Debbie Brown baby pram cake

Here's a cake I made for my youngest niece Isabelle who was 2 years old. She really likes her dolls and babies. I got the idea from my Debbie Brown book 50 Easy Party Cakes. I partly followed the instructions in the book and made a couple of changes. I think it came out ok, There were a few creases around the edge of the pram but I think I will hopefully improve that with practice. 

Thanks for reading x

Chocolate Guinness cake

I made this chocolate guinness cake as it was my mum and dads anniversary this week. I adapted a recipe by Nigella Lawson which can be found here.

I decided to leave the cream cheese frosting and just sprinkle some icing sugar over the top. I put mine into 2 foil trays (13'' x 8'') instead of a cake tin as I didn't have the right sized round tin and I thought little squares would be nice. I reduced the cooking time to 25 minutes and the outside was starting to get quite well done, so I would check them after 20 minutes if I made these again. I think adding some chocolate chips would be nice in this cake, I might try that next time.

Ingredients (makes 30 squares)
250 ml guinness
250g unsalted butter
75g cocoa powder
400g caster sugar
140 ml sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tbs vanilla extract
275g plain flour
2 ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
Icing sugar for topping.

Method
-Preheat the oven to 180 °C and cover the surface of 2 foil baking trays (13'' x 8'') with cooking spray or a little butter to avoid sticking.
- Place the Guinness in a saucepan with the butter and heat gently until the butter has completely melted. Whisk in the cocoa and sugar.
-Beat together the sour cream, eggs and vanilla extract before adding to the beer mixture. Mix in the flour and bicarbonate of soda before dividing equally between the two foil trays.
-Cook for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer placed into the middle of the tray bake comes out clean. Let it cool in the tray.
-Cut each cake into 15 pieces and sprinkle some icing sugar over them.

Thanks for reading x

Madeira Cake

I made a madeira cake for my granddad this week which I thought I would share. It is a simple cake which is typically flavoured with lemon and is similar to what Americans call pound cake. Madeira cakes are good for decorating and carving into shapes due to their firm texture. The name according to wikipedia comes from Madeira wine as that was what it was traditionally served with. Today I went with a simple loaf rather than anything fancy.

Ingredients
175g butter (6 oz) (softened)
175g (6 oz) caster sugar
3 large eggs
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
225g (8 oz) self-raising flour (sifted)

Method
-Preheat the oven to 160 °C. Spray the loaf tin with some cooking spray (Or rub on a little butter/margarine) to stop sticking.
-Mix together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (I used an electric hand whisk)
-Add the eggs one a time with a tablespoon of the flour and mix well after each addition
- Fold in the rest of the flour and lemon zest followed by the lemon juice.
-Bake for 40-60 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer placed into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
-Allow to cool in the tin for 5-10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Sometimes simple is best when it comes to cake.

Thanks for reading x

Castle Birthday Cake

This is a cake I made last year which I thought I would share. My niece loves her disney princesses at the moment so I thought I would try a princess castle cake. I took some inspiration from the book 50 easy party cakes by Debbie Brown. She used swiss rolls as cake towers. I liked this idea but I wanted to actually bake a full cake so I decided to take the swiss roll idea and place it on top of a cake I had made and iced myself.

Madeira cake recipe (10 inch)
350g butter
350g caster sugar
6 medium eggs
350g self raising flour
175g plain flour
lemon juice and zest

I lined a 10 inch tin with grease proof paper, using a bit of spray oil to help the paper stick to the tin. I mixed together the butter and sugar using a new electric handheld mixer. I have never used an electric mixer but I would recommend it as it really helps speed up the process and creates a light fluffy mix. I added the eggs one at a time continuing to mix. Once combined I folded in the flour with a metal spoon, mixed in the lemon and baked at 160 °C for 1 hour 20 minutes. I covered the cake with foil for the last 20 minutes of cooking.

Next was the butter icing. 

Butter icing
125g butter
400g icing sugar
3 tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

I mixed the butter up with the electric mixer until it became pale and smooth and then added the milk, vanilla before gradually adding the icing sugar while continuing to mix.

I split the cake in two and added a layer of strawberry jam and a layer of butter icing before sandwiching them back together. I then covered the whole cake in a layer of butter icing and popped it in the fridge.

You might not be able to get the butter icing completely smooth, but after chilling in the fridge you can use a palette knife dipped in hot water to help smooth any lumps. I was worried about covering the cake with the icing thinking it would be really difficult but it wasn't too bad. I wish I had got the cake a bit more level.

I also wanted to try and make my first fondant person so I tried making a little princess to look like my niece. She has gorgeous red hair. It was a little fiddly, the eyes were so difficult! For a first try I think it is ok.

With all that done all that was left was to decorate the cake and the swiss rolls. I found covering the rolls in fondant surprisingly tricky. I used a big roll for the centre tower and mini rolls for the two side towers. As the cake was not completely level it was difficult to get the towers to stand up straight. 

The crown candles are from hobby craft

If I did it again I think I would do a few things differently but for a for a first try I think it is ok. I think next time I need to work a bit on the finishing touches. The two small towers didn't survive the car trip and needed to fixed on arrival. I think I need some sort of dowelling if I attempted this again.

Thanks for reading x