Raspberry and cream sponge cake

Nothing groundbreaking here, just a standard victoria sponge with fruit and a whipped cream filling. However there is something extra lovely about filling and decorating a cake with homegrown raspberries and homemade jam (rhubarb and raspberry in this case.) 

It's hard to beat raspberries (or strawberries) and cream for a summery cake. It's light and fresh, perfect for a summer birthday.

Our "fruiting garden" is developing very nicely. I picked roughly 1kg of blackcurrants last night, our biggest haul to date. Next up will be the loganberries and second crop of raspberries. I know I should freeze some of them but they will most likely end up in jam as my obsession with making jam is still going strong. All the fruit means all the jam!

Yet another rugby cake

Youngest nephew also requested a rugby themed birthday cake this year. My nerves still felt frazzled after the gravity defying rugby ball cake I created for his brother in March so I went down an easier route: a rectangular Victoria sponge cake with a fondant man on top. Simple yet still effective.

Why is it when you go into town for fondant icing in a particular colour you cannot find any for love nor money? In the end I painted white fondant green (with edible food colouring) for the pitch however I think this actually played in my favour. It looks more like a wet, muddy pitch than if it was just a flat, green block of fondant. 

The crushed bourbon biscuits for the mud were the finishing touch. Up until that point I was concerned my fondant man looked like he had been run over by a bus rather than a player diving to score a try. Adding the goals (made from thick card) helped bring the cake to life too.

Once again, it was important the rugby ball was a Scottish ball. I'm glad I still had some writing icing pens in the baking cupboard for that fiddly job!

Birthday boy was delighted with his cake. I was amused that he gave the cake slice with the player's "butt" to his friend to eat. Charming!

Irn Bru birthday cake

I'm finally onto my 2020 bakes, woohoo! Now here's a showstopper, my middle nephew's 10th birthday cake based on his favourite drink, Irn Bru.

To those out with Scotland, Irn Bru is a sweet, fizzy drink with a difficult to describe flavour (you can read about it here on wikipedia.) I can't say I've ever been a fan, but people who love it seriously LOVE it.

To create this cake I started off with baking eight 6" round Victoria sponge cakes (an 8 egg mixture I think), although I only ended up using 7 sponges. I felt that was high enough to create the proportions of an Irn Bru can. I toyed with the idea of incorporating Irn Bru flavour into the cake as I had seen other bakers do this online, but came to the conclusion that it's really the visuals of the birthday cake that's important to my nephews, not necessarily exciting or unusual flavours.

Stacking this cake was rather intense. I think this is the most careful I've ever been with levelling cakes. Usually I'm pretty laid back (lazy) about this kind of thing but as this was going to be tall it had to be as level as possible. I took this photo mid construction as I thought it looked rather impressive.

Rolling out enough orange fondant to cover the sides was quite an event, but it actually went on surprisingly smooth and stress-free. The only scary moment I encountered was when I thought the orange colouring in the fondant had permanently stained my lovely oilcloth tablecloth, but after a lot of bleach and elbow grease I got it shifted. Phew!

To finish the cake I made some boiled sugar shards to stick on top to mimic juice fizzing and bursting out the can. Usually it takes me two or three attempts to make anything caramel/sugar shard related but this worked first time. Yay! I also used silver edible paint for the top layer of fondant which did the job at bringing the can to life. It looked more effective than a grey fondant.

The birthday boy was thoroughly delighted with the cake and it tasted good too. Victoria sponge never disappoints. I was particularly pleased with how cool the cake looked cut open. It was an impressive cross section!

white chocolate and passionfruit sprinkle cake

Last October my sister-in-law requested passion fruit and lots of sprinkles as a theme for her birthday cake. This is what I created: a densely sprinkle-covered vanilla victoria sponge filled with passionfruit curd and white chocolate butter icing.

As suspected, I found sprinkles around my kitchen for DAYS afterwards. Totally worth it though.

I based the recipe around this cake I baked years ago. I'd definitely say it's one of my favourite cakes. I absolutely adore the combination of white chocolate, vanilla and passionfruit. It just feels special. The curd is zingy, the vanilla is aromatic and white chocolate is deliciously creamy and sweet. I also love using golden caster sugar in a vanilla victoria sponge. It gives an almost butterscotch flavour and just generally lifts the vanilla.

To make the cake look fancier I cut the sponges in half to make it quadruple layered but without being ridiculously tall. I really like doing this as it distributes all the flavours evenly through the cake.

To apply the sprinkles I coated the sides of the cake with the icing then rolled the sides in a tray full of sprinkles (I used at least 2 little tubs of hundreds and thousands). This is so much easier than trying to pat sprinkles onto the side of the cake and also contains some of the inevitable sprinkle mess. Then I iced the top of the cake and poured/pressed the remaining sprinkles on top.

I definitely want to make another dense sprinkle cake some day. Not only does it look fun but I also really enjoyed the crunch the sprinkles added to an otherwise soft textured cake.

There's no excuse not to make another sprinkle cake as I typically over bought sprinkles when I made this cake. There's at least two more tubs sitting in my baking cupboard. At least they're keeping all the pink marshmallows company!

White chocolate and passionfruit cake

 

sponges:

225g (8oz) golden caster sugar

225g (8oz) softened butter or Stork margarine

4 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

225g (8oz) self raising flour

 

passionfruit curd: 

(I would recommend doubling the quantity as I barely had enough for all the layers. However, if you don't cut your sponges in half this amount is fine)

3 passion fruit

1 egg

40g caster sugar

25g butter

 

white chocolate butter icing:

(enough if you don't cut your sponges in half, otherwise double the quantity)

100g white chocolate

100g butter

175g softened butter

 

First, make the curd. Cut the passion fruit in half, scoop out the pulp and strain the juice and flesh through a sieve. Discard the seeds. Put the strained juice, egg and sugar in a glass bowl and whisk until combined. Place the bowl over a small pan of gently simmer water and stir regularly until the mixture heats up and thickens. Do not turn up the heat and let it boil as you'll end up with sad scrambled egg. Add the butter and continue to whisk fairly regularly for about 20 minutes or until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Once ready, pour into a sterilised jar or bowl and leave to cool. Whilst the curd is cooling, make the sponges. 

 

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Grease two 20cm/8 inch round cake tins and line the bases with baking parchment. In a large bowl beat together the margarine and sugar for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs to the mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add a tablespoon of the flour with the last egg to prevent the mixture from splitting. Add the vanilla extract and flour and mix everything together until fully combined.
 

Divide the mixture between the cake tins and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for approx. 30 minutes until well risen, light golden and spring back when touched. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

 

To make the icing, beat together the butter and icing until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes.) Melt the white chocolate either in short bursts in a bowl in a microwave (30 seconds at a time) or in a glass bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Add the melted chocolate to the icing mixture and whisk again until fully combined.

 

Once cool cut both sponges in half to create four cake layers. Apply a layer of icing and curd to every sponge layer and stack. Cover the sides and top of the cake with the remaining icing. However if you want to create a sprinkle effect, there's a bit more work involved. First give the cake a light crumb coating with the icing then leave in the fridge for at least 1/2 hour to firm up. Once firm coat only the sides of the cake then pick up the cake, holding the top and bottom and gently roll the sides in a tray full of sprinkles (I used at least two tubs of hundreds and thousands sprinkles.) Once densely covered, put onto your cake onto a plate/cake stand and cover the top with icing. Pat/pour the sprinkles on top.

 

Now tidy the devastation that is your kitchen. Even if you think you've tidied up all the sprinkles, there will be MORE!!

 

Shaun the sheep cake

Out of all my bakes from last year this was hands down my favourite. Just look how flipping cute it turned out!

I made this cake for my youngest nephew's birthday last May and although it looks fancy it was surprisingly simple to put together (compared to previous years anyway!) 

The main cake is a stack of victoria sponges stuck together with jam, with a minimal amount of carving to create a body shape. Once carved it was covered in butter icing and large marshmallows were stuck on top. A smaller piece of cake was covered in black fondant and set on top for the head. The limbs and ears were also moulded from black fondant icing. All pretty simple.

The little accompanying characters were a bit more fiddly to mould but admittedly I didn't make them, they're my mum's handiwork. They definitely add to the overall fun look of the cake.

It turns out that it's difficult to buy a pack of white marshmallows as everything I came across was a mixture of pink and white. In the end I bought loads of packs and carefully picked out all the white marshmallows, leaving me with a hilariously large tub of pink marshmallows.

In addition to the cake I made a flock of cupcake sheep. They're possibly even cuter looking than the cake. Making these in addition to the cake meant buying mini marshmallows and, you guessed it, I ended up with a a tub full of pink mini marshmallows.

Now I am caretaker of ALL THE PINK MARSHMALLOWS. 11 months later I still have a plentiful stash in my kitchen. Hot chocolate, anyone?

30 and a load of cake

I turned thirty a few weeks ago. *Insert Edvard Munch's Scream painting face*

I think I hit the feeling-and-looking-physically-older phase a couple of years ago so I wasn't bothered about turning thirty. If anything, I feel much healthier and in better shape now than I was for the majority of my twenties. Also, the older I become the more socially acceptable it is for me to be myself i.e. an introverted granny-type who prefers staying home to knit than going out to party. Basically I'm growing into the old woman I've always been.

Last year there was a knitting theme to my presents, but this year it was homewares since my house is edging closer to becoming habitable. I'm guessing most women would be offended if they received a toaster, kettle and blender for their birthday rather than posh jewellery or a fancy holiday, but I was delighted. I love practical presents, especially if they're pretty. Also, they matched my cake which was a giant party ring.

My 1950s neapolitan kitchen dreams are slowly coming together.

As a side note, my Dad took practical presents to a completely new level. I am now the proud(?) owner of every conceivable cleaning fluid and a stack of washing up sponges. Nice.

My sister in law also turned thirty two days after me so we had a joint cake for our "fake birthday"/family dinner. Although we're good pals we are very different in our styles and tastes so Mum thought it would be fun to reflect that in our joint cake which was a big 3 and 0. For sis-in-law we made a super duper chocolate cake sandwiched with jam and chocolate butter icing and covered the top with loads of different chocolate treats. There were Toblerone chunks, Maltesers, Rolos, M&Ms and chopped up Mars Bar, Crunchie and Twix.

 SO. MUCH. CHOCOLATE.

The sides were decorated with segments of Terry's Chocolate Orange. I almost wish I had covered the sides as densely as the top, but at the same time leaving gaps made the cake easier to cut into slices.

For my Party Ring cake Mum baked 2 plain Victoria sponges, sliced them into 4 layers, sandwiched them together with jam and white chocolate butter icing and then covered the entire cake in pink fondant. I really loved the simplicity of the decoration, especially next to the chocolate cake which was so visually OTT.

I'm glad I didn't have all 30 candles on my cake as I barely had the lung capacity to blow out 15 in one go. That's partly because as soon as I started blowing out the candles my hair fell in front of my face and I thought I had set myself on fire. Always keeping things classy.

Naturally, I sampled both cakes. The chocolate one, as expected, was mega chocolatey but the sponge itself was very light so the overall cake didn't feel overwhelmingly heavy or rich. I used my favourite chocolate cake recipe for this cake, just in case you're curious and fancy trying it.

I don't know what it is about a plain sponge with jam, butter icing and fondant but it always hits the spot. It's hard to beat. Add in a bit of pink and some white chocolate then I'm even happier.

As I had an early fake birthday Mum thought I still needed a cake for my actual birthday. I certainly wasn't going to argue, so for cake number 2 Mum surprised me with a ballet slipper cake. Admittedly, it's the kind of cake usually made for little girls, but damn it I don't care. It's never too late to learn ballet and have your ballerina cake!

The week before my birthday I ordered my first leotard and ballet wrap skirt as a present to myself. Never did I think it was possible to feel so excited about exercise gear. My teacher is so chuffed that a few of us ladies are starting to wear leotards to class.

I love how the "ribbons" are arranged to create a 30; it's so subtle and clever. Also, check out the massive white chocolate Jazzies/Snowies around the cake! YUM.

As before, the cake was a plain sponge (Mary Berry's plain traybake recipe, I think) with jam and butter icing. Why change a good thing, right?

Next up is Dad's birthday cake. My family are all about birthdays in May and October! :D

french fancies

Man do I love a french fancy. They're pretty and pink, dainty and sweet. Perfect afternoon tea food. What's not to love?!

I remember watching an episode of the Great British Bake Off where they made french fancies for a technical challenge. Holy moly what a mess they got in! Crumbling sponges, gloopy, irregular icing - both tragic and hysterically funny for viewers. 

When I had left over sponge and fondant icing from middle nephew's bad ass t-rex cake I knew exactly what I was wanted to create. Fondant fancies are indeed a bit fiddly and mine are slightly wonky, but they tasted delicious and I had a lot of fun making them. That could partly be because I had Gilmore Girls on tv in the background. :D

I definitely want to make these again. The only change I'd make would be to omit the butter icing from the middle of the sponges and just use jam. I don't think it's necessary considering the outside is covered in a layer of butter icing before adding the melted fondant layer. It's pretty sweet as it is!

I also need to learn to let the fancies fully dry on the cooling rack before transferring onto plates. So much stickiness. They looked relatively presentable until I tried to move them for photos, oops!

I would write down a recipe but I have no real recollection of quantities as I made these back in March. However, I'll write down a general set of instructions if anyone else fancies making their own french fancies.

Bake a basic sponge mix (I use Mary Berry's sponge traybake recipe) in an oblong tin. Once your sponge is fully cool, preferably the following day when the sponge is a bit more stable, cut it in half horizontally and sandwich together with a layer of jam. 

Cut the sponge into cubes then fully cover each cube, except the bottom, with a thin layer of butter icing (you can add food colouring if you like.) Heat your spatula/spreading knife in a cup of hot water to help your icing spread and smooth down edges. 

While your butter icing is setting, melt your block of fondant icing in a large heatproof bowl. I did this by gradually pouring enough boiling water over it  and mixing until it softened and achieved a good pouring consistency. Add some food colouring but keep some white spare for decoration at the end. 

Pour the melted fondant over each cube. You can use a spatula/knife to encourage the icing to reach edges or corners. Finally, fill an icing pen with the remaining white melted fondant (or use a teaspoon) to pipe/drizzle zig zags across each cube. 

Leave to dry then serve. You can store these in a container if you like but bear in mind the fondant icing will become very sticky. This will not affect the taste though :)

strawberry and cream cake

After the success of last year's Wimbledon final cake I decided to make another this year. I didn't write out a recipe last time so I thought the cake was worth documenting again.

This is such a pretty, summery cake. I love the simplicity of a dusting of icing sugar and the freshness of strawberries and cream.

I also love when a filling squidges when you cut into the cake. There's strawberry jam and whipped cream sandwiched between the sponges here which makes for a satisfying squidge.

A couple of folk last time asked whether the strawberries made the sponges soggy and I think the trick to avoiding that is to keep the strawberry chunks fairly small and not to add too many. I also gave them a light coating of flour before incorporating them into the cake batter.

I don't think I have anything else new to say about the cake. The combination of vanilla flecked sponge with strawberries, cream and jam is a winner. The only bummer is that the cake needs to be kept in the fridge due to the cream filling, but then again, you may find this cake won't last longer than one sitting. It's pretty good.

Strawberry and cream cake

sponges:

200g margarine/ softened butter

200g golden caster sugar

3 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

200g self raising flour

100g strawberries, chopped into relatively small chunks - lightly coated in flour

filling:

300ml pot of double cream - lightly whipped

generous spoonfuls of strawberry jam 

icing sugar for dusting

extra strawberries for decoration

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Grease two 18cm/7 inch round cake tins and line the bases with baking parchment. In a large bowl beat together the margarine and sugar for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs to the mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add a tablespoon of the flour with the last egg to prevent the mixture from splitting. Add the vanilla bean paste and flour and mix everything together until fully combined. Stir in the strawberry chunks until evenly distributed.

Divide the mixture between the cake tins and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for approx. 30 minutes until well risen, light golden and spring back when touched. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Once cool, sandwich the cakes together with whipped cream and strawberry jam. Decorate the top of the cake with a dusting of icing sugar and halves of strawberries. 

This is best eaten on the day of serving although it will keep for a couple of days if covered and kept in the fridge.

happy house birthday cake.... and a tractor

My eldest brother recently received planning permission to start building his new house (woohoo!) so naturally his birthday cake this year featured a house. To keep the cake nice and "manly" I used square sandwich tins. It made a fun change to my usual round sponges.

Such fine drawing skills comes from years of art school training. You can see from the level of detail on the roof and windows that I have a painting degree. Hahaha!

I originally intended to ice the sides of the cake as well but ended up having a bit of a jam explosion. That's what happens when you go, "ah there's not much left in the jar, I might as well use it all." I think it adds to the fun character of the cake though. It's a cake to make you smile.

As my brother says, it's hard to go wrong with a plain sponge cake. It just works. And the more jam, the better!!

And lastly... a tractor cake for my youngest nephew's birthday. It's non stop birthdays in my family at the moment. This probably isn't my finest work, but it does resemble a tractor so it's all good. Fondant modelling definitely requires more patience and precision than I posess!

That's meant to be my nephew in a boiler suit jumping out of a tractor. Classy work.

Happy house sponge cake

8oz caster sugar

8oz margarine/softened butter

4 large eggs

8 oz self raising flour, sifted

filling and icing:

a jar of strawberry jam 

a pack of writing icing pens

350g icing sugar 

125g softened butter

2 tbsp milk

a few drops of vanilla extract (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Grease and line two 18cm/ 7 inch square cake tins. Beat together the sugar and butter/margarine for 5 minutes with your mixer until pale, soft and very fluffy. Crack the eggs into a jug and lightly whip together with a fork before gradually adding to the sugar mixture, mixing well after each addition. Add a tablespoon of the flour with the last lot of egg if the cake mixture starts to curdle/split. Add the remaining flour and mix until fully combined. 

Divide the mixture between the two tins and bake in the centre of the oven for about 25 minutes until well risen, golden and firm to touch. Leave in the tins for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Beat together the icing sugar, butter, milk and vanilla for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Use half the icing to sandwich the sponges together along with a generous spread of jam. Top the cake with the remaining icing and decorate with a writing icing or sprinkles.

berry bakewell cake

I'd like to start off by saying a huge thank you to everybody who left advice on my last post regarding my not so successful bundt. The general consensus is that I should invest in some cake release spray so that's what I'm going to try next. I shall not be defeated by that bundt tin!

Hello photogenic plugs and sockets.

Now onto a cake which was a total success, woohoo! My Mum is a huge fan of almondy, bakewell flavours so I decided to make this pimped up Victoria sponge for her birthday last week.

It's a very simple cake but the addition of ground almonds and berries make it that bit more special. Basically if you love victoria sponges and bakewell tarts then you'll love this cake.

The nephews are excellent fire extinguishers.

I used frozen berries in this cake but I imagine fresh would taste even better. I was a bit worried about adding too many in case they would all sink and make the sponges soggy but thankfully this wasn't the case. If anything I think I could get away with adding a few more next time.

We have red blinds in our kitchen so if you're wondering why all my photographs are rose tinted that's why. I haven't gone all instagram toaster filter on you.

Ahhh just looking at that photo makes me want to bake the cake again. Apparently the last slice tasted even better the following day.

Berry Bakewell Cake

I naturally bake in imperial measurements (I'm old school like that) but I've converted the weights into grams. I hope they're right!

8oz/ 225g caster sugar

8oz/ 225g margarine (I used Vitalite as I wanted to make the cake dairy free)

3 large duck eggs (hen eggs are fine, as long as the overall weight is roughly 8oz)

8oz/ 225g self-raising flour

1 oz/ 28g ground almonds

a few drops of almond essence (add to taste)

roughly 2-3 ounces/ about 75g mixture of berries (fresh or frozen) for scattering

a few tablespoons of strawberry jam

Icing sugar for dusting

Grease and line two 20cm round cake sandwich tins. Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180C. Beat together the sugar and margarine for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the flour if the mixture starts to curdle/split. Add a few drops of almond essence (to taste) along with the rest of the flour and ground almonds and mix until everything is fully combined. Divide the mixture between the two cake tins. In a separate bowl, give the berries a light coating of flour to stop them sinking in the mixture (you can cut some of the heavier berries such a blackberries in half to reduce weight.) Lightly press the berries into the surface of both cakes. 

Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for roughly 25 minutes or until both sponges are golden, well risen and spring back to touch. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire cooling rack. Once cold, sandwich together with a generous amount of jam and serve with a dusting of icing sugar on top.