Another year, another birthday for one of the nieces! Charlie asked for either K-Pop Demon Hunters or Taylor Swift for her cake this year. I figured the K-Pop Demon Hunters theme would be a touch easier.
I tried to make it easier for myself by buying a topper and some toy keyrings that I could use for the cake.
I put them in an acrylic stand with some strong lights and ribbon to try give it a concert-vibe. I then splashed a glitter powder on the cake too
The inside of the cake was the standard vanilla and jam combination, but I was happy with how well the layers turned out for this one.
Overall, I was happy with how this one turned out.
I volunteered for a cake for Free Cakes for Kids where the specification was rainbows.
I made vanilla cake and dyed the mixture into 5 colours: red, yellow, green, blue, purple which I then stacked with vanilla buttercream and a strawberry jam.
the outside was coated in more vanilla buttercream and I used purchased toppers to finish it off:
Another year went by which meant my niece turned 11 in January. I asked what kind of cake she wanted and she had not ideas whatsoever.
For Christmas, she got a lot of books and so I used that to make a “Book” themed cake…
It was the usual cake fillng inside – vanilla sponge, vanilla buttercream and strawberry jam.
The outside of the cake was decorated using fondant and rice paper to make teh books. The book spines said variants of “eleven” (her age), “Amber” (her name) and “Happy Birthday)
I didn’t take a photo of a completed box, but here is a roundup of the treats I made for “treat boxes” that I gifted to various friends for Christmas this year.
Biscuit Cake “plum puddings”
These were made by combining a mix of “everything” with various melted chocolates…
Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, Golden Syrup, Biscoff, Nutella, Nutella Cookies, M&Ms, Oreos, Gingerbreak Oreos, Munchies chocolate bar, White chocolate, sprinkles
Next up, Cookie Cups
These were stuffed cookie cups (or mini cookie pies):
White chocolate cookie stuffed with pistachio spread.
Dark chocolat cookie with white chips and stuffed with cookies and cream spread,
Milk chocolate cookie stuffed with biscoff.
Biscoff Truffles
A simple recipe – white chocolate melted and mixed with cream cheese and biscoff. Coated in white or milk chocolate and dusted with ginerbread oreo:
Chocolate and raspberry cakesicles
I had made a chocolate cake for a volunteer cake and had offcuts left. To use this up, I crumbed the cake and mixed it with raspberry sauce. I used my molds to shape them, then dipped in chocolate and drizzled.
They were then finished with dried raspberry powder.
And finally, vanilla cupcakes – I had icing left from the volunteer bake so just made some vanilla cakes to use this up.
Baking and sweet making for two events – My Mum’s Birthday next week, and my friend’s 40th.
I am heading to York at the weekend to stay over at my friend’s house and take her for a spa day as an early birthday celebration. It is also my mum’s birthday at the start of next week, so I used both occasions as a reason to try some recipes and put together some treat boxes.
I used some recipes that are my own, and then others that I got from other bakers for inspiration (linked when I used someone else’s recipe)
Lemon Cakesicles
These were made using offcuts of a cake I made earlier this month. I crumbled the cake into crumbs and then mixed it with lemon buttercream and lemon curd. I use a silicon mold to shape the cake into the popsicle shape, and let them freeze. Once ready, they were coated in white chocolate that was coloured with some pink and yellow oil-based colouring to get the marble effect.
I have cakesicle boxes which I popped them into as they look a tad nicer:
Carrot Cake Truffles
I made a small carrot cake using 1/3 of this loaf recipe from Jane’s Patisseie. The cake was then just crumbled up and mixed with some ginger conserve and cream cheese to form the truffle filling. I rolled into balls, then put in the freezer to solidify. Once ready, I melted whote chocolate to coat them and finished with biscuit crumbs.
Vanilla Sugar Cookie Flowers
This recipe came directly from Chelsweets and worked amazingly well.
It’s quite a “simple” recipe, that ends up looking so cute. The longest time was rolling the small balls of dough, but it was worth it.
I finished by Cookies by adding some edible “paint” (as above) but they look just as nice without the shiny parts too:
Fudge
When I make treat boxes, I nearly always make easy-fudge recipes. This time I used one can of condensed milk to make 2 different versions.
I separated them in a baking tin with some foil and greaseproof paper so I didn’t have to wash as many pans.
White Chocolate Speculoos Fudge: – 250g White Chocolate – 199g Condensed Milk – Crushed speculoos buscuits
It’s a really easy recipe as all you do is melt the chocolate & add the condensed milk & fillings before chilling for 6 hours+. This was the two blocks taken straight out of the tin before I cut into squares:
Meringue Hearts & Chicks
I used the idea from Chelsweets from her Easter cookie boxes, but used a vegan meringue recipe from Loving it Vegan as I had aquafaba to use.
I love these cute little guys!
I tried to make some pink hearts (that didn’t quite look as I pictured them in my head) so I painted a purple heart on top too.
I LOVED how the chicks turned out, even though I did forget to give them wings! Here is everything before going into the oven
And how things looked when they had baked & cooled:
I’ve put together 2 large treat boxes, 2 small ones, and still had loads spare for eating / sharing which are just in a tub:
I am making some cupcakes that required a meringue shell to use for decoration. I had used some chickpeas earlier this week for a curry, but kept the aquafaba (chickpea water) to use to make meringues. I’d not done this for a while, so looked for a recipe online and found this one from Loving it Vegan which works perfectly!
As I was only using the meringue to crush up, I just plopped the mixture into blobs on my baking trays
And they baked AMAZINGLY
I had loads spare, so decided I’d take some to family this weekend. I dipped some in dark chocolate:
and then I sandwiched a few of those with leftover “buttercream” from the Severance cake I did this week too:
That’s the random mix all boxed up to give away tomorrow. – “Plain” (vanilla) meringue shells – Chocolate meringue shells – Sandwiched chocolate meringue shells
One of my work colleagues reached out to me to ask if I could make a retirement cake for her husband who had retired from Royal Mail after working there for 47 years! I agreed to give it a go.
I started by originally coming up with the below, very poor, mock-up of a cake based on various other cakes I’d found online.
We agreed with the “usual” cake – vanilla sponge, strawberry jam, and vanilla buttercream. The toppers could be whatever I fancied so I went with cartoony postman (one from when he started and one from retiring) and decorations made from fondant.
To go with the main cake, there was also 48 cupcakes. Again, I was told to go with whatever flavours I fancied so we did:
12 x Chocolate 12 x Vanilla 12 x Cookies & Cream 12 x Lemon
The cupcakes were all made with a vegan recipe too so that most people could enjoy cake:
The cakes were topped with flavoured buttercream (made with plant butter) and both edible and non-edible decorations.
I got the post-themed ones from e-bay as they were printed on edible icing paper.
To avoid the toppers from wilting, I made fondant discs to sit between the toppers and the buttercream, and added the toppers just before delivery to keep them as fresh as possible.
Here’s some shots of the fondant decorations “drying out” before being added to the cake.
I got asked to make a Frozen themed cake for a third birthday. I actually made one of these a few years back for my volunteer baking, so I used the same design this time around for the birthday request.
I tried to be crafty and cut the top half of Else out of a gift bag and attached to some kebab skewers with glue dots. I then coloured some fondant to match the dress and added that as the skirt. Added glitter and sprinkles as the finishing touches.
For comparison, here is the side by side of the one from a few years back with the one I made this week:
I look after a Bulldog called Betty from time to time after a few years back when she came to stay with us for a few months. Her owner is 50 this week, and went to Liverpool to celebrate at the weekend so Betty came to stay with us.
I wanted to treat her owner, so I got a few bits & pieces and then decided to make some cupcakes with Bulldogs on! This is Betty who I used for the inspiration…
Betty was actually sat on the sofa next to me whilst I used a tray and fondant to make the toppers. I basically used various colours of fondant to make these bulldog faces:
I made 3 but only used 2 in the box of cakes that I gave to the recipient. The spare one has topped a cupcake that is back in the freezer to pass on to my parents too!
The actual cupcakes are made with a Caramelised Biscuit liquer (like Biscoff) which was also used in the buttercream topping. I added some cocoa powder ass well to give a chocolatey swirl, and finished with some sprinkles.
My sister in law is 40 this week, and my husband asked me to make 40 cupcakes for her. I bake in multiples of 6 and only had boxes that hold 6 or 12, so she’s getting 42 instead. It is the answer to life, the universe and everything, so I’m sure that the 42 is OK.
Anyway… The cakes
Mint chocolate:
Chocolate cake with a peppermint fondant filling. Topped with chocolate and mint swirled buttercream and a piece of mint chocolate bar.
Vanilla:
Vanilla sponge topped with vanilla buttercream and sprinkles. A classic.
Mega chocolate:
Chocolate cake, topped with chocolate buttercream (made with additional melted dark chocolate mixed in). Finished with Oreo Crumbles and a Cadbury Twirl mini.
Lemon:
Another simple, yet effective flavour. Lemon sponge, topped with lemon buttercream and sprinkles.
Chocolate Orange:
Chocolate sponge that was flavoured with Orange essence. Topped with orance chocolate buttercream, and a Terry’s Chocolate Orange segment.
White Chocolate Cherry:
Sponge cake flavoured with cherry essence and white chocolate chips baked in. Topped with cherry buttercream and a white chocolate chunk.
Salted Caramel:
Salted caramel flavoured sponge topped with salted caramel buttercream and a sprinkle of sea-salt. Fainal touch are Cadbury caramel chocolates / Quality Street caramel barrel.
