2 days... 49 cakes!

OK...so I cheated and 48 of those were of the cup variety... though still... that's still quite a lot of cakeage ! :)

My Brother's birthday... as the baby of the family, he always gets a bit of extra special treatment... hence the cupcakes on top of his birthday cake. Fluffy chocolate sponge cupcakes filled with raspberry jam and topped with cream cheese frosting and flake... :)

For the main event, he was also after a chocolate cherry concoction - and you know how I feel about all my cakes being very individual... so again, I had to rethink my concept... presentation. No almond this time though, brother doesn't like almond. This time I syruped my own cherries... equal proportions sugar to water in a pan and once melted,threw in some frozen pitted cherries, left it on a gentle simmer for 15ish minutes on low heat. In the last 5 mins, splash in some Kirsch to finish and leave to cool. The cherries tasted just how they should, not having worked with kirsch before, though it really does do something special to enhance the flavour!

The sponge was chocolate, the cream was a layer of chocolate mousse (custard based) and the other a cherry mousse, both pebbled with the juicy cherries, and finished with a chantilly cream. Topped with 2 tone cherry glaze from the cherry syrup, though as the syrup was a bit too sweet, I offset this with some fresh raspberry purée to give it a more rounded flavour. Happy Birthday Bwo... xx

Baking overload

This hot weather we have been having had been so wonderful - though not ideal conditions in any sense for baking, storing or transporting any type of cakeage...

Though all my friends and family all seem to be cancerian babies, all with birthday's within days of each other... ! So it has been late night and early bakes for me to avoid the blanket of heat that fills my kitchen throughout the afternoon...

This week and weekend was a baking baking marathon... 2 birthday cakes, 1 celebration cake, 1 banana loaf cake, 6 mini berry tarts and 1 large tart filled with crème patissière and topped with strawberries...all within 5 days! Though in my baking frenzy, it looks like I forgot to take a picture of my passionfruit/ white chocolate mousse cake... eesh !
No wonder I had to take a slacky sleepie Monday off... Yay !

Though amid all this baking crazyness, there has been a casualty... For some reason,my lovely Nikon SLR has decided to rebel and refuses to work. Well, actually, it does work, it just doesn't want to lock in the SD card in its slot. No reason, it just won't lock? Anyone else had this problem before? I have had to send my baby away to be fixed... :( Hope she gets better soon...

Baked with Love (Part II)

Back in November 2008, I got my first ever commission for a birthday cake... and we have come full circle - this time I made a cake for Uncle Flavian - Auntie Mina's other half... :) What a lovely garden party they threw, taking full advantage of this beautiful weather we have been having !

The brief was a straightforward blackforest gateau,though as usual, I always do things a little bit differently, so put a very gentle almond undertone throughout just to bring out the cherries and add another dimension to the flavours.

Three sponge layers - 2 chocolate, 1 of chocolate almond, 2 fillings (smooth dark chocolate mousse dotted with juicy dark cherries, and some equally juicy sour cherries to cut through the richness; a second layer of red cherry mousse, filled with whole cherries and chocolate shards for a little textural crunch!) and a subtle almond cream to top it all off.

Worried that the look was slightly out of season, I finished it with an elegant floral chocolate surround, homemade chocolate cherry cups and decorative two tone chocolate decorations and gorgeous fresh picola cherries... As usual, the devil's in the detail !

Spreading the crumbs...

I have been meaning to post this one for a while, though I just haven't quite got around to it... Though a couple of months ago, my friend Y wanted to bake a birthday cake for her hon, and asked if I could help. Of course I jumped at the chance, I guess I love the creativity of baking and the joy that baking brings to others, so to be able to share the experience was great fun!

I think she enjoyed making the cake as it wasn't as intimidating as it looks... the tutorial was a laugh ! And doesn't it look great ! Gold stars methinks!!! :)

Berries and Butterflies

I've had a break from baking for health reason for the past few months, but I'm back on the mend now. To celebrate, I took a few days off work to bake my daughter a birthday cake. You would have thought that I would choose something simple to get my to my baking mojo back, but my daughter wanted a three layer cream cake with berries, butterflies and a pink chocolate wrap. So here it is:

The first layer was filled with raspberry fresh cream and the second layer was filled with strawberries and cream. The pink chocolate was a bit tricky to make and the hot weather didn't help, I'll definitely have another go at this next time. We made the butterflies out of edible paper and my daughter decorated them with some edible glitter. I think she did a great job.

jamming around...

Last weekend I had a hankering for making some doughnuts... I am not a fan of cakey doughnuts. I much prefer their yeast-dough counterparts. There is just something about the lightness and the delicate nature of the best kind of doughnut. The way it doesn't just give way when you sink your teeth into them, the gluten gives you just that little bit of resistance, that makes them so satisfying, whilst still being soft and fluffy... Yum! Fillings? Purest that I am, raspberry jam in one and M's favourtite apple and dusted with cinammon sugar for the other... :)

Though how do you make a doughnut keep beyond a day?! Ideas...?

Caked out

Lots of cakes, though have been very slack in posting...

So here you go... all in one fell swoop... :)

So what do we have here... Lots of birthday cakes mainly... all with similar makeup, though all different flavours... Firstly Kal's cake... filled with raspberry and amaretto cream... a nutty roulade surround and topped with fresh berries and funky homemade chocolate decorations...

And this one. A special commision for S... A banoffee-chocolate-rum gateau... :) This one was a bit different, instead of just sponge layering through the cake, I changed the texture of this one a bit. It has a crunchy caramelised biscuit base dotted with pecans... then a filling of luscious rum cream, fresh bananas and caramel... the second layer was a plain chocolate cream peppered with fresh raspberries. Topped with raspberry cream filled profiteroles encased by crunchy caramel and the cake itself finished with an elegant chocolate surround.

So what else do we have... let's see....Well this one. I was a bit undecided about this one. The filling was a lychee and strawberry filling. The fruity lychee mousse was very refreshing, though I am just not too keen the texture of the lychee mousse... maybe the puree needs to be finer next time? Though it did make for a very spring flavoured treat!

So last, but by no means least... this retro looking number. Topped with butterscotch cream fill profiteroles and fresh strawberries, hides a butterscotch pear surprise ! There were a number of steps to this seemingly simple cake... and it gave me trouble! One of the layers of sponge was supposedly a hazelnut dacquoise, though whilst I was busy getting on with my vanilla poached pears, I may have forgotten that they were in the oven. I think I need another timer ! :P

Luckily, the rest of it behaved itself. So, sandwiched in between the vanilla sponge was a creamy butterscotch mousse, then the troublesome dacquoise, followed by the poached pear purée mousse, with some of the poached pears roughly chopped into the mix. Finished with smashed up praline of toasted pistachios, pecans and hazelnuts... Pure indulgence...

Halloween and Baby Shower

Oh gosh, it has been that long since I last posted something on this blog? Tut Tut Tut. It's a good thing that Gracie has been keeping up with all the baking and blogging.

Did everyone have a wonderful Halloween? Here is the Pumpkin that my Rascal chose and the scary face was carved by my brother in law. Hee Hee Hee! The heat from the candle inside has made the top shrink.

My friend, Delene, had her baby shower last Saturday and I promised her that I'll bring some cupcakes. So I ordered some cute baby boy decorations and pretty cupcake cases. I phoned Gracie asking for tips on what sponge and icing to use for the cupcakes. In the end I used a Chinese Chocolate sponge and the topping consisted of melted vanilla white chocolate and milk chocolate instead of the usual butter cream and icing.

I tried to make some Totoro puffs (I saw some on a Japanese Website), but they turned out looking more like weired teddies/bunnies. Hee Hee Hee.... I definitely need to work on my piping.....well at least they tasted great.