This week I made this super chocolatey cake for an 18th birthday.
It’s made from She Who Bakes Chocolate Madeira Cake
0 Comments
Today is Day 2 of the snow, otherwise known as the beast from the east 2. Torbay never gets snow and when it does it is barely there and neve settles. Well.. two weeks ago it snowed in Torquay and did it snow!! The whole of the south west was at a stand still, shops were closed or empty and the roads were a no go and so dangerous I couldn’t get into work. This was dejavu yesterday when I woke up to a lot of snow that had settled and it continued to snow all day and today the snow was so deep that yet again I could not get in to work. Yesterday I stayed indoors and sorted my room out and put my easter decorations and twig tree up, so today I thought I would actually enjoy the snow. The snow was so beautiful so i went out and took some cute pictures. I even built a snow man and laughed at dads attempt! Spent a lot of time throwing the ball in the snow for my dog to dig back up and eventually did some Easter themed baking.
I love easter and easter baking because it’s so cute! Bunnies, eggs, chicks and baby animals as well as lots of scrummy food and chocolate. One of my favourite easter treats are mini eggs! Today I decided to make some mini egg rice Krispy squares. I used Nigella Lawsons marshmallow rice Krispy squares recipe because I have used this recipe before and it tastes just like the squares bars you buy in the supermarket. I used Nutella’s recipe and added a few extras to make it my own, I also addded melted chocolate on top as well for an extra treat. This recipe is so quick and easy! I stupidly didn’t buy enough marshmallows so had to half her recipe and use a smaller tin but they still came out great! I will be posting a few more Easter recipes in the next few weeks as well as some pictures of the celebration cakes I have been making. Keep on reading for the recipe below: This is a very quick blog post about these jam tarts I made for Valentines Day. I thought I would make these to give to my boyfriend for Valentine’s Day as he loves jam. I got the idea for these on Pinterest, they were called Queen of heart tarts and were made for a Alice in Wonderland party.
Although these look ok in the picture above, once baked they looked awful! I followed a recipe for jam tarts which clearly did not jam spilled out everywhere and the hearts puffed up looking like some kind of massacre happened in the oven! Next time I bake these I will bake the tarts blind first and bake the hearts separately on a baking sheet . Then put the jam in the pre cooked tarts for about 5 mins until the jam bubbles up. Once out the oven I would place the prebaked hearts on top of the jam tarts while they are still warm. Hopefully this would make a Tart with a crisp pastry, jam that has not boiled over and a heart that is flat. The perfect jam tart! Sorry this is a bit of a lame post but I just wanted to try and keep you in the loop with my baking, even if it does not go to plan. Today is my dads birthday and the first time in a long time that I have done any baking.
My dad has been a bit poorly recently and has been in hospital waiting for an operation, which he has now had and is back home recovering. I am so relieved about this because he spent Christmas and new year in hospital, so it wasn’t fair to spend his birthday there also. So because of all the hospital trips, Christmas, working and worrying I haven’t had the time or been in the mood for baking which makes me sad! But as it was dad birthday I knew I had to spoil him with a big chocolate cake for his birthday. It made me so happy getting back in the kitchen after such a long time! Also because I got some new scales and a few baking tools for Christmas which I have been desperate to try out! It felt so right baking again! And everyone went to plan with the cake, which is great considering it was a last minute thing and I was rushed for time. I couldn’t really decide a specific recipe for the cake, but knew what I had in mind. I got each element from different websites. I chose to bake a chocolate cake, recipe from Tesco. https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/chocolate-cake.html I then made a chocolate buttercream to fill then middle of the cake and cover the entire cake. Recipe from BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/chocolate_buttercream_11918 I also made a chocolate ganache to cover the top of my cake and make a drip effect, recipe from Goodtoknow. http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/545826/chocolate-explosion-drip-cake I then covered the top of the cake with lots of chocolate treats such as white Chocolate covered strawberries, chomp Bars and teasers. I finished it with a happy Birthday in the centre and some sprinkles. Today I decided to do some baking. I have been a bit poorly over the past week and have really struggled with my tiredness. But today I feel more myself and thought I should do something to cheer myself up and baking was the perfect thing! Not too much energy but still achieving something. Over a week ago I started this years Christmas cake, I weighed out my fruit and poured alcohol over and left to soak for a few days (ended up being a week), today I finally made the cake and it is cooling, to then be fed with alcohol until ready to ice. The recipe I am using this year is Mary Berry’s Christmas cake recipe, which I’m not sure if I have tried before but it looked lighter than how I picture a Christmas cake, but it smells amazing! I baked two 7inch cakes instead of one larger one as I wanted to make a small one for my boyfriend and one for us to eat also. I haven’t decided when design I am going to do on each cake yet either, I will do another post once I have iced and decorated the Christmas cakes. (the picture below is the Cakes about to go in the oven) When I was shopping in Lidl the other day I picked up a cookie cutter kit for about £2.99 which caught my eye for when I make jammie dodgers because it cuts out the cookie and the centre at the same time! It comes with two large plunge cutters which cuts out the biscuit and three small cutters which cut out the centres. It is really easy to use, you just select the smaller cutter you want to use and place it inside of the larger cutter and twist to lock it in to place. You then push the cutter into the dough you are using and at the end press the plunge button to release the middle shape. So as I was eager to try out my new gadget I came up with the idea for a gingerbread cookie filled with caramel buttercream to give my cookie cutter a try! I used Jo Wheatley’s custard cream recipe and used mixed spice and ground ginger instead of custard powder. I changed the filling also and used more icing sugar instead of custard powder and added a few drops of caramel flavouring to make a caramel buttercream filling.
I love the results!!! The biscuits did not flatten and expand too much which meant that the cut out centres stayed intact and the biscuit was a decent thickness and the caramel buttercream filling compliments the gingerbread perfectly. I love autumn! It is probably one of my favourite seasons because I love the beautiful colours the leaves, the chill in the air, warm soups, hot chocolate with lots of cream and marshmallows, knitted jumpers, boots, snuggling up in blankets as well as the celebrations of Halloween and bonfire night leading up to Christmas! Halloween baking is another one of my favourites! As you have probably seen I have done a fair bit of Halloween baking over the past few weeks, lots of cupcakes, from scary devil and ghost vanilla cupcakes to salted caramel cupcakes with edible eyeballs and peanut butter Oreo Spider cupcakes. You can find all of the recipes on the links, This year I have been impresssed by the amount of squash and pumpkin varieties that are in the shops, they look so beautiful and my mind has been in overdrive thinking of all the things they am going to bake and cook with them. Today I decided to make a Pumpkin and Bacon soup and Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes out of one of the squash. I found the recipe for these Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes on the Delicious magazine website. The cupcakes are very similar to a carrot cake but they use grated squash instead of carrots, the basic recipe is the same as well as the spices and the addition of walnuts in the batter. The icing is a simple cream cheese icing with a dusting of cinnamon for that extra hint of spice.
I love these Spider Cookies! They are so cute!! I got the idea for these on Pinterest. I love Halloween baking and Pinterest is the best place for inspiration. I used a recipe for peanut butter shortbread cookies from bbc as the base as I know the recipe works and tastes good because I have baked them before. The recipe is super quick and easy as it is a simple shortbread cookies with very little decoration. I love the edible googly eyes also.
Keep on reading for the recipe and my pictures. This week I had the pleasure of making a two birthday cakes, for my work colleagues. The first one was for Julie's son Kazi for his 18th birthday. She wanted just a vanilla sponge with Jam and buttercream and it to be cricket themed. She left the rest up to me. As I always do when looking for ideas, I go on Pinterest and browse all of the cakes. I pretty much copied one of them for this cake as I'm not very creative and I know nothing about cricket. I used coloured fondant to make all of the figures and letters. The second one was for Vicki's great nephew Clay for his 2nd birthday. She also wanted a vanilla sponge with jam and buttercream and wanted it to have a Minion and Digger theme to it as they are his favourite! Again, I found the idea for this one on Pinterest. The models are made from coloured fondant. I'm pleased with how my digger turned out but think my minions heads need to be longer. These cakes take me 2 days to make. Day 1 is the baking day, I used my usual 7" vanilla Madeira cake recipe from SheWhoBakes. Since using this recipe my cakes have come out perfect and nearly completely Level! While the cake is baking I whip up my vanilla buttercream, the recipe is also from she who bakes. This buttercream turns out so fluffy and white.
Once the cake is baked I leave it in the tin for 5 mins then turn it out upside down onto baking paper to completely cool. This is such a good tip!! It makes the most perfect Level cake! Which means cutting off a lot less cake! Now the cake is cold, double wrap the cake in cling film and leave overnight to "settle". Doing this makes it much easier to Level and cut the cakes. Day two, this is when I Level, split and fill my cakes as well as crumb coating and icing. The models and decorations were made today also. I always finish my cakes off by using my cake steamer to get rid of any bits of icing sugar and to give it all a bit of shine. Today I've been doing some special birthday baking or my best friend. It's a little belated as her birthday was in July but as we work gets in the way and we live far enough apart for it to be difficult. Luckily she is staying a couple hours away for the weekend so we are meeting half way and I am treating her to an Afternoon Tea in a nice hotel in Somerset.
So, back to the baking.. well as I post all of my bakes on social media my best friend Martha sees everything I bake and usually comments on them. Birthdays can only mean one thing... I take baking requests. Anything you want within reason and I will bake it. Martha asked if she could have my Bakewell Cupcakes "because they look insane". That is what I have been baking today. These are soft almond cupcakes with a cherry conserve centre, fluffy almond buttercream topped with a glacé cherry. These look so adorable! I love the cherry on top, it reminds me of an ice cream sundae. This post is all about the birthday cake and cupcakes I made from my friend Ellie who asked me if I could make her a coconut cake for her birthday as she loved the one I made her last year. She also asked if I could make some cupcakes for her to bring in to work to give out to her friends. I was so excited to make these cakes for her as she left the decoration up to me. She likes all thinks pretty like the unicorn trend and told me she loves beauty and The beast. I have been so desperate to make a unicorn cake or cupcakes as they are so cute and colourful! But I decided to go with a Beauty and the beast theme instead. After browsing on Pinterest I was inspired to make a Mrs Potts & Chip cake as it was adorable! This cake consists of a coconut cake with raspberry jam and coconut buttercream, covered in fondant icing and decorated. I had a few problems with thins cake! For some reason one half of the ball cake completely crumbled and I had to throw it in the bin! This meant baking another cake. I filled, sculpted and buttercreamed the cake to look like a tea pot and placed a large dowel through the centre to support it a bit more. I used a mixture of fondant and modelling paste for the handle and spout of the tea pot. Chip is made entirely out of modelling paste as it is firmer. I used edible icing pens and edible gold lustre for the detail. I carried on with the beauty and the beast theme with the cupcakes. When baking the cupcakes I had another huge disaster! For some reason my Cupcakes behaved like a volcano! They came out the oven looking like a Yorkshire puddings and had the texture of a biscuit. These were my usual vanilla cupcake, filled with raspberry jam and a soft fluffy yellow vanilla buttercream. I piped these as best I could to look like roses. I topped half of the cupcakes with an edible handmade red fondant roe and left the other half plain. I finished these off with edible silver lustre for that extra glitz. Ellie loved them both so much! She gave me the best reaction I have ever had when giving a cake! She looked like she was going to cry! Said "oh my god" a lot and face timed all of her family to show them the cake. It was the best feeling ever!!
The cupcakes went down a treat too! Everyone kept coming up to me at work and telling me how nice they were. My buttercream had the most compliments with it being called "dreamy" and the best fluffy buttercream they have ever had! I couldn't wish for a better reaction then that! Although i had a few disasters it was well worth the effort to see Ellie's face and hearing that everyone enjoyed it! |
Welcome!Hello, I'm Laura and I am a 25 year old foodie with a passion for baking! When I'm not thinking, blogging about food, reading cooking magazines, searching Instagram for food porn I am usually cooking it!
This Blog started a few years ago now as a place for me to store recipes that I like and that work! I love to take pictures of food and I am on all of the social network site as polkadotcooking. I hope you enjoy my site and give me any feedback if you make anything :) Archives
February 2018
Categories
All
|