Secret Santa and More Cupcakes

Every year at the office we have a Secret Santa and I always get such wonderful pressies. I must be a very good girl......Hee! Hee! Last year I was given a small selection of chocolates from Harrods. Yum......I can still remember the taste.. Look what I got this year:

I'm really please with my present...Thank You Santa! I love it. I took it to the office Christmas party (no I'm not that sad to read it at the bar) so I can take it home for the weekend. Considering the amount of alcohol I had I still remembered my book.

This evening I had the urge to bake some cakes, but I didn't have the ingredients to make anything from the book, so I made the usual cupcakes. My daughter was so please to be able to help me as we haven't bake together for a long time. Instead of cream and icing we used melted Belgium milk chocolate and some sprinkles to decorate the cakes. Hasn't my little rascal done well with the decoration. We will be taking some to my Mums and to a good friend who we will be visiting tomorrow.

Wemake - Webake

What a fantastic day we had last Saturday!

We have been preparing for the Wemake fair since August this year, experimenting with various menus, coming up with different flavours, working out the logistics of how were going to complete our mini challenge...

So we are happy to say that it all came together in the end and I think it was a success ! The most important thing was that we had lots of happy customers and got some great feedback. So a BIG thank you to you all for letting us share our passion for treats with you!

We both took Thursday and Friday off work to prepare for the day. We were baking like mad from Thursday (till Saturday early morning ... I mean very early morning). To ease the stress Mary had some music on and singing at the same time (her poor neighbours had to put up with her singing and the smell of cakes with the torture of not getting any).

Gracie was up to her eyeballs in cake batter... cheesecake mixing and watercolours ! Oh yes, watercolours indeed. In a moment of 'inspiration', she decided that we would bring our cakes to life in a customised menu... she had much fun with it... maybe too much fun, as it detracted from the baking which then had to go on until the wee early hours of Saturday morning... Probably not helped by her typical 'last minute' alterations to her cake designs either ;) - the fiddly work of the chocolate surrounds took longer than she had anticipated, though were definitely worth the effort...!

It took a good hour to set up the stand with some help and artistic direction from the lovely boys (thanks Jackson and both Alex's!). All whilst Mary was quickly piping away to finish off her cupcakes...

Our first customer was a toddler girl who had been curiously watching this flurry of activity with her father whilst we were setting up... She picked the 'OoOoo Chocolate' cupcakes - which turned out to be a shrewd choice as it ended up being our best seller and were quickly sold out before we knew it! As the day progressed, our cakes, truffles and other sweet temptations were rapidly disappearing before our eyes. We received positive feedback throughout the event, with many asking us whether we have our own cafe/shop... So that was very encouraging !

By the end of it all we were both completely shattered and ready for a good night's sleep ! :) Once again, thanks for all the great feedback... would love to hear what you the rest of you thought !

Birthday cakes birthday cakes...

Even though am supposedly focusing efforts for the fair - I did had a couple of distractions last week - 2 birthday cakes... and one that I was only given notice of in the morning, for the very same evening - yep, so I only had a couple of hours after work to come up with an idea, make it and deliver... I really should be more stringent about lead times... :)

Last minute madness: White chocolate and praline decorated with fresh Strawberries and a mixed berry creme.

Second Cake: A twist on the blackened forest - with the addition of a praline sponge, Baileys creme filling and decorated with special kirsch laced chocolate surprise cups (I loved making those!)