What I done at school this week

Well, I didn't win the Easter competition, but quite frankly I didn't expect to. The other entries in the finals were amazing! But the cake was most delicious ;)

Anyway, I don't know if I've mentioned this in a previous post, but I've enrolled in a cake course at my local campus. It's a ten week course with a class every Monday evening. So far I've done two weeks - the first was just an introduction with information on what I'd need to bring and the things we'd be doing. I went for the advanced course, but apparently that and the improver's course weren't very popular (which surprised me as I thought cake decorating was really fashionable at the moment) so they have merged the two courses into one. There's still only about 6 people on it though!

So the second class was this week, which covered how to make a lavender sprig and how to use stencils. The lavender was actually started on week one - we learnt how to make each individual flower head and that was our homework... to make 16 of them! I managed but it's fiddly work, it involves making five little rice-shaped 'petals' for each flower head - that's 96 in all! Just for one sprig! It just goes to show how people can easily justify charging hundreds of pounds for a high quality cake with sugar flowers. The amount of work that goes into it is phenomenal.

It was the first time I've ever used flower paste as well, when I made roses I stuck with fondant (also known as sugar paste) and they never really dried out properly. The flower paste has more glue in it which makes it stronger - you can roll it out thinner and it dries harder.

So here's my fully formed lavender sprig:

Not much considering it was at least 2 hours' work. But hey ho, it's given me the chance to try something new.

Then there was stencilling. I'd been instructed to buy some dusting colours for this, and also for the lavender, so the colours I bought were 'Foliage Green' and 'Lilac'. The green said it was edible, and the lilac said it wasn't edible, but only 'non-toxic'. I couldn't find any lilac that was marked as edible. I don't know if that means it's not available or what. I'm sure I'll find out.

I was really pleased with how my stencils turned out, so much so that I've bought a load off eBay today! Although the second time I tried one of them, I put it upside-down, so it got all smudged from the powder left over from the previous attempt. They also ended up a bit battered after being carried home in the box:

Together with the lavender.

The first attempt (sat on a rubbish half eaten cake.)

The smudged (and squashed) second attempt.

Quite possibly my favourite of the three.

Next week: shoes!

Easter Competition

I'm a finalist!!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.315602458505848.71737.115300861869343&type=1

Hopefully you can see this... if not then go to Facebook, find the Cake Masters page, like it and check out the 'Easter competition - Bake for Fun Finalists' album. My basket cake is there!

Ooh I'm all fizzy with excitement :-D

Easter Basket Cake

Well, Cake Masters have had another competition on for Easter. I don't think this one has a prize, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway.

Ever so original, I thought I'd have a go at an Easter basket style of cake, as there is a technique of piping butter cream where you can create a basketweave effect which I'd not had a go at before. I think you really need a special nozzle for the job but I made do with one of the plastic ones I got with my piping kit from Hobbycraft - it seemed to do the job.

I wrapped the sides of the cake with fondant icing before piping on the design, so that the sides were even. On the top is chocolate butter cream (which you can't actually see under all the decorations), many many many Creme Egg Minis (thanks Cadbury) and three chicks made from fondant. I added some flowers and leaves for a bit of colour:

The piping was very fiddly and didn't come out as neatly as I'd have liked. I think I got the icing consistency wrong as it kept curling up as it came out the nozzle. But I was pleased with the overall effect, even though I got butter cream all over the kitchen floor (it kept coming out of the top of the bag!)

I was going to add a handle, but I didn't think a fondant one would keep its shape, and I didn't want to spoil the fact that the entire thing is edible by making one from cardboard, so I just left it.

Still, not bad for a first attempt at a basket, I like to think.

More cupcakes

Another mate/colleague had his last day at our company recently, and since he's a big fan of F1 and cars in general I had a go at these:

It's the first time I've tried recreating an image with fondant... I made templates with baking paper and used those to cut round. It was fiddly but I think I pulled it off! :-D

I made two separate templates for the helmets, one for each colour, then fitted the pieces together. It was harder than it sounds as the black fondant stretched as I lifted it up so I had to trim it to size as I fitted the pieces together.

The wheels were done using circular cookie cutters, silver spray and the end of a large piping nozzle to do the smaller holes.

The written message was just to use up the royal icing left over from my previous cake. :-)

There was plenty left as well. Enough for these:

Royal Icing

So I finally got sick of the sight of the half finished cake that was sitting on the table for days and decided to complete it. I just rushed through it as I'd lost the enthusiasm.

Here's how it looked after I'd finished applying the royal icing. I don't think Ceri Dz (who did the YouTube videos I learnt the method from) would be particularly proud of it...

I used up the rest of the royal icing to pipe on a design and used the flooding techniques learnt from Elaine McGregor to do the heart and a collar on the board.

The icing was still wet when I took the photo...

The cake was nice although half of the icing got left behind as it had set so hard. I nearly had to get a saw out just to cut a slice!

Mother's Day

The next Cake Masters competition was announced recently, and in light of my complete failure to even get shortlisted in the Valentine's comp, I wanted to try again, bigger and better.

Well actually, it ended up being smaller. But that's beside the point.

I also wanted to do something special for my mum, of course :) xx

Anyway, I wanted to have a go with royal icing, so I went down to my local cakey shop (Sugarsmiths in Newport Pagnell - if you're in the area, I suggest you have a browse) and got myself a 5 inch round tin, turntable, sidescraper and icing ruler, as well as a few other bits and bobs. I've spent too much money in that shop...

I found a fruit cake recipe online here and did my best at scaling down the recipe to fit a 5 inch tin. I went wrong somewhere as I still had enough mix left over for another cake (although not as tall as the first). I know there are websites that show methods of scaling down to fit smaller tins. I shall have to have a look at those next time.

So I ended up with two fruit cakes, one around 3 inches tall and the other around half that height.

I decided that I would use royal icing on one, and fondant on the other. I didn't want to risk the royal icing going wrong on both of them and having nothing at all for the competition. It was a good job too, as I'm terrible at it!

Well perhaps that's an overstatement, but the smaller cake (which is the one I chose to practise royal icing on) is currently still sitting on our dining table with a single wonky layer of icing on it. I really should finish it - perhaps I can recover it still. According to the video I watched to learn how to do it (here), I need to do three layers: a firm peak layer, a soft peak layer, and a runoff layer. Basically (I think) the icing is supposed to get softer the further you get. But it's a work in progress and I will update you on that at a later time.

For the fondant covered cake, which ended up being my competition entry, I chose a yellow and lilac colour scheme. After covering the cake with marzipan (and kicking myself for forgetting to put apricot jam on the cake first (it was sat right there in a bowl! But I took the marzipan off and started again.) I coloured my fondant icing a pale yellow and draped it over the cake. I tried out my icing smoothing tool for the first time and was a little too vigorous with it unfortunately. I ended up with holes in my icing from air bubbles and apricot jam squeezing out (must have used too much). So I did the only thing I could think of... I put another layer of icing over the top. This one was better, smoother and without air bubbles. Thankfully I had rolled both layers out fairly thin so it didn't end up more icing than cake.

Next step (and my very favourite part) was decorating! I used methods learnt once again from Youtube, this time from a program with Elaine MacGregor. I hadn't heard of her before but the woman is a genius. You can find her videos here.

So using the methods I had learnt from these videos, I made use of crimpers, two different piping tips (I even made the piping bags myself from baking paper!), cutters and a simple cocktail stick for creating the frills. And of course my butterfly cutters came out again :-D

And here it is:

Happy Mother's Day everyone, especially my Mummy! xxx

A Farewell (or Kane's Kit-Kat Kake!)

No... not a farewell from here. I'm never giving up, never I tell you!

Ahem, sorry.

Anyway, I must apologise for my recent absence from blogging. I've been on a diet and for the first week or so I was trying to refrain from making cakes as I have a habit of eating as I go along - which is probably why I needed to be on the diet! But I just couldn't stay away from my favourite pastime, so here is the next adventure for you to read about...

I've heard and seen a few examples of the semi famous Kit-Kat + Smarties cake, and I thought it looked fab, so I decided to give it a go. I had a perfect excuse... one of my work colleagues resigned recently and his last day was Friday, so I told him I'd bring him a cake. Since whenever I say I'll be bringing cakes to work he asks for something chocolate (brownies and chocolate log spring to mind) so I thought this would be most fitting.

It was unbelievable how many Kit-Kats this takes! I bought 13 four finger bars, and I think 11 of them got used; it was only an 8 inch cake and it took 44 Kit-Kat fingers. There were also 6 tubes of Smarties on top and I still don't think that was enough. Tell me what you think.

Chocolate sponges just out the oven.

Sandwiched with chocolate buttercream. The whole cake was then covered with chocolate buttercream as well, but I wanted to work quickly to get the Kit-Kat fingers on before the icing started to set, so I didn't get a picture :-(

And here is the finished product! I was quite pleased with it - I was picturing some horrendous wonky mess but it turned out OK, I think.

I had to look up how to tie a proper bow, because when I tried to do it at first, it was like I'd just tied my shoe laces: not very elegant at all.

One thing that I need to remember for if I do this again... keep the Kit-Kats in the same groups of four they were in before I broke them apart, so that they fit together perfectly on the cake! It's unbelievably difficult to break a Kit-Kat evenly (while the biscuits are separated, the chocolate on them doesn't necessarily break in a straight line), so putting them next to the ones they were next to in the first place makes it like fitting two jigsaw pieces together. Seems obvious now I've written it down but it didn't seem like that at the time.

On the Friday morning, I arrived at work as I normally do before Kane (aforementioned colleague), complete with cake, which I placed on his desk as a surprise for when he arrived. He knew I was making a cake, but not what sort :-) I'd just settled down with my cup of tea, logged in and started work, when I got a phone call from the nursery. My son wasn't well and I had to go and get him. Oh well, up I got again, picked up the cake (yet to be seen by anyone, and I wanted to see his face when he saw it) and headed off.

Luckily I was able to come back in again a couple of hours later, and could give Kane his cake. He seemed very pleased with it, carrying it carefully round the building to show everybody. I just hovered behind him sheepishly as a lot of people exclaimed over it. It attracted a lot of attention. :-)

The most important thing of all... it all got eaten within minutes of being cut, so I heard. I managed to pinch a couple of slices to take home with me, but by the time I got to them they were stale. 

Oh well. At least I get the satisfaction of a job well done.

PS. Amazingly, I have stuck to the diet and have refrained from eating any of the left over Kit-Kat fingers in the fridge. My 19 month old son gets that privilege :-)