A whole week of baking!...Wedgewood Blue cake

Once I had made the sugarcraft flowers, covered the cake board and iced the cake, it was time for the assembly, my favourite bit!

My boyfriend bought me a set of Claire Bowman's Cake Lace for my birthday, and this was the first time I had had the opportunity to use it. I was very impressed with how easy it was to use, however for the quantity you need, it was quite difficult to get it all mixed in the food processor as instructed. I ended up mixing it a bit myself by hand, but this didn't seem to interfere with the final outcome. I made it the night before and then let it dry out further overnight before using. It was so easy to attach to the cake with just some water, and looked stunning against the Wedgwood Blue.

The two photos above show the cake against my grandparent's Wedgwood Blue china, I couldn't have been happier with the colour!

Once the cake lace was attached and the cake was positioned on the board, I wound some white satin ribbon around the board, using double-sided tape to stick it on. I then placed the roses and pushed them into the cake, and was absolutely thrilled with the final design! Luckily it was admired for both the appearance and the taste which I was really glad about, however the piece de resistance (insert relevant accents!) was definitely the stunning roses, which I will definitely be making again and again to improve my skills. 

A whole week of Baking!...Sugarcraft flowers

It was my Nan's birthday this week, and as she has had a rough couple of months, I wanted to make her a beautiful cake for her birthday. She has a collection of Wedgewood Blue pieces of china, and I used these as inspiration for my design. I wanted to use a couple of techniques I hadn't used before, and the first of these was sugarcraft roses.

I have made hand moulded roses before, and these are quick, easy and very effective to use on cakes, however they are not particularly realistic. Encouraged by reading Peggy Porschen's beautiful Cakes in Bloom book, I decided to put the theory into practice and make my own vintage roses.

Peggy Porschen's gorgeous Cake in Bloom book

(Little Smurf hats on sticks!)

I started by making the central cones and inserting a cocktail stick to make the base. After leaving these to dry I rolled out my sugar paste and started to create the centres of the roses. I'm not sure if it was my being left handed or if I was just getting used to it but the direction of which way to turn the flowers really threw me to start with! I added four petals to start with and then left them to dry.

By the next layer of five petals I was feeling a little more confident, at least until I then needed somewhere to support the roses once i had finished them! Luckily I needed some orange zest for the carrot cake I was making, so the zested orange became my cake dummy for flower drying, it gave the roses a lovely citrus smell!

Again I left the five petals to dry, then the following day I attached the final seven petals. Once I was into the flow it was much easier to attach the petals upside down on the rose, then it was a lovely surprise turning the rose the right way up to see how it looked. I then left them to dry upside down on a foam mat which was little nerve-wracking due to the delicate petals, but there wasn't a single breakage, so I was very happy.

To see the final cake, have a look at the following post...

The Great Mince pie tasting! Number 4

4. Waitrose Christmas 6 Shortcrust mince pies

We went to see my parents over the weekend, and they served us some Waitrose mince pies to try. They were a good size, with a pretty eight pointed star and a nice crunch of sugar on top. They were well filled and the mincemeat was very tasty. There was a nice fresh taste and the mixed peel certainly came through which cut through the sweetness of the other ingredients, however it was still a very sweet mincemeat. The pastry was indeed short and crumbly and the butter definitely came through which made a very nice tasting mince pie. Although not part of the taste test I loved the design on the packaging as it was so different and really stood out from other designs that we have seen. It would definitely make me stop for a second look if I saw it on the shelf. 

Cost: £1.70

Score: **** 

The Great Mince pie tasting! Number 3

3. Tesco Traditional Mince Pies

For our third test, we picked up a box of standard Tesco mince pies, and unfortunately they did not stand up well agains the first two samples. They were much smaller than the other ones we had tried, but had a nicely decorated star on top, however the finish wasn't very good, and some of the lids had sunk and the filling had leaked out. When I took them out of the box the sugar hadn't adhered to the pastry very well and my worktop looked very festive by the time I had put them in the tin! The pastry was not good and went very lumpy when chewed and unfortunately I did not agree with the statement of 'Delicious Buttery Pastry'. They were well filled, however on closer inspection most of the mincemeat was made up of the sauce, and there were very few currents or other fruits that generally make up the filling. 

Cost: £0.89

Score: **

The Great Mince pie tasting! Number 2

2. Marks and Spencer All Butter Mince Pies

When I went into M&S to do some christmas shopping, I picked up a box of their standard range All Butter Mince Pies to try. Now being from M&S you would expect them to be good, and they did not disappoint! They did indeed have a lovely buttery and crumbly pastry that held together well with a tasty sprinkle of sugar on the top. They weren't as pretty as the Tesco Finest ones, but were a good size for the cost. They were well filled with no gap between filling and pastry lid, and the mincemeat was delicious! Sometimes mincemeat can be overly sweet and overwhelm the rest of the flavours, but this was perfectly flavoured with a lovely hint of cloves which balanced the sugar perfectly. Cloves are a much maligned spice in my opinion but they have given this pie a wonderfully old fashioned christmassy taste which I absolutely love.

Cost: £1.85

Score: ***** (My favourite so far!)

The Great Mince pie tasting!

I am so excited that our annual tradition has come around again, the great taste test of mince pies on offer. We purchase mince pies from various different retailers and vote on our favourites so we can stock up when it gets closer to christmas, what's not to love! 

Each pie will be given a score out of 5 stars based on the overall taste and appearance of the pie. 

1. Tesco Finest Mince Pies

Cost: £2.00

As the name suggests, I was expecting great things from these mince pies, and as usual, they don't disappoint. They have a lovely snowflake decoration on the top and the customary sprinkle of granulated sugar which gives a nice crunch to the top when you bite in. There was the correct ratio of mincemeat to pastry (nobody enjoys the big air gap when you bite in and you get a big mouthful of air!) and the taste was lovely, The pastry was nice and buttery and there was a nice alcoholically twang (technical term!) to the mincemeat. I think they were definitely worth the price and they have definitely set the bar high for the first taste of Christmas. 

Score: ****

Tip: You don't have to buy very expensive luxury mincemeat to make your own mince pies delicious. I buy a jar of relatively inexpensive mincemeat, and then add my own favourite ingredients to jazz it up and make it personal. I like to add diced cherries and apples along with a good slug of brandy and some extra cinnamon, as I find that this makes delicious mincemeat.

If you can't bake it, draw it!

Sometimes when I have a flash of inspiration, I find the best thing to do is to sketch something rough in a little notebook that I carry around with me, then properly sketch out a design when I get home. I like to try and combine several designs on one page to give an idea of what they would look like on a bakery shelf, display or a dessert table and if there is a particularly intricate piece of decoration, I like to draw that out as well. 

I also like to annotate my designs, as I always forget what flavours I had thought of or what colours I was imagining when I come back to look at them, and in some strange way I think my spidery arrows and writing add to the charm of the designs!

 I hope you enjoy looking at my designs for cakes past, present and future. 

I'm working my way through my cupcake menu at the moment, and i'm planning on designing my own menu with all of my favourite tried and tested flavours with illustrations of each cupcake, so watch this space as it all comes together! 

A Weekend of Baking...Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

I've been doing more experimenting in the kitchen to develop my cupcake menu, and decided I to adapt my delicious chocolate cupcake recipe to make a favourite of mine and what appears to be a favourite of many other people, chocolate orange cupcakes!

To tweak the recipe I added the grated zest of an orange to the chocolate cupcake batter, and then for the chocolate ganache butter cream I added the juice of half an orange. Unfortunately this made the icing a little runny and even after chilling it to pipe, when left at a room temperature it became a little messy! But what could be better than a messy cupcake! 

I topped the cakes with a Terry's dark chocolate orange segment, and when eaten first, the orange from the chocolate bought out the flavour of the icing, which was a nice touch. I would have liked a stronger flavour in the icing, so next time I will use some orange oil or extract to give a deeper and better flavour.

My next experiment will be with mint chocolate chip cupcakes, so watch this space!