A Weekend of baking - Afternoon tea cake - Part 2

This weekend I carried on with the Afternoon tea table cake and covered the cake board in celebration ivory sugarpaste, and then made all of the letters for the text on the cake. I have some letter cutters that I have used previously, but I thought that they were too big and clunky for a delicate and sophisticated cake such as this. As a result I bought some fmm letter cutters, or Tappits which I think is the technical term! If you want to buy some, you can find them on the fmm website here.

I followed the instructions on the back of the packet, mixed my sugar paste with some Tylose powder and then used the strip cutter to press out a single strip. I have discovered the joy of cornflower when creating things out of sugar and it really is a bit of a game changer! It was so much easier to handle and didn't get sticky at all which was so much easier.

After cutting out the strip I turned it vertically and then dusted the cutter with cornflour. I then cut out the letter horizontally on the cutter and tapped it to release the letter.

And then nothing! The letter was stuck in the mould and this happened to every letter I tried to cut out! I had to use a scriber needle to prise every one of the letters out of their mould which really was  a giant pain and took a lot longer than I had anticipated. Due to this some of the letters got a little deformed which I wasn't very happy with. I tidied them up as best I could and then left them to dry. When I attach them I will paint over them lightly with a little water to remove any spare cornflower and hopefully smooth out any imperfections. 

Having done a little research I can reveal the following tips for using Tappits:

• Roll out the sugar paste as thin as you can, 1 - 2mm is ideal
• Once you have cut out the strip, leave it to dry for around 10 minutes (it might be easier to cut out all of the strips that you might need so you can cut out all of your letters all at once)
• Dust the moulds with cornflour using a pastry brush
• Rub the cutter over the mat or worktop to make sure that the letter has been released from the other fondant
• Tap the cutter multiple times and leave the letters to dry before you use them on the cake to avoid distorting them

A Weekend of baking...Afternoon tea cake - Part 1

My latest commission has been to make an Afternoon tea table cake, and the last couple of weekends have been taken up with making all of the decorations for the top. Besides sugarcraft flowers I don't usually sculpt a lot of other decorations, so I made sure I made lots of sketches to help.

I eased myself in slowly by making some little pink and white daisies with pearl centres dusted with a little coloured lustre to make them look realistic. I always like making these as they look so effective when used to decorate a pretty cake. I also decided to use a silicone mould to make roses for a change, as I hadn't used it before, and after dusting them with lustre I was quite pleased with their appearance. They're not quite as effective as my hand-moulded version, but they look very sweet none the less.

I tried to make sure that everything was to scale as possible, but whilst making the tea pot I discovered why I am a cake maker and not a potter! Sculpting vases and teapots is hard! I was very impressed with my Victoria sponge cake though and I did like the fiddly little strawberries that were added to the top.

As well as the Victoria Sponge cake I also made some cupcakes and some macaroons to add to the plates. I was surprised how difficult the cupcakes were to make. Something that you can bake in your sleep suddenly becomes a whole lot more challenging when made out of fondant.

I left the tea set to dry overnight then the next day I painted it using food colouring and also some gold edible paint for the details and highlights.

Once I began painting the designs on to the tea set I felt a lot more in my comfort zone. I was making pretty patterns in pretty colours which is much more up my street! I used four basic colours in a floral pattern to decorate all of the set, leaving each one to dry slightly before I went on to the next.

Green vines and leaves with tiny blue flowers.

The finished floral designs on the plates.

Once I had finished the floral designs, I used gold to edge the plates to add an extra luxurious touch.

The tea cup and saucer. I also added gold details to the handle and the rim of the cup.

Gold details on the tea pot lid, handle and spout.

Gold details on the vase to give a little more definition and shape.

High days and holidays

Over the last few weeks I have been a little lax in posting on Little Bunting, but I have been taking advantage of some well needed R&R. We went on a lovely all-inclusive break to Fuerteventura and had a fantastic time. I had never been on an all-inclusive holiday before and wasn't really sure what to expect, but with Bombay Sapphire and cava on tap, churros and waffles with chocolate sauce for breakfast and a huge array of delicious food for lunch and dinner, what was not to love!

I read my way through several books and with a fantastic beach a few minutes walk away, it was a perfect week. 

I even got to have my favourite canarian dish, prawns in sizzling garlic oil served with a delicious chunk of fresh bread. And with a view like the ones above, it was a picture-perfect meal.

As the absolute icing on the cake, we also got engaged which was a fantastic surprise. We had such a fantastic holiday and looking back at the pictures whilst listening to the rain patter on the Velux windows, it brings back the lovely feeling of the sun on my back again. 

A Weekend of Baking...White Chocolate and Raspberry Cake

We had an early birthday party for my mum this weekend, and she requested a White Chocolate and Raspberry cake to have for dessert. She loves fruity and fresh cakes, but isn't keen on lots of sugarpaste and decoration, so I decided to try my first drip cake for decoration.

I found the recipe on Baking Mad (you can find it here) and made a start. I have made a few sponges with fresh fruit in them and have never been completely thrilled with the results. I find that as the fruit releases its moisture the cake get a little stodgy and the texture sometimes compromises on the taste. This recipe called for white chocolate in the sponges, ganache and buttercream, so I though that the best way to add the raspberry hit would be in the jam filling and in any decoration.

As I started to make the batter I was a little nervous as you fold the flour and baking powder into the liquid, and it did not look auspicious with lumps of flour throughout it after the first addition! As I added more flour it got better so I decided to treat it a little like a muffin batter, and not to over-mix it.

I lined two 8" sandwich tins and one 8"cake tin to divide the batter so I would hopefully get 4 layers and put them in the oven to bake. I was a little disappointed with the deep 8" cake tin as I didn't get a large rise at all, so what had originally planned to be a 4 layer cake turn into a three, but never mind!

Whilst the cakes were cooling, I decided to make a white chocolate buttercream to sandwich the layers together and use as the covering for my naked cake, and a small quantity of white chocolate ganache to tint pink and use for my drips. The recipe specified to use all ganache, however in previous experiences with white chocolate ganache, it never sets how you want it, so I tweaked the recipe slightly and used the failsafe recipes from Mich Turner.

Once all of the layers were cool I levelled and trimmed them to size and then started the assembly. I  bought a good quality raspberry conserve and then chopped up a few fresh raspberries to add to the flavour as well. I used my trick of making a dip in the buttercream and having higher edges to keep the jam encased, and this worked well again. I had a few tiny leaks where the juice from the fresh raspberries had escaped, but I figured on a lovely naked drip cake, a few extra drips would not hurt! Once I had finished, I let the cake to set and settle over night.

In the morning my pink pouring ganache had set too hard (typical!) so I warmed it up to the right consistency over an bain-marie (glass bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, don't let the bowl touch the surface of the water) once it was pourable again, I used a tablespoon to gently drizzle it over the edges. Once I had filled in any gaps, I then flooded the top of the cake and smoothed it with the spoon.

For my piping decoration I mixed half of the left over white chocolate buttercream with some of the pink ganache and some more pink food colouring to give a darker shade, and added it to a piping bag with a large star nozzle. The remainder of the buttercream I added to a smaller bag with a smaller star nozzle.

I piped large stars on top using the darker pink as cushions for the raspberries, and then piped a row of stars around the bottom to neaten the edge. I then used the white chocolate buttercream to pipe little stars as extra decoration.

When it comes to piping I never really know when to stop as I think it looks so pretty, but hopefully I stopped in time on this one to make it look more Parisienne Patisserie than childrens party cake!

Creative Projects Notebook

I have got in the habit over the last few years of carrying a notebook around with me to jot down various ideas that I have when I'm out and about so all my ideas are in one place. However when I'm at home they get jotted down on various bits of paper and in various notebooks, and I can never find the one I'm after.

To solve this problem, I decided to make a dedicated notebook to keep track of all my ideas and to hopefully make them look a bit more presentable so that when I come back them, I can make sense of what I have written, rather than what is scribbled in a margin.

My go-to notebooks of the last few years are Moleskine, and they do some beautiful 'Cahiers' or exercise books that remind me of being at school. You can browse their full selection here.. They do them in a variety of different colours but I love the kraft brown covers. I also treated myself to a personalised stamp from The English Stamp Company of my little Bunting Bakery logo. I will use it in the future for stamping my cake boxes for customers, but I really wanted to try it out on something, so of course it went on to my new notebook!

I used my letter stamps to stamp out the letters in the title, and my new stamp took pride of place at the top. I also added a little bookmark to the inside cover by attaching a white tag with my new stamp! 

Once I had finished the cover I had to get over the first page sketch book jitters! There's nothing scarier than the first blank page, but after I had collected all of my various scraps of paper and scribbles from all over the flat I was able to plan out the first few pages, which definitely felt like progress. 

Now I have sketched out all of these ideas, I can't wait to find the time to turn them into reality.