A place to show off the things I have baked
It’s been a year since I got some software in work that I never thought I’d get, so I used this as an excuse to bake a load of cakes and share them with my work colleagues…
The Blue theme was literally because I bought a Dr. Oetker sprinkle-mix that I liked the colour of. Some more details on each item follow:
My mum had an early celebration for her 60th Birthday so of course I used this excuse to make her a cake. The plan started with a Balloon Cake (as I had been wanted to make one of these for a while) and quickly escalated from there.
In the end I made a cake table with multiple types of cake.
I was asked to create this birthday cake based on a design I got sent over email. A simple pastel cake (though not quite as pastel as I’d have liked – damned bold food colouring!).
It was a vanilla cake with strawberry filling and vanilla buttercream (my standard go-to cake).
My niece turned 4 at the start of January and her request was for a “Colourful rainbow” cake. I asked if she wanted the inside to be the same, and the response was “purple and yellow”.
I clearly do as I am told!
Some friends got married this week and were having a simple service with “no fuss”. I wanted to make a fuss so I made them this small wedding cake. It’s a basic vanilla / strawberry jam on the inside with vanilla buttercream too.
I used Wilton Whitest White to get the icing colour right, and sprayed a pearl spray on at the end to give it the shiny finish.
The flowers were just artificial ones to finish it off.
For my birthday last year, I was given a photo box thing to take photos in, but I’m lazy and so had rarely used it. I decided to use it for some shots of this cake.
Another bake this month was this “Mini” cake for my Grandma’s 80th Birthday. We made a hamper for her full of nice things, and the cake was a small addition.
It’s just vanilla cake, with jam and vanilla buttercream. The daffodils are fake.
This was a small change from a “normal” unicorn cake in that they wanted more black on it. Queue the black, pink and purple swirls & a black horn.
I also added some silver lustre dust to the horn and ears which made them look a little more gun-metally.
I didn’t snap a photo this time around, so here’s a link to the instagram video instead:
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I had big intentions to get some Christmas baking done this year. I’d bought loads of Christmas sprinkles and cake toppers, but ended up with very little time due to other commitments (parties, meeting friends, more baking!)
I did however manage to bake and decorate some Sugar Cookies which I brought to work for colleagues.
We have a big garden and last year my husband started to grow our own vegetables. This year it seems that the courgettes are taking over & growing into giants so I have been trying to find recipes to use them all up.
Last year, I used a recipe from Shugary Sweets for a Chocolate Courgette Cake. I decided to do this again this year to use up one of the behemoth vegetables!
As I was making the cake, I realised I didn’t have the full amount of cocoa powder in my store cupboards (I ALWAYS have this in so no idea how that escaped me). I tried to make do with some ginger chocolate morsels from Hotel Chocolat, but it wasn’t quite right so was slightly less chocolaty than the last time I made this.
Also, I should have let it cool in the pan a bit more. Due to the moistness of the cake, it didn’t hold shape when I turned it out.
I had spare batter too, so I made some cupcake sized cakes too
