Wow, that’s one helluva name for a cake! One of my best friends asked if I would make a cake for his brother’s 30th birthday party at the weekend. He even knew what he wanted – a 30 speed sign as the naughty boy had been caught speeding a few weeks ago!

I decided this wasn’t going to be a plain cake – I wanted another case of what’s on the outside reflecting what’s on the inside, so red – strawberry, and white – white chocolate of course!

Using the same original recipe as my Tardis cake (this one from allrecipes), I adapted slightly to replace some of the sugar with strawberry jam for an extra fruity flavour. My only regret is that I just used the jam we had in the fridge, I wish I’d bought a more expensive one with higher fruit content to really boost the strawberry taste.

Ingredients

• 220g butter
• 100g strawberry jam
• 300g caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• 4 eggs
• 375g plain flour + 1 extra tablespoon
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 200g white chocolate, broken into small chunks
• 180g dried strawberries (I use Urban Fruit which you can buy from most supermarkets)

I was going to cut the strawberries into smaller pieces, but actually liked their big, chunky texture alongside the chunks of white chocolate:

Method

• Cream together the butter, sugar, jam and vanilla until light and fluffy
• Beat in the eggs, with a spoonful or so of flour to the curdling
• Sieve and fold in the remainder of the flour and the baking powder
• Mix the strawberries and the white chocolate, coat in the tablespoon of flour, and lightly mix into the batter (don’t over-stir)
• Pop into your tin and bake for 60-90 minutes at 180 degrees. Timing is very dependent on your oven, size and shape of tin, etc, so after an hour check back every 10 minutes until an inserted skewer comes out relatively clean. Remember there will be melted white chocolate so it won’t be completely clean, you just want it to be free of cake batter/dough

I opted to slice mine in two (once cool), so I could add a filling to the middle.

Look at all the chocolate and strawberries! Yum yum!

Filled with vanilla cream cheese icing…

…and then completely covered.

Finally I got chance to try out my new silicon mat, after months of lusting I finally made it to Ikea to get one, thanks to the lovely Emma’s recommendation. How cute is it, especially that little knife with the heart shaped end! And such a bargain, perfect for rolling out fondant.

Because I needed a really bright red for the speed sign, I cheated and bought some pre-coloured fondant/ready-to-roll icing. 3x 250g packs were more than enough, and I have a sneaky plan for the leftovers already…

Boy how I underestimated that little heart-shaped knife! It was a one-stop-wonder for tucking and chopping the fondant under the bottom of the cake. It made finishing the edges so wondrously easy!

Next up, for the white inner of the sign, I scouted around my kitchen for something that would be the right size of circle, and this saucepan lid fitted the bill perfectly.

For the 30 numbers, I simply coloured some black fondant (using chocolate fondant to start with so I was halfway there already), and cut around some letters I’d printed off to the right size.

Finally, how could I resist, a finishing of edible glitter!

The finished cake:

And, being such a monster of a cake, we even managed to fit 30 candles on top!

Regular readers may remember our visit to New Zealand last month, for my brother’s wedding in Christchurch.

Blogged back from the wedding was the cake itself – and, this week, as we held a UK celebration whilst they visit on their honeymoon, I was delighted to have the chance to recreate it. Of course it’s not Autumn here as it was back in NZ – but, well, with this weather, it could be almost any season!

The original wedding cake:

I absolutely loved the idea at the wedding to have a big cake for the couple to share, and individual cakes for each guest to either enjoy on the day, or take away and savour.

As we were going to have around 50 guests at the party, and I only had a day to bake and ice everything, individual cupcakes seemed a great way forward. I stuck with the original lemon flavour that had been chosen for the wedding – the large cake was a lemon madeira sponge with a vanilla buttercream centre and coating, and the cupcakes were a vanilla victoria sponge with lemon filling/icing.

Baking done remarkably quickly, I set on the task of coring, filling, and icing 50 cupcakes. No mean feat! I wasn’t watching the clock but reckon it must have taken me a good couple of hours.

Step by step: coring (with a sharp knife); filling with buttercream and trimming the core to create a thin lid; a top layer of buttercream and a white scalloped fondant finish.

I used leaf cutter/plungers to create to toppings, colouring the fondant orange first, and adding a little tylose powder so they would set firm. To get the crinkled autumn leaf shape, I placed them on various curved surfaces to set – around a pen, and in the corners of a mini cupcake tin.

Before adding to the cupcakes, I coloured the edges with a little gel food colour, and finished with a sprinkle of gold edible glitter. Then with a little dab of edible glue they simply stuck to the centre of the cupcakes.

For the main wedding cake, I covered in white fondant and formed a tree out of black fondant. By rolling the black icing into thin strips, I slowly built up the tree outline adding smaller and smaller branches as I went on. A few carefully placed leaves around the tree, and some having fallen to the ground, I was really pleased with the look of what was actually a very simple design to construct.

Such a special cake couldn’t sit (or fit!) on an ordinary cake stand; Rob kindly offered (or was ordered, I forget which…) to custom build me a three tier stand for the wedding party centrepiece. He used the cake tin I used for the main cake to measure the top tier, then added a couple of inches to each of the lower ones to get the increasing sizes.
I feel like this is our homage to Cupcake Wars where they show all of 30 seconds of their amazing carpenters constructing these fabulous carts, tables, stands and anything else thrown their way.

And if Rob says he didn’t enjoy making it – well, I beg to differ. It gave him great oppourtunity to practice his paint effects; white marble for the top of the tiers, and bronze paint with crackle glaze for the copper piping centre. Believe it or not, the stand was constructed entirely out of wood!

The centrepiece of the wedding party table, the cakes looked absolutely fantastic on their stand:

- and we kept the cupcakes replenished throughout the day. They didn’t last long and every complemented how great they were

And as the party continued on into the evening, the newlyweds cut the main cake, which was equally as yummy.

Congratulations to the happy couple it was such a pleasure to make this for you and share two special wedding celebrations! x

So it looks like summer might finally be here! I won’t say more in case of jinxing the beautiful sunshine away, but safe to say I have had a pasty limb or four out in the rays at every possible opportunity

Earlier this evening, inspired by the fresh summer weather, I picked up some mango in the supermarket. Being Rob’s favourite, I thought it would be gone in a flash. But, he was out, I happened upon a mango yoghurt in the fridge, and a little baking plan formed in my head…

I couldn’t find a recipe that exactly matched up what I wanted to make, so with some inspiration from chocablog, I concocted these little beauties:

Mango Cupcakes (makes 8 - 10)

100g fresh mango
125g mango yoghurt (or another fruity flavour if you can’t find mango)
75g butter
75g caster or granulated sugar
1 large egg
125g self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

Fruity Vanilla Buttercream

50g butter
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla bean extract
120g icing sugar

Mango Coulis Icing

100g fresh mango
1 tablespoon water
30g icing sugar

In the absence of any yellow or orange cupcake cases (seriously, and my baking cupboard is like a rainbow! I must go shopping more…), I sprung upon these amazing star foil cases from dotcomgiftshop. I bought them months ago and have been waiting for an opportunity to use them ever since – well no time like the present. They were super easy to bake with, no change in time or temperature from normal cupcakes, and didn’t require a shaped tin as the foil completely holds it’s shape.

Method

- Blend the yoghurt and chopped mango to form a paste
- Cream the butter and sugar, beat in the egg and the mango mixture
- Sieve the flour and baking powder, and fold into the mixture
- Spoon into cases, and bake for 10-15 minutes at 180 degrees C until golden, well-risen and springy to the touch

For the buttercream, I simply beat the ingredients together, and piped onto the cool cupcakes using a wide star nozzle. First I piped each point of the star, trailing the icing off as I got to the edge:

…finishing on the top with a final piped star centre:

Have a quick google and you’ll see coulis can be made in endless ways – blending the mango straight from cold, boiling for a while, cooking up with sugar, or really however you please! I chopped mine into small pieces, and simmered in the water for about 5 minutes until it was extra juicy and soft. Then, it simply went into the blender with the icing sugar, and blitzed to form a smooth paste.
Quite honestly it nearly didn’t make it to the cakes – I could have just eaten the whole lot with a spoon! Finally I conceded and poured it into a thin-nozzled piping bag, creating contrasting star shapes over the top of the buttercream.

Just look at that mango… how could you resist? I just love all the fresh juicy fruits we get in summer!

And inside is a similarly yummy story – moist, springy cake, light smooth buttercream, and that striking tangy mango topping. Mmhmmm!

As with all cake (surely?) they are best eaten straight away (no problem there!). They will keep for a day or so in the fridge but the mango coulis might get a little sticky in storage. Not the worst problem ever Here’s to a long, hot, fresh & fruity summer!

By the wonder that is Facebook, I found out a couple of weeks ago, that there was a charity bake sale taking place in Toton, mere minutes drive away from us. I’m not really that great at giving money to charity, but am always happy to give my time or skills (Christmas present wrapping I just love!) for a worthy cause. This particular cause was Little Hearts Matter, and the event the brilliantly titled Big Hearted Bake, raising money for children born with heart conditions.

I wanted to bake something fun and family friendly, chocolate was definitely on the menu! I’d initially planned to make a big show-stopping cake to serve slices of, but time really wasn’t on my side last week, so I stuck with what I knew would work best – cute little cupcakes.

These lovely little cases jumped right out of my baking box, pretty black and white ivy designs from The Cake Decorating Company, based right here in Nottingham (more on this amazing shop to come in due course, I’m sure).

The recipe I used was a simple chocolate sponge from my Be-Ro book. It occurred to me that we used to make these exact cakes at home when I was little, but back then (about 20 years ago, eek!), we would never have called them cupcakes, they would have been chocolate buns through and through, as the book calls them. Funny how even baking has its trends that change!

When the cakes were cool, I topped them with a big swirl of mint buttercream – just butter and icing sugar, with a few drops of peppermint essence, and a tiny dab of green gel food colouring.

To decorate the tops, I followed the ivy theme from the cases, and used a flower and leaf plunger cutter, to cut shapes out of chocolate fondant. I worked a little tylose powder into the fondant before rolling it out, so the shapes would set nice and firm.

Then, it was simply a case of squishing the fondant topper straight onto the top of the mint buttercream…

… before finishing with some chocolate chunk sprinkles and some iridescent edible glitter (they’re for children, excess of glitter is a necessity, honest!)

The finished cupcakes – it took every inch of willpower not to eat one before they got dropped off at the bake sale.

And the best news by far – the event raised nearly £1,800 for this lovely charity. If you want to see more details on Facebook, or follow their page so you can be a part next year, you can find the Toton bake here.

Happy Father’s day to all the dads out there! I couldn’t let the occasion pass without baking something for my lovely dad, and this year I decided to create one of his favourite TV programs in fondant-form – The Simpsons!

My mum gets a lot of brownie points for asking if I had some new stencils to make the characters – but no! I printed an image off and used the outlines as templates, from there on in everything was created with just a sharp knife, a cocktail stick, and some edible glue.  I used a vanilla cupcake with a big cloud of vanilla frosting to create a blank canvas for the characters to sit on.

First up – the brat of the bunch! Bart Simpson – his extra spiky hair proved a bit of a challenge as my fondant wasn’t happy in such tiny points, but a bit of coaxing with the cocktail stick and it got there in the end.

The first of the sisters – Lisa Simpson. The pearl necklace was so simple to create but I love how perfect it looks! Her eyelashes were painted on using the end of a cocktail stick dipped in black gel food colouring. My only gripe is that she looks a little grumpy though…

The baby of the bunch, little Maggie Simpson. I had a lot of fun making her blue bow and red dummy (or pacifier if you will!) Although a bit fiddly as it was so small, I think the results are super-cute:

Next up – Marge Simpson. I’m not going to lie, that big blue perm was somewhat of a challenge! I made the fondant quite thick on this part, so it wouldn’t crack up too much.

And last but certainly not least, the dad himself! I am thankful to Matt Groening for designing Homer Simpson as such the simple character that he is and therefore very easy to make – a big oval head, 5 o’clock shadow, and then a few sprigs of hair painted on with edible food colouring.

I’m impressed myself with the way they turned out – although very surprised that I couldn’t find any Simpsons cupcake cases to put them. There’s clearly a gap in the market!

Happy Father’s Day dad! x

How cute are these bite-sized little sponges? The perfect treat for afternoon tea (or morning, or evening…), simple to make and easy to transport and assemble too.

For an after-work afternoon tea this evening (how nice is it to be able to do things outside post-5pm), I wanted something that was simple to make, but wouldn’t get spoilt in the sticky heat of my car all day. I made the sponges last night, carefully packed them in an airtight container, layered with greaseproof paper, and took little pots of strawberry jam and pre-made buttercream to snappily assemble on arrival at my friend’s house.

The recipe is a basic Victoria sponge, but eked out with a little milk, instead of using 2 eggs and ending up with too much mixture.

Ingredients makes 5 mini sandwiches

75g butter
75g sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla paste (or equivalent vanilla essence)
1 large egg
15ml milk
75g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

Strawberry jam and a small amount of vanilla buttercream to fill (15g butter + 30g icing sugar should be plenty)

Method

Cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla. Beat in the egg and milk, before folding in the sieved flour and baking powder.

Grease a muffin tin well (I used cake release spray), and spoon 1 1/2 – 2 teaspoons into each hole. Bake at 180 degrees for 7-8 minutes until the sponge is springy, and starts to come away a little from the sides.

How cute are those little sponges!

Once cool, layer up half of the sponges with vanilla buttercream and strawberry jam…

…before carefully sandwiching together with the other halves:

Perfect for a summer’s evening afternoon tea!

Do not adjust your screen, you did read it correctly! A very good friend of mine recently compiled a list of thirty things she’d like to do before she turns 30 next year – and for reasons unknown to the majority of us, Christmas in June made the list.

Not that I’m one to complain – Christmas is my absolute favourite time of year, the sparkles, the presents, the games, the friends, and of course the FOOD! The original plan was to have a Christmas barbecue – turkey burgers, full-sized pigs-in-blankets (forever more known as hogs-in-duvets), and of course some great festive desserts. But, the great British summer being what it is, we looked out of the window and had a bit of a rethink, so a full Christmas roast dinner was had instead.

Dessert was going to be the same either way – a big, sticky, chocolatey, Christmas yule log.

The recipe follows exactly the same method as the swiss roll recipe I posted earlier in the year – more pictures can be found over there if you’re struggling!

And when I saw this Tala swiss roll tin on offer in Hobbycraft earlier in the week, well, it was just fate and I just needed to have it in my kitchen…

Recipe

4 medium eggs
125g caster sugar
30g cocoa powder
95g self raising flour

To ice:

150g butter
75g cocoa powder
225g icing sugar

Method

- Whisk the eggs and sugar together until light, pale, fluffy, and about double their original volume (this can take up to 10 minutes, even with an electric mixer)
- Sieve the cocoa powder and flour, and gently fold into the egg mixture
- Take a swiss roll tin (or ordinary baking tray with ridged sides), line, grease, and coat with a layer of sugar and flour
- Pour in the batter, and smooth out very carefully using a spatula, making sure to get into all the corners, and flatten out
- Bake in a hot oven (220 degrees) for 7-8 minutes, until the sponge is light springy to the touch
- Whilst the cake is baking, prepare another sheet of greaseproof paper, a little bigger than your tray. Lay it on a damp tea towel, and cover all over with a good sprinkling of caster sugar
- As soon as the cake is cooked, run a knife lightly round the edges, and flip out onto the sugared greaseproof paper
- Keeping the original sheet of greaseproof paper on top (the one it was baked with), quickly but carefully, start at one end and roll the whole tea towel, cake and paper stack up tightly.
- Tuck the end underneath so the roll is held tightly, and allow to cool
- Once cool, beat together the butter, cocoa and icing sugar to form a smooth buttercream
- Gently unroll the cake, and spread all over with around 1/3 of the buttercream. Re-roll, and place on a plate, ensuring the loose ‘end’ is at the bottom, so it doesn’t come undone
- If desired, cut off a small piece from the end of the log, and place by the side to form a branch
- Cover the whole cake in the remaining buttercream, and decorate!

I decorated my cake with some tree bark effects in the buttercream – simply using a cocktail stick to create lines and knots.

And t0 finish, a little robin:

… and some leaves and a Christmas sign!

One last finishing touch – a sprinkling of festive ‘snow’ – well with the summer we’re having it wouldn’t be a surprise! This snow was actually a mixture of icing sugar, and some white edible glitter.

One very festive dessert! It’s amazing just how easy it is to get into Christmas in June…

One epic Christmas roast dinner later, and a table full of hungry revellers, the cake was quite quickly devoured!

So here it is – Merry Christmas everyone!

When life gives you lemons, well, who among us would actually make lemonade? Not me, for one! A moist, fluffy, sweet-but-tangy lemon cake? Now you’re talking!

It was one of those weeks in the office, where nobody has brought us cake / chocolate / biscuits / sweets (yes, we are very spoilt, and it’s amazing), and free highlighter pens just don’t quite help with sugar cravings in the same way….
I had some lemons in the bottom of the fridge that had been need a use for a week or so now, and after a long conversation about lemon cake in the office the previous week, whereby we decided it was the best cake for all our tastes, well, it was a match made in heaven really!

After flicking through several recipes, I settled on a lemon drizzle cake recipe that I can’t for the life of me find now. I upped the lemon so it had more flavour, and, as you’ll see, split it into two cakes so I had one for work, and a smaller one to take with me for dinner at a friends the next evening.

The only difference between making these and one big loaf (other than the tin size!), would be the cooking time, which you’d need to up to around 45 minutes, if not more, to make sure it’s thoroughly cooked in the middle.

Ingredients

225g butter
225g white sugar (caster or granulated)
3 eggs
225g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
Juice and finely grated rind of 2 lemons

For the sugar crust
Juice and finely grated rind of 1/2 lemon
80g white sugar

For the lemon icing
Juice and finely grated rind of 1/2 lemon
80g icing sugar

Method

- Make as per normal sponge cakes – beat the sugar and butter until fluffy, add the eggs and flavouring, then fold in the sieved flour and baking powder
- pour into your prepared tin(s) and bake at 180 degrees C for 25- 30 minutes (2 cakes) or 45-60 minutes (1 big cake), until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean

- if topping with the sugar crust: keep the cake in its tin, and lightly prick small holes all over the with a thin skewer. Mix the sugar and lemon together, and pour all over the top of the cake. Leave in the tin until cool, when the sugar will have formed a crust in the top

- If topping with lemon icing: take the cake out of its tin and allow to cool completely. Mix the icing sugar and lemon well; and pour all over the cake, allowing it to drip down the sides.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy! One recipe and two light, fluffy and so deliciously lemony loaf cakes.

Best enjoyed in big, thick slices. YUM!

This was never really supposed to be a Fourth of July post (American Independence Day if you live under a rock…), but it occurred to me last night as I was baking the cheesecake, that it was an American recipe, and if I could get a wriggle on and post today, well, it would be quite fitting really! Actually it’s more of a sweetener (quite literally), for Rob, as a sorry-I’m-going-away-again; the last 6 months have been pretty much non-stop with travel (mostly for work, this weekend is for pleasure), but the end is nearly in sight!

According to wikipedia (is it ever wrong?), what makes it a New York cheesecake as opposed to any other kind, is the inclusion of the sour cream (although you could use normal cream as well, apparently.) I think this adds to it’s unique contrasts of flavour – the sour tang of the cream vs the sweetness of the sugar, the sharp lemon vs the sweet vanilla – and of course that gorgeous baked top.

I looked up a couple of recipes for New York cheesecake, but they all seemed to be mammoth! 900g of cream cheese? I don’t even think I have a cake tin big enough to fit that in! So, using inspiration from this BBC recipe, and this one from Jamie Oliver, I down-sized the recipe to create my own, smaller version (it was still baked in a 10 inch round tin, so not exactly tiny!)

I’m not a huge fan of using full-fat cream in recipes, it’s just so heavy, and I found these great ingredients from Morrison’s new NuMe range – using low-fat cream cheese and sour cream absolutely mean you can eat that extra slice

Ingredients

200g digestive biscuits
75g butter / low-fat spread
25g caster sugar

600g cream cheese
200ml sour cream
30g cornflour
2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
175g caster sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste or similar

Method

Crush the biscuits to fine crumbs (or use a food processor), and mix with the melted butter and 25g of caster sugar. Press firmly and evenly into the bottom of the tin (I’d recommend around an 8-10 inch, springform tin, with high sides).

Bake in the centre of the oven at 180 degrees for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Place the cream cheese, sugar, lemon, vanilla paste and corn flour into a bowl. Beat until well mixed and smooth – taste to see if any more sugar or vanilla is needed. Add the eggs and gently stir until just mixed.

Grease the inside of the tin (I can’t advocate cake release spray enough), and pour the batter over the top of the biscuit base. As it’s quite a liquid mixture it should settle nicely and not need any evening out.

Bake for 45 – 60 minutes at 170 degrees. I covered the top of mine with foil for the first half an hour, so the top did not go too brown. After 45 minutes, keep checking back every 5 minutes, you want the centre to be just-set.

The next part is very important – allow to cool slowly. The best method is to leave with the oven door ajar for an hour or so, and then take out and leave to cool completely in the tin.

You should find that the cheesecake shrinks away from the edge during baking so will pop out easily. If it doesn’t, gently slide a knife around the edge to free it up.

In my haste to get things done I didn’t follow my own instructions – instead I put it straight into the fridge – and it cracked

I prefer not to think of it as a crack, more a window to the smooth creamy inside… look at those vanilla flecks!

Once cool, keep in the fridge and serve in big wedges.

For a real red, white and blue dessert, you could serve with strawberries and blueberries, but in their absence I accessorised with something equally as sweet:

Happy 4th July!

Last weekend a girl friend and I went for a short break in the beautiful city of Edinburgh. We completely lucked out with the weather – gorgeous clear blue skies and bright sunshine the whole time, perfect for a bit of laziness education on some of the Edinburgh Bus Tours.

The Castle and Grassmarket:

Views back to the city (Castle on the right) from Ferry Road:

We’d decided well in advance that afternoon tea was a must for the weekend, and, recommended by the rather amazing www.afternoontea.co.uk , we booked a table at the Tower Restaurant, atop the National Museum of Scotland. I’m pretty sure our decision was made entirely on it having terrace!

The museum itself was well worth a look on the way to tea. It has 4 floors of completely varied exhibits, from Scottish history, to Formula One cars, animals, and a whole heap of interactive stations where you can play games, press buttons, and generally have a play with some amazing things. Plus, there is a great rooftop garden, with all manner of different plants, and amazing views across to the castle.

We arrived at the Tower Restaurant a little early, weary from a days activities, but they were only too happy to seat us early. Having spent a lot of the weekend in the sun already, we opted to sit inside, rather than on the terrace, happily next to some wide-open sliding doors, so we could still see out to the old town and reap the benefits of fresh air.

It was pretty obvious what we were there for – afternoon tea all the way! Our order was taken, and we were then handed the menus:

And as if the food selection was not enough, they had a great range of teas to complement it:

What seemed like a long wait later, but was probably very short (I was hungry!), we were presented with this fantastic solid silver cake stand. A work of art in itself!

And the food! So much! So much choice!

As seems the sensible thing to do, we started from the bottom and worked our way up.

On the savoury layer:

- mini cheese quiche
- smoked salmon and cream cheese bite
- egg mayonnaise sandwich
- chicken and tomato wrap

Next up – cakes and scones:

- plain scone
- fruit scone
- shortbread biscuit
- dundee cake
- chocolate brownie with cream

Scones of course served with jam and clotted cream – wow they were good!

And finally the top layer – belly’s feeling a little full now…

- lemon and white chocolate mousse
- red fruits tart

I had my mousse with the shortbread biscuit on the side – a perfect combination!

We were completely stuffed – but not a crumb left in sight!

A quick amble round before we left, we found the terrace had amazing views of Edinburgh Castle; well we’ll just have to come back, and sit out there next time…

And our review? YUM!

I honestly think it was one of the best afternoon tea’s I’ve ever had. Not only was there a huge amount and selection of food, but every single bite was delicious, even the bits I wasn’t expecting to like.

A definite must next time you are in the beautiful city of Edinburgh!

Last weekend we went to a beautiful wedding of a good friend of ours, at the absolutely stunning Stanbrook Abbey in Worcester. She is such a good friend in fact, Lauren is the one who actually introduced Rob and I!

I’d not had time to make a cake for her hen party a couple of months back, but an invitation to dinner with the bride the night before the wedding was a perfect opportunity for me to make this up. Champagne is one of her absolute favourite things, and pink, and sparkles, so it didn’t take long to decide on this one.

To start with, I baked a rectangular madeira cake, using a printed template of a Moet bottle to ensure it would be big enough. I used the same recipe (and tin, in fact!) as my grandma’s 80th cake, which you can find here.

Once the cake was cool, I used a sharp bread knife, and the same paper template, to cut the cake into the bottle shape:

I also thinned down the neck of the bottle, to give a more realistic and 3D effect.

Next up, and one of the most amazing revelations in my kitchen for a long time, champagne butttercream. Yes, you read that correctly. And yes, it’s as amazing as it sounds. And so incredibly simple as well. Simply beat together:

- 100g butter
- 250g icing sugar
- 4 tablespoons of champagne

I had a mini bottle of rose champagne which worked absolutely perfectly, and didn’t affect the colour as well. I covered the whole cake in the buttercream, and put in the fridge for about 45 minutes to firm up (and give me time to lick the bowl of champagne buttercream completely clean!)

Transferring the cake over to its presentation board, I covered in a dark green fondant. Because I didn’t want food colouring-stained hands for the wedding, I bought some pre-coloured fondant – the colour I used was Regalice bottle green.

A quick bit of trimming later, the rest of the bottle of champagne came into play as I took a few minutes to admire my work so far, and decide on how to decorate next.

First up was to colour some fondant for the label and foil neck. As I mentioned pink is a big favourite (and I had insider information that it was part of the wedding colour scheme), so I followed suit from the Moet template with a hot pink colour.

For the main part of the label, I wanted to keep it quite simple, with just Lauren’s name. Using some letter stencils, I carefully imprinted the name across the pink fondant, before filling in with an edible ink pen – the one I use is a Rainbow Dust Double-Ended pen – having both the thick and fine nibs was a great help with this cake.

On the top of the label, I carefully printed the champagne name, finishing with a yellow heart dotted with gold edible glitter. I also used a scalloped edge tool to carefully print a tiny dotted line all the way around the edge.

The finished label:

Next up was the neck section of the bottle. Using the same pink fondant, I covered the top section, and added an extra layer around where the cork would be, using a fine knife to create lines to look like foil.

Again my not-so-steady hand got to some writing, isn’t it funny how you can look at a word for so long and it doesn’t seem to be spelt right any more? Thankfully my second set of champagne lettering turned out ok too

Following the design of my template, I also added a gold-edged black ribbon, and golden round seal. As a memento of the year of the wedding, I printed 2013 onto the gold seal.

You may also spy rather a lot of sparkle – to look like real champagne foil a lot of edible glitter was needed!

For a finishing touch, I added some stems of gold spray pearls (non-edible), coming out the top of the cake, to look like champagne bubbles.

Well I thought it was a pretty good cake, but I’d no idea the bride would love it quite so much! She promptly whisked it away for use in the wedding, alongside their main wedding cake! With the promise that a helpful family member would add the groom’s name; I hadn’t expected her to put it into the wedding at all, I’d have added it myself if I’d even thought…!

But it all made sense when I saw the setup of the wedding breakfast – of course pink did feature, but the tables were also named after champagne brands, how fantastic! And wedding favours as pink fondant fancies, such a lovely idea.

I was a little apprehensive when I heard how the cake had fared – but actually a great job had been made of adding Ian’s name:

Look closely, yes that is actually a post-it note! But I think it looks better and more in keeping than adding on writing icing any other way.

And next to (half of) the main wedding cake – a match made in heaven

Lovely cakes for such a lovely couple – congratulations again Ian and Lauren! Long may you enjoy the finer things in life together – cake and champagne being a great start

Sometimes a little chocolate isn’t enough. Two kinds? Been there. Three sorts? Done that. Four types? Now we’re talking!

For this super simple cookie recipe, I vamped up the chocolate to the the max, with white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and cocoa powder. There’s no such thing as too much chocolate, obviously.

I cut the milk, dark and white chocolate into small chunks. Given that my kitchen was somewhat sweltering (much like the rest of the country), it was like cutting butter and took no time at all. On colder days you could easily pop them into a polythene bag and bash with a rolling pin.

The rest of the ingredients were equally as simple:

And the recipe? Well I adapted this one from my trusty Be-ro book. You can find the online version here.
One of the things I like best about this cookie recipe is that it doesn’t contain any eggs, but still makes beautifully soft, squishy cookies.

The adapted ingredients list:

100g margarine
75g light brown sugar
30ml (2 tablespoons) golden syrup
30ml (2 tablespoons) milk
50g cocoa powder
125g self-raising flour
50g white chocolate
50g milk chocolate
50g dark chocolate

And the method:

- mix all the non-chocolate ingredients together in a big bowl

- add the cocoa and about 3/4 of the chocolate chunks

- roll into small balls, place on a greased baking sheet (or silicon as I used)

- flatten slightly with your fingers, and adorn with the remaining chocolate chunks

I always like to keep some of whatever’s inside, to decorate the top of the cookie, not just for aesthetic reasons, but also because I like the eater to be able to easily see what’s inside. Take for example a cookie I picked up on an event early in the year, “yum, white chocolate chip!”. 2 seconds later I was spitting it back out into my hand as they were actually peanuts, to which I am allergic. Oops. I’m lucky it’s not too serious an allergy and a couple of anti-histamines later I was fine, and lived to cookie another day.

- bake for 7 – 8 minutes at 180 degrees, or more depending on where you want your cookies on the squishy/gooey/crunchy scale

- if you can possibly resist, let them cool completely before eating. There’s something extra special about that combination of chewy cookie and crunchy chocolate.

If by any chance they do last longer than 5 minutes, the cookies are best stored in the fridge in this warm weather, in a sealed container, so they don’t go soggy.

On the other hand, you could just eat one, after another, after another… and give that chocolate craving a big kick!

At the moment I’m happy revelling in fresh produce from the garden. Not mine, I hasten to admit; we’re still living in a rented house, and I a vowed a couple of moves back not to spend ages weeding gardens and planting nice things just to move out before they’re ready. Rant over.

Last week I happily received some fresh blackcurrants from a work colleague (thanks Gill!), and after a few fresh fruit salad breakfasts, decided to use the rest in this recipe. In a lovely little twist, I then took some of the muffins over to my parents, and collected some of their home-grown courgettes. I’d like to say this is the start of a little saga of collecting fresh fruits/veg, baking them, and swapping for some more. But it’s not. It’s far too hot and sticky for that

I was really torn with what to do with these blackcurrants, so many choices! Jams, tarts, pies, macarons, the list is literally endless. In the end I settled on a combination of cake and a great British classic – crumble.

On looking for some crumbly inspiration, I was delighted to see one of my favourite blog reads, the Vagabond Baker, pop up in my google search results. So, this recipe is an adaptation from Rachel’s delightful apple recipe, with a few interjections from other recipes such as this one on BBC Good Food. I loved the oozy custard on Rachel’s recipe, but also wanted a super-crispy crumble topping, so ended up adding a little extra sugar for a fantastic caramelised crunch.

Ingredients (Makes approx. 24 mini muffins)

For the muffins
100g blackcurrants
50g butter
50g sugar – light brown is preferable
1 egg
50ml milk
150g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

For the blackcurrant jam sauce
25g blackcurrants
1 teaspoon sugar

For the crumble topping
25g butter
25g light brown sugar, plus 1 tablespoon extra to caramelise
25g plain flour
15g rolled oats

Method

- To make the muffin mixture, melt the butter, and beat in the rest of the ingredients, leaving the blackcurrants to last. Don’t overbeat – it’s better to have a few bits of flour still showing that to have a big blackcurrant mess!
- Using a mini muffin tin, either use paper liners, or grease generously (e.g. with cake release spray), and spoon in the mixture until the holes are around 2/3 full. Try and ensure a good distribution of blackcurrants – there should be a good few in each muffin.

- Make the jam sauce by microwaving (or heating on the hob), the remaining blackcurrants with their sugar and around 2 teaspoons of water. It should only take a few minutes for the fruit to break down and turn into a bubbly jam. Any blackcurrants which don’t conform, stir and squish with the back of a spoon, so you have a runny jam.

- For the crumble, place all the ingredients in a large bowl, cubing or cutting the butter into small chunks. Using your fingers, rub the butter into the dry ingredients until it forms a dense crumb.

- Spoon a little of the jam mixture into the centre of each muffin

- And top with a good sprinkling of the crumble mixture, making sure all sides, and the jam, are completely covered.

- Put the muffins into the oven, at 180 degrees, for around 12-15 minutes. This will entirely depend on your oven, but you want to take them out when the crumble is just starting to colour.

- Using the extra tablespoon of sugar, carefully sprinkle a pinch over the middle of each of the muffins. Again, using your fingers, drip a few drops of water on top of the sugar, so it starts to dissolve.
Return the muffins to the oven, and flick on the grill. Keep a close eye as when they start to caramelize it will happen very quickly, and there’s a fine line between crunchy caramel and burnt! It should take a couple of minutes, and the tops will start bubbling and become lovely and golden. Once they do, remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

Once cool, carefully extract from the tin, using the point of a sharp knife to lift them out.

They are best enjoyed straight away, whilst they will keep in an airtight container, the caramelized crumble will gradually lose its crispiness. If this does happen, you can easily pop them back under the grill for a couple of minutes to crisp back up.

Needless to say they didn’t last very long in our house! I am completely in love with these little bites, but can’t decide what I like more, the sticky, fruity inside, or the caramel, crunchy topping…?

A sunny Saturday afternoon in Leicester, I met up with some fellow Midlands bloggers, all with a great love for cake! A repeat of last years lovely trip to White Rabbit in Nottingham, this year with an extra guest in the form of Liana from Swirls Bakery, who blogs over at My Sugar Coated Life. And not forgetting E & B from Make, Do and Spend, and Kerry from Kerry Cooks.

As many female outings start, we caught up over a wander around The Lanes, a collection of little streets and squares, all with a great mix of vintage shops and individual retailers. We even found a bakeware sale!

And of course our afternoon wouldn’t be complete without cake! Kerry had booked us into Mrs. Bridges Tea Rooms, a fantastic find just off the lanes; a tea room has been in the same location since 1890! Wouldn’t you love to see what it was like full of Victorian ladies?

Perfect for the summer, they also have a lovely little courtyard out the back, complete with pink parasols:

Inside the decor is simple, with a deli sandwich & cake counter downstairs, and lots of little tables upstairs.

We’d booked in advance, but even on a Saturday afternoon could have found a corner if we’d just turned up. We bagged a spot right by these beautiful stained glass windows, perfect for people-watching of those outside!

And the menu? Well I wish I taken a picture! It was so extensive, the 5 of us took rather a long time to decide! From a wealth of savoury items – scrambled eggs, bagels, jacket potatoes, sandwiches, salads… to the most amazing selection of sweets, it was a tough choice.

We started off savoury and weren’t disappointed – sandwiches and salads alike came in huge portions, overflowing with fresh produce:

And onto the desserts! Kerry went for some sweet cinnamon French toast, on basis that most of us had never had it before. She was absolutely delighted when it came out!

And who could blame her, it looked, smelled, and tasted absolutely divine. Expect to see this featuring on some of the aforementioned blogs soon

Liana chose this absolutely stunning white chocolate and pistachio delice, with strawberry topping. From the soft sponge base to the creamy, chocolatey mousse, this delice was delicious! Definitely a recipe I’m going to hunt down and try.

E and I went for blackcurrant cheesecake, with apple macaron and sorbet.

An equally enthusiastic wow! The cheesecake was creamy and fruity, the sorbet so refreshing, and that apple macaron….

I didn’t manage to get a photo of B’s chocolate brownie and toffee sauce, but managed the important bit – the tasting! Another amazing dish

Safe to say us bloggers had an absolutely brilliant time at Mrs. Bridges. We left with big smiles and full tummies, and a return visit is definitely on the cards if I’m in Leicester again. It’s a very well run tea-room, friendly staff, a great menu, brilliant location, good prices, and all-round yummy food. A big thumbs up!

If you regularly browse the baking world like I do, no doubt you’ll have seen these fantastic Nutella brownies popping up on blogs and baking sites the world over. If you haven’t, take a seat. I’m about to show you something amazing.

I also wanted to finally show off and use this super-cute silicon heart mould from the fab dotcomgiftshop. I bought it about a year ago and have consequently forgotten to use it at every opportunity since. Until now!

There’s quite a lot of controversy on various sites with plenty of bloggers claiming they invented this recipe. I didn’t. That’s for sure. I’m just going to share its amazingness. But does it actually matter? Not in my opinion. Lets get to the chocolate!

The basic amazing thing about these brownies is that they only contain 3 ingredients. Really.

Ingredients

140g Nutella
1 egg
35g plain flour

And the method’s not that tricky either…

- place all the ingredients into a bowl

- mix well

- spoon into your chosen bakeware, making sure it’s greased or lined (I used a quick spritz of cake release spray in each heart). The brownies do rise during cooking so don’t fill whatever you’re using to the top – mine were just over half full

- pop into the oven at 180 degrees. Mine came out perfectly after 15 minutes but the mould is quite small. Adjust upwards for bigger moulds and tray bakes, aiming for a crust to form on the top and no wobble to your mix.

- leave too cool at least a little (burnt mouths just are no fun) and enjoy!

Of course you can adapt the recipe to include so many different things, chocolate chunks, nuts, sweets, icing on top, the list is endless! And as these brownies are SO quick to make (you can easily whip up a batch in under half an hour), why not try them all

Oh yes – and served warm with vanilla ice cream, hot and cold heaven!

Last week, I finally got round to going with a much-promised retirement afternoon tea with my mum (her, not me, sadly!), and decided that one of my favourite restaurants, Perkins in Plumtree, was a perfect fit to start our celebration of her new-found free time. We’ve vowed to go for afternoon tea many more times so watch this space!

Perkins Restaurant is set just outside the village of Plumtree in Nottinghamshire, and is housed in an old railway station. The railway line is no longer in use and it’s a lovely peaceful setting where you can while away many hours before you know it.

Inside the décor is quite simple and classic but with a few well done twists. Vintage prints and posters adorn the walls, a light and bright colour scheme runs through out, and a large conservatory on the back gives the whole space a spacious and airy feel.

We were of course dead set on having afternoon tea, and I’d called ahead to see if they’d be able to do it early evening for us, so I could head over straight after work (3 week trips to New Zealand haven’t left me with much annual leave this year… ), they were more than happy to oblige, and certainly did not disappoint!

From four kinds of finger sandwiches…

… to chocolate tart and cream-filled meringues:

…and scones and almond cakes inbetween!

We chatted and munched for actual hours, all the pieces were full of flavour and beautifully baked.

Just when we couldn’t manage another bite, only the chocolate tart was left, and it looked quite heavy. Would we make it? One bite and it was an instant hit! This was no ordinary chocolate tart. This was SALTED CARAMEL CHOCOLATE TART. I’m sure I say this a lot but it was honestly one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. Words can really not describe, the crunchy nut base, smooth but salty caramel, and creamy, sticky chocolate topping, mmm…. Even now, writing this a week and half later, my mouth is literally watering at the thought. A recipe I will definitely have to hunt down!

Of course we had an absolutely wonderful time. The food was delicious, service excellent, and, well, the company wasn’t bad either

There’s no date in the diary yet, but stay tuned for our next afternoon tea adventure, coming soon I’m sure!

This weekend marked the marvellous return of cake club, after its all-too-long summer break. The event on Sunday was part of Derby Clandestine Cake Club, themed as ‘Summer’s Last Cocktail Party’. Well, where to start with a cocktail cake!

I’d been thinking about a marble cake for a while, and the different ingredients of a cocktail seemed like the perfect opportunity to do this. A little light research later (and a rather sore head), I settled on a mojito. A simple mix of rum, lime, and mint – the drink version (recipe here) is muddled with sugar and topped up with soda, but obviously these are not required in the cocktail version. A couple of friends had suggested carving it into a cocktail glass shape, but there was a new bundt tin in my kitchen awaiting its first use…

As I’ve not made a bundt cake before, I wanted to stick with quite a basic recipe to ensure the consistency and bake was right, and Nigella’s vanilla bundt recipe seemed to fit the bill perfectly, minus the vanilla of course. I was dubious when it wanted a four pint bundt tin, but after a quick check with some pints of water that’s what mine held! It’s a lot of cake mixture but is padded out a lot and lightened by the addition of the yoghurt, so it’s not as bad as it sounds I added a little extra flour and sugar to balance out the flavour and texture of the mint, rum and lime.

Ingredients
225g butter
325g white sugar
6 eggs
380g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
250ml low-fat natural yoghurt
75ml white rum or 1 1/2 teaspoons rum flavouring
Grated rind & juice of 2 limes or 1 tablespoon of lime juice
Good handful of fresh mint leaves of 1 1/2 teaspoons of mint flavouring
Gel food colours as required

Icing as desired – I used 250g icing sugar mixed with a pack of mojito flavouring

Method
Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Add the eggs, one at a time, followed by the yoghurt, and beat in with a tablespoon of flour each to prevent curdling
Sieve and fold in the remainder of the flour and baking powder
Divide the mixture into three parts, ready for flavouring and colouring

For the mint section, I’d ended up with a whole mint plant as it was the same price in the supermarket as a few sprigs! In just a week it’s grown like wildfire, I’ll have to find it a bigger pot and some recipes to use it in.

Using a good handful of leaves, I put them through the blender so they were finely chopped, and mixed in with some green and black gel food colourings.

For the lime batter, I was quite uninspired by the size and quality of limes in the supermarket, so ended up using just the juice and zest of one, substituted with some bottled lime juice. I coloured this part using a mixture of green and yellow gels, to give it a really zingy lime colour.

And last but by absolutely no means least – the alcohol! I had a couple of bacardi miniatures in the cupboard and these were perfect, about 1 1/2 bottles (50cl each) gave a great rum kick to the batter. There was no colour in this part as I wanted to keep it white like the rum.

The three batters ready:

With the bundt tin well-greased, simply spoon in alternate mixes in and around. I used a mixture of spoonful dollops and some swirls and drizzles; don’t actually mix the cakes together as it’ll do this well enough and marble itself. I wish I’d taken more pictures of this stage but it was getting a little sticky!

Bake at 180 degrees for 45 – 60 minutes, until an inserted skewer comes out clean, i.e. there’s no raw cake mix on it.

Allow to cool in the tin and carefully turn out:

I wanted to keep the icing simple and white to offset the marble of the cake. To keep up the flavour I used some pre-mixed mojito mixer – the Funkin brand is quite new to me but you can find them in most supermarkets now, they really are a great idea and all the ones I’ve tried really do taste like the cocktails (even if you don’t add the alochol!)

I added the mixer to some white icing sugar to get a good thick paste, and simply drizzled this all around the top of the cake, topping with a good layer of mixed green and white non-pareils (sugar sprinkles), and a little edible glitter.

I’m totally in love with bundt cakes now and want to make more already! The shape lends itself to such easy decoration but looks stunning with little effort.

Onto cake club I trotted, and the selection of cakes was fab! One of the things I love about CCC (Clandestine Cake Club) is that the themes can be anything and everything, and all the bakers come up with such different ideas. From a Rusty Nail to a Shirley Temple – we had such a great afternoon devouring all of these

And I was so happy to see the marble effect when my cake was cut into! The mojito flavours came out brilliant and I was absolutely delighted with the colours:

In some parts the batter had curled itself down and then risen into a swirl during baking – entirely intentional of course!

A couple of weeks ago we finally managed a summer break, albeit a short one, and took a mini-cruise around Europe. We stopped at Le Havre in France, Bruges, and then Amsterdam – I love travelling so waking up in a different place each morning is my idea of heaven!

When in Bruges I had to get Rob to try some of the local cuisine. Having spent a fair bit of time in Brussels with work I was already au fait on their delicacies, but he was in for a real treat. We had to take a coach in from the port at Zeebrugge, and on the way the guide advised us that for the best waffles, we should go to one of the many Tea Houses that scatter the streets of Bruges. I didn’t have to be told twice!

The main square, the Markt, or Market Square, has cafes and tea rooms all along two sides. An amazing spot for sightseeing, the downside is that you pay for it. A lot. A couple of drinks on the square cost us over 10 Euros. For food… well, we took a wander.

And we didn’t have to go very far! Mere steps away, down the pedestrian street of Sint-Amandstraat, we stumbled across this lovely little place.

Complete with outdoor setting perfect for people-watching, we chose to head inside and received a warm greeting from the owners.

I do just love the Belgian hospitality. All the members of staff served us at some point and they were all so friendly, laughing and joking with us. And giving us the time we needed to chose from the vast menu…

…. was it really ever going to be anything other than waffles!

Other than the service one thing I absolutely loved about this place was the decor. Perhaps because it was pink! But quite subtly so – lots of kitsch patterns, cute knickknacks, all very well done, creating a lovely ambiance in the tea room.

And then came the waffles… Safe to say we weren’t disappointed! I opted for cream and chocolate, whilst Rob had ice cream and chocolate. And plenty of chocolate there was too. When in Belgium…

Everything was served on a beautiful matching vintage tea set. How lovely are the plates?!

A ludicrously short amount of time later…

If I’d been able to get away with it there would have been some plate-licking… but on a thriving Sunday afternoon I just about managed to restrain myself

Safe to say Ginger Bread Tea Room gets a hearty thumbs up from us – Rob certainly enjoyed his first Belgian waffles, and if we’re ever back in Bruges a return trip will definitely be on the cards.

You can find them on facebook – GingerBread Tea Room -  – they don’t open every day of the week so be sure to check before you go to avoid disappointment.

Last week whilst at cake club, I got to talking with someone involved in the Great Bloggers Bake Off. What was this I asked? (and how could I not know about it!)

Set up by Helen and Jenny, the idea revolves around that rather marvellous television programme that is the Great British Bake Off. Like many a budding baker, I am absolutely glued to the screen every Tuesday evening at 8pm, but can’t help but have an itch in my hands to what to get into the kitchen and try for myself. Which is where the Blogger part comes in – as every week the baker blog collective try their hand at one of the challenges featured on the show, and all link up into the Great Blogger Bake Off. Like the show itself, it’s great to see the variety of different things that bakers come up with in the challenges.

Busy as I am it’s something I’ll have to hop in and out of, so yes I’m starting at week 3 (but rather glad to have missed bread week!)
This weeks challenges were trifle, floating islands, or petit fours. As much as I love minature desserts, trifle has always been a big favourite of mine as my dad makes THE best, and I always got to eat the leftovers when we’d had friend over for tea I’ll start by saying that mine wasn’t a patch on his, but I had fun nonetheless.
Rob had been watching this weeks GBBO with me and his eyes had positively lit up at the trifles containing mango as he absolutely loves it, and from there my recipe was sprung.

Ingredients

Orange madeira cake
60g butter
60g sugar
1 egg
85g self raising flour
Rind of 1 orange
2 tablespoons of orange juice

For the trifle layers
1 pint of orange jelly
1 pint of custard
1 pint of cream, either thick or whipped
1 orange, peeled and split into segments
1 mango, peeled and sliced

First up I made the cake – as you would with any sponge/madeira – beating the butter and sugar, adding the egg and flavouring, then folding in the flour. I baked mine in a loaf tin to give a long flat sponge; it took about 15-20 minutes to bake, at 180 degrees.

Despite the wealth of dishes, tins, stands and plates in my kitchen, a beautifully decorated, large trifle dish as featured on the TV is sadly not in my possession. Instead, I had to make to with a pyrex dish. Pah.
First layer was the orange segments; I de-pithed them using a cocktail stick to get off the tiny bits so they wouldn’t interfere with the smooth texture of the trifle. As they were quite moist they stuck well to the edge of the glass and stayed in place even when the jelly was added.

I added enough jelly to just cover the segments, and put into the fridge until nearly set.

With the cake cool it was time to slice – I love the flecks of orange peel running through.

Again pressing into the sides of the bowl, I layered this on top of the now-set orange layer, before covering with more jelly:

Back into the fridge the bowl went, giving me some time to contend with Rob’s favourite, the mango. This was beautifully dark green, plump and squishy, just as a mango should be.

For peeling and slicing… juicy is the word I’d use. You’ll notice there are no pictures of this stage, it was rather sticky, to say the least! Slices just about intact, they too were layered up and covered in the last of the jelly.

I then gave the whole jelly, cake and fruit layer a good couple of hours in the fridge to set, before layering on the custard, another hour to set, the cream, and last but absolutely essential for any good trifle, the sprinkles!

You’ll notice there are no steps on my custard making. As per my previous trifle recipe I’ll be honest that I inherited some bad genes from my mum in this area and am absolutely hands down rubbish at it. But resourcefully, well let’s just say it turned out ok this time around (thanks Ambrosia, sssshh!)

And as for the judging criteria that the contestants on the programme obsess themselves with – well the layers were certainly well-defined (although next time I’d do a thinner layer of cake to look better), and the taste – safe to say I started digging in with a large spoon and struggled to stop. No pictures of this either, it wasn’t pretty!

Oddly timed on the last day I actually lived in the city, yesterday marked the first event of the new Nottingham City Clandestine Cake Club, of which I am a proud co-organiser! More on the move to follow in due course I’m sure…

As our first event was to be held in a private room at an Indian Restaurant, the very hospitable Mogal E Azam, we decided a Bollywood Nights theme would spark up everyone’s imagination, and give way to some great flavours, colours, and of course plenty of glitter.

Not being too great on spices and what to do with them, I kept the cake quite simple but vamped up the outside. Sorry for the lack of step-by-step pictures, but in the midst of packing I was a little rushed, and the kitchen wasn’t really in a fit state to be photographed either!

The recipe I used was Woman & Home’s Sticky Ginger and Treacle cake – as I followed it exactly (obviously omitting the praline and cream cheese icing steps) and in the interest of moving-house-constricted time, I won’t retype the recipe but leave you to click through. It was incredibly easy to make and baked like a dream, giving me a firm but so deliciously moist base for my Bollywood decorations.

To fill I simply sliced in half, and filled with copious amounts of mango buttercream, tinted orange to contrast with the dark treacle colour of the cake. I also covered the sides and top to give a good base for the red fondant to stick to.

The red fondant was pre-coloured, luckily I had a couple of packs left over from my Speed Sign cake, as the vibrancy and depth of colour would have been quite hard to achieve using white fondant and colouring it up.

And to decorate – would you believe it was incredibly simple! As you may know from previous posts, I’m a subscriber to My Cake Decorating Magazine. There is a free gift with every issue, so I’m slowly building a large stash of decorating items, some of which I’m not sure when I’ll ever use – until now!

First up was the pearl mould – I mixed a little tylose powder with some fondant so it would set firm, dusted the mould with corn flour, and carefully pressed in.

Because the mould is made of silicon, it’s really easy to bend back on itself to pop out and reveal a super-cute string of edible pearls!

Using a little edible glue I put them all round the bottom edge of the cake, and finished with some edible glitter for true Bollywood glamour.

For the top – another great free gift – this intricate circular pattern stencil.

I simply mixed up some orange royal icing (royal is much better as it sets hard), and, holding the stencil firm, smoothed the icing all across with a cake smoother, ensuring all the gaps were filled, before carefully peeling away to reveal the pattern.

And of course, finished with another generous sprinkling of edible glitter!

True to the Bollywood theme of bright colours, intricate details, and lots of sparkles – I was very happy!

And inside – a beautiful contrast of the red fondant, orange mango buttercream, and brilliantly moist, sticky and spicy treacle ginger cake.

And I’m pleased to report that our first Nottingham City CCC was a huge success! The bakers completely rose to the challenge with a great range of cakes (yes that one does have fairy lights), and we had such a lovely evening eating and chatting.

Where will the next cake club take us? Well, watch this space… (or sign up to the club page to join in: http://clandestinecakeclub.co.uk/groups/nottingham-city/ )