'd made a lot 

Making buttercream is something I'm not good at as I normally cover the kitchen in icing sugar so it looks like a winter wonderland. I was impressed how little carnage I'd made this time. Mmmmmm look at all that buttercream. Yummy!!!!

Ok, cake assembly. The top cake was on a thin board and the base dowelled of course. 

With more royal icing, I piped round the bottom of the square cake and used more to attach shells around the base of the top cake and the pieces of coral to the sides of the cakes. 

Then I left the rest of the decoration for when I'd gotten the cake to the reception, which was a very slow drive through Sheffield so the coral didn't snap off the sides. Even one piece for the top broke in transit. Sheffield roads are the worst :(

First job at the reception was to cover the cake board. I put a very small amount of buttercream on the silver board showing to act as a glue then sprinkled on the "sand" which is made from cake cuttings whizzed up in the food processor. I then tied the ribbon round and secured and the base was done.

Now for the top. I made small indentations in the top and poked the coral in, I broke a few more in the process grrrrr. Once in, I added the large shells then sprinkled on more "sand". Done!!!!! Pheweeeeeee it made it standing.

Congratulations Mr & Mrs Wells xx

Bodhi's birthday cake

Happy 3rd birthday to Bodhi

Here's the Buzz Lightyear rocket cake I was asked to make for him.

It's a Victoria sponge cake with buttercream and jam filling and all hand made embellishments. I scratched my head a bit over the Buzz head but decided to just go for it and make it myself out of fondant. After I made it I decided to ask my 4 year old if he could tell who it was. When he answered Buzz Lightyear, that made me stupidly ecstatic!

I baked two large square sponges, sandwiched them together with buttercream and jam, then hand drew a rocket template which I placed on top of the square cake and cut out the centre section of the rocket. (I then sent a photo to my friends to see if they could guess what it was). Thankfully they said rocket.

Using the bits of leftover cake I cut out two wings for the rocket and attached them to the cake with buttercream before crumb coating the whole cake.

My heart rate always shoots up when I work with fondant. You only really get one shot once it's rolled and it's trickier when you're covering a non round shape. But phew, I did it. I used coloured fondant to make the rest of the rocket embellishments and then it was done!

Funfetti cookies

I was bored and the kids had just eaten the last of the biscuits so decided to replenish the cookie jar with homemade. Max requested iced biscuits apparently just like the ones I made for my brother's wedding!) but I remembered I'd seen some funfetti cookies on Pinterest a while back.

Funfetti? What am I on about? It's just hundreds and thousands in plain old English. You know, those multicoloured strands of sugar goodness.

Turns out I had none left but I did have all red hundreds and thousands and some blue glitter flakes so decided they'd do.

This is a US recipe but luckily grams were also provided, but I also slightly tweaked the recipe to my own liking:

Ingredients

115g butter or margarine (room temp)

150g caster sugar

1 egg

200g plain flour 

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp cream of tartar

80g of hundreds and thousands

Makes about 20

Beat the butter/margarine until smooth and add the sugar beating until fluffy and light. Add the egg and mix in, scraping down the sides. Then add the dry ingredients and the hundreds and thousands when the biscuit dough has come together.

Roll the dough into balls (about 1 large tbsp of dough per cookie) and pop into the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours. They can be left for 2 days and can even be frozen if you're in need of a future sugar fix!

Preheat the oven when they've had time to chill, to 180/160 fan.

Place onto baking sheets and spread evenly apart as they spread during cooking. Bake for 10 minutes until only just starting to brown. Leave on the trays for a few minutes then remove carefully and leave to fully cool on a wire rack. They're a very soft cookie 

They don't look very impressive here as I didn't have enough funfetti, so be sure to add lots! They taste great though.