A place to show off the things I have baked
It’s my niece’s birthday on the 4th January and she sent me a video in December asking me to please make a “Unicorn Cake with all the colours” because “I love unicorns”.
I hadn’t been asked to make a unicorn in well over a year, but it seems 5 year olds still like them.
The inside was 5 coloured layers to make it rainbow-esque and these turned out a bit brighter than I thought they would be.
Another idea I had when making cakes for Halloween was to try making some “stabbed” cupcakes. I’d seen the idea on Instagram and thought it would be a good one to try. I had obviously made cupcakes before, but never tried anything with sugar work.
I had to begin by making the sugar mixture for my “Glass” – 2 cups of granulated sugar, some water, and a tube of liquid glucose. I had to heat this to 300 degrees F, whilst constantly stirring. It took nearly an hour!
Once the mixture was heated to the necessary temperature, I poured it out onto baking parchment and allowed it to cool down and set for a few hours
After setting, I hit it with a knife to get it to break up into the “shards”
I already had some cupcakes baked, and some leftover buttercreams. I used chocolate buttercream first, then added a vanilla swirl to the top mwhich i “stabbed” with the sugar shards
Finally, I added some red coloured icing drizzles to make the “blood”:
In my last post I showed the cake that I entered for my work’s Halloween Baking contest. I entered a “Brain Cake” which is exactly what it sounds like – a cake shaped like a brain.
It’s surprisingly easy to make …
I was planning on making a cake for my work colleagues for Halloween, but then work announced a Baking Contest so I had to get creative. The idea is that staff enter a cake that gets judged, and then they sell off slices of cake for our nominated charity.
I had three ideas, but could only enter one. I ended up making all 3 anyway (further posts to come) but entered one and just gave the rest for selling to raise money as it was all for charity anyway.
The cake I decided to enter was my Brain Cake
I made one of these last year, and it is surprisingly easy to make. The Gallery below roughly shows the steps, but essentially:
The bakers in work are really good so there was some stiff competition! The next gallery shows some of the cakes that entered – you’ll see that the decorating work on the cauldron was really good!
Judging took place based on Appearance and taste. I was happy to say that I won the contest 🙂
I get to go have Champagne Afternoon Tea for 2 at Cloud 23 at the Hilton in Manchester.
My brother and I were never sporty when we were children. As a teen I started to do more cardio at the gym, and when I was 25 I discovered Roller Derby which I played for 6 years. It was great to feel a part of a team and it really helped build my confidence. As a child I was fatter and never did well at sport. As an adult, I was actually good at roller derby and it was a great feeling.
I imagine my brother was in a similar situation, and he discovered all-inclsuive rugby in recent years. He’s really blossomed in the sport and he’s doing amazing – I am very proud of him!
I like an excuse to bake, and as this month is Pride celebrations all over the place i decided to try make something to celebrate Pride and send them to him (secretly) in the post. I just really hope they have shipped OK…
I used this recipe from All Recipes to make the blondies, and then topped them with a white chocolate ganache. I used a 3:1 chocolate to cream ratio and coloured some of this with gel colouring.
To begin with I covered the full tray of blondies with white chocolate ganache, then I added rainbow stripes which I then feathered:
I posted these to his work without him knowing, so hoping they get there in one piece. Time will tell!
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:
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.
