Cakes so far for 2018

I've done 3 cakes so far this year, so instead of being completely rubbish and not posting them until the end of the year, I'm trying to share them more often. 

The first one was for my sister, she turned 40. It might seem a little random, but she loves sloths,  and had a surprise Harry Potter themed Birthday Party, so the sloth cake needed to fit the part:

I created the fur using butter icing and used a nozzle on my icing piper gun that I also use for grass, it took ages but I think he looks so much better than just spreading it on with a knife and hoping for the best. The inside was angel cake too which is one of her favourite cakes. I was pretty happy with this one, she absolutely loved it and it went perfectly with the whole evening. Another fun point is that this was the first time I used my colouring airbrush that the hubby bought me for Christmas to colour the wooden branch he is holding onto and the cake board - so much fun to use and it makes colouring large areas look amazing! 

The second cake of the year was a last minute request that I took on for someone at work, they wanted one for their partner based on World of Warcraft. I felt a little mean because I tend to only take on cakes that I really want to do when it's a request rather than when I'm making it for friends and family, I had already rejected 2 of the initial ideas and whilst I know literally nothing about World of Warcraft this design seemed quite cool:

I used the airbrush gun to colour almost everything, the board, the black background of the cake and the wooden effect on the shield. the rest of it is hand painted in the gold and silver, then I added the red for the gory effect that Orcs supposedly have. I saw a video, the recipient seemed to like it.

The most recent cake was for one of our close friends, he turned 30 and has always loved Lego, so I've had this idea to do this cake for him for a little while. 

I ended up painting the bricks onto the board to give it a bit of cool colour that Lego always has. I cheated a bit and bought the Lego construction men to make it look like they were making the cake and that it was half done. I can't claim credit for the idea, I've seen so many variants of this, I just did it in my own style. You can't see it clearly but there's a big 30 on top of the cake made out of Lego bricks too. I added a cool twist to the inside of the cake too:

cool eh? When he was cutting the cake there was an ongoing joke about whether the cake was made out of individual blocks like the outside of the cake - I like the effect.

Until the next load of cakes :)

Cakes of 2017

So apparently it's not just weddings that make me behind in my blog posts, but life too! I do try to juggle everything but sometimes my laziness wins and for that, I'm sorry. 

Similar to last year, I'll catch you up on what I've been up to with my cakes. I've made 11 novelty cakes this year with more in the pipeline for next year!

The first cake of 2017 was in January and it was for a friend's Dad, it was his 60th birthday and he loved Rupert the Bear, this cake was of an annual, so it looked like a book around the sides and had Rupert on the front. I hand painted the background and made Rupert. He was really chuffed with the cake, makes all the hard work worthwhile when you know it's enjoyed :)

The next cake was for the same friend, who turned 30 in the February. He plays a lot of Magic the Gathering, so I made a Magic cake, complete with the logos along the side. I was hoping it was going to look like deck of cards but it ended up more like a box, the overall effect of the marble effect painting worked well, I was happy with the overall look of the cake, but just wish I had been able to improve on the thickness of the top part.

In March, it was my Sister's birthday, I hadn't made one for her in a little while, so I wanted to make something cool for her, she was visiting for the weekend, so I made her a Totoro cake, I had seen the idea for it online and loved it. I covered the main part of the cake in butter icing so that I could make it look like a log base and painted the top to look like the inside of the tree stump. Totoro was made out of icing, he was easy enough to do and I think the effect looks great - she loved it anyway :)

Staying true to the 1 cake a month pattern I seem to have developed this year, it was another friend's birthday in April, he loves Game of Thrones, and I had seen a pretty cool concept of doing a cake of a map online and really wanted to do it, only the one I saw was massive and there was no way I could do a cake that big, so I downsized it and gave it ago. It was quite fun to do, it's mostly butter icing, with the house flags being made out of royal icing. Beyond the wall is water icing, I wanted to get it as white as possible and I needed it to run into the water slightly so that it would look more frozen. I then painted and drew with edible pens the different parts on the map.

I was then asked to make an Optom cake, this one was slightly harder, although I enjoy baking, I find that I enjoy making cakes that are more geeky and novelty, I was pleased with the outcome of it and the recipient really liked it, so that's all that matters really.

In May, one of my repeat cake requesters asked me for a Guardians of the Galaxy cake, specifically baby Groot. I love these films and after seeing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, completely fell in love with Baby Groot - so cute! I was quite excited about doing this cake. I painted the background, with the theme in mind of him dancing at the beginning of the film, oblivious so the explosions in the background. I created his shape out of royal icing and then rolled out thin round strips to wind around him and icing to look like planks of wood to look like the wood and roots he is made out of. You can't see it from this picture, but on the very front of the cake is a stereo - just to complete it.

I had a couple of months off making cakes, after a busy start to the year, not really by intention but I was thankful for the break. In August, I was asked to make a 1st Birthday cake for a little boy who likes dinosaurs. I had a couple of pictures of cakes to work from, I wasn't anticipating this to be much fun but actually it was. Especially the volcano - this is just cake with a hole taken out of the top and filled with red butter icing surrounded by thick chocolate butter icing roughly spread around the top to give the jagged volcano look. I had to cut the bones out by hand as I didn't have a cutter for it - that took a while. For the footprints along the side on the 2nd tier, I just made a cardboard cut out of a dinosaur foot and pressed it into the cake, painting it as I went.

I was then asked to make a cake for the same recipient as the Civ cake I made a couple of years ago. Their main love is Skyrim so I really had to go down that route. I wasn't really ready to create some kind of dragon - as awesome as that would have been, I don't think my skill is quite up to that challenge just yet! I wanted to do the book that you get handed at the beginning of the game, but it also meant that it would be quite a simple cake, so to jazz it up a bit, I decided to do the map underneath the cake on the board, along with coins so that it looked like the book had been placed on the map on a table. The map took the most time. As before it's just royal icing that is coloured and painted on top of. I used my edible pens to create the detail of the mountains and the names of the places. 

In November, I had 2 cakes to do, the first was for a little girl who loves Harry Potter - given that Harry Potter has a very special place in my heart, I was more than happy to do this cake. As I had done a Harry Potter cake before, I wanted to make it a little different. I'm not keen on doing the same cake twice really, I like to add a different twist. Last time I did an open spell book with items around it as the main cake, this time I wanted to do the book on top of the cake and wrap the scarf around.  She loved it apparently :)

The second cake of November was for another friend, a big fan of Destiny the game, so it seemed a no brainer to do a Destiny themed cake. This one was a first for me - the sphere. I hadn't done a sphere cake before, given the amount of faff involved in this, I'm 'not sure how many I want to do in future, I didn't get the full circle type shape I wanted, it's a little squiffy. The bottom part of the cake was covered in royal icing and painted, with an additional element of silver paint to make it look a bit spacey too. 

The last cake of the year was for Gavin's birthday, I had this idea for a while, of doing a Portal cake, I liked the idea of the companion cube going into one portal and coming out of another. I set up the board like a test chamber and actually, it looked pretty cool. you cake quite make it out from this photo, but the cake itself was covered in white, and then I added an extra layer to make the panels on the walls like in the chambers. Of course on the back of the cake is scribbled - the cake is a lie. It wasn't, there was actually cake inside.

So all in all a pretty busy year! 

Gavin actually bought me an airbrush kit with colours for Christmas, so watch out 2018 - my cakes are about to step up a notch!!

Catching Up!

Hello Dear Readers, 

It's been a while! 

So Weddings apparently take over your life somewhat and leaves you behind in all other life admin (Who Knew?!). I got so behind on The Bakerry that I have been putting off catching up on all my cakes - I'm sorry! I'm just going to do a quick run through of them to catch you up, they are in no particular order

A Very Civilized Cake:

You may or may not be familiar with the game Civilization, but the recipient of this cake, loves the game and so it was requested that I make them a themed cake. The game is made up of hexagons, each containing different things - farmland, water, etc. The three hexagons were 3 separate cakes, all different flavours.

Jurassic Park!:

 This has to be one of the best cakes I have ever made. It was fairly challenging, with the detail on the dinosaur skeleton and also making the claw out of white moulding chocolate then painting it up to actually look like a claw ripping through the sign took a great deal of time. This one was Gavin's cake, the year before last, he absolutely loved it. The flavour was honey and whisky, pretty damn tasty.

A Super Sparkly Frozen Cake:

If I took anything away from the Fireman Sam cake, it's that I hate doing faces of characters, I never get them as right as I want them, This one was no exception, many stressful hours fiddling with the eyes and the face shape - infuriating. The main thing was that the recipient was happy - and apparently she was over the moon and loved the sparkles. The first and last Elsa cake I'll be doing though.


2 Peas in a Pod:

This one was for a very special set of twins, a girl and a boy for their 1st birthday. This was a fun one to make, even if my hands were green for a couple of days afterwards. around the outside there were little girl and boy peas. The inside was marble cake - blue and pink.


An Elephantastic Birthday:

I did this one for my Sister-in-Law, she loves elephants so I made a little family of elephants, even with a little baby elephant holding a bunny, similar to our little niece, who is never without it.I did cute little trees around the outside too.

Why wouldn't you want a Castle Cake?!:

I made this one for my Mum, she loves the TV Show Castle, the main character is a writer who helps solve crimes, which is why it's a book and a crime scene all in one. This one was extra tricky as my Mum is Gluten Free, so I did have a little fight with the sponge when shaping it, but I got there in the end. 

Ooonne Hundred aaand Eightyyyy, oh no, just 40:

There was so much stress that cake with doing this cake. Not only did I have to try and get all of the pieces even and fitting together and piping the numbers, but I also had to get it to where the 40th celebrations were happening - It was for my Brother-in-law, who lives about an hour and a half away. Talk about a long journey - we made it though, and the cake was in 1 piece. I also made darts out of white chocolate and put them in to make up 40, but for some reason, I don't have a picture.

It's a 50th Cake - Watch Out!:

So I followed up a precise birthday cake that had me tearing my hair out at times, with an even more precise cake! I absolutely love this cake though, I made it for my Father-in-law, for his 50th Birthday, he collects watches. Although the precise piping was a pain, I enjoyed the shaping and painting of the cake and I think it worked really well.

Gotta Eat it all...Pokemon!:

I've added 4 pictures of this one, because there's 4 very different sides

 Bulbasaur and his leafy green side

 Pikachu and his electric side

 Squirtle and his watery side, as well as the side of Charmander and his fiery side

This was for my Brother-in-law, who hasn't had a cake from me since the League of Legends cake, years ago. He is usually away for his birthday and this year he was here. Seeing as his Pokemon obsession had been reignited with Pokemon Go, I made this cake. The characters are made from Fimo, the rest of edible. I even hid sweets in the middle as a little surprise. 


Our Wedding Cake!:

Despite a fairly obviously busy year with cakes and wedding preparations - I also insisted on making our Wedding Cake (have you forgiven me for the lack of posts last year yet??!). I refused to pay for something that I could create at a fraction of the price and it would look like how I wanted it to look. 

 I can't take credit for the topper, this was a gift to us from a work colleague and friend and fits beautifully with the theme. Our wedding was Silver and Turquoise colour theme with Ferris Wheels.
I couldn't just leave it at that though, I had to go the extra mile to make it a little more Geeky - mostly through Gavin's request, the back looked like this:

For anyone unfamiliar with any of the tiers, you have Kane (WWE, for Gav's love of Wrestling), Red Ranger (Power Rangers, a beloved childhood favourite for both of us), Spiderman (Gav's all time favourite super hero), Raphael (TMNT, whom we also named our dog after) and a computer mouse (for our love of games).
Each tier was a different flavour, Mint Chocolate, Honey and Whisky, Chocolate and Madeira.
I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Formula 21:

So the year didn't stop there with cakes! Next up was my other Brother-in-law's 21st! I honestly cannot stand Formula 1, the noise, the rules, the cars, so I was not exactly excited at the prospect of completing this cake. But by breaking it down the car wasn't so hard and in the end I'm pretty happy with how it looked. I even made the inside look pretty awesome:

The last cake of the year was yet another big birthday, 2016 was a big year!

Gavin's Great 30th Birthday!:

This cake was all about Gavin's favourite things, from dinosaurs to tea, from Doctor Who to Battlestar Galactica, from Linkin Park to Mass Effect, all the important things are there. To top it off, the inside of the cake was genius if I do say so myself; a pretzel crumb base, with a layer of moist chocolate cake, then a layer of chocolate chip cheesecake, then another layer of the crumb base and another layer of chocolate cake - delicious and followed the theme!

Finally, the first cake of 2017 and the last I have to catch you up on.

Rupert The Bear Cake:

I made this for a friend's Dad, they requested it for his 50th Birthday. I based it on the cover of the books, as his Dad has collected them for years. I painted the background and made Rupert from icing. The cake itself is in a shape of a closed book. The spine says Happy 50th Birthday. He loved it so much that he called me to tell me how much he loved it.

So that's what I have been up to in the cake world - when I put it into writing, it's quite a lot, I have more to come this year, so I'll be better - I promise. 

Glad to be back :)

Bake Off with the Bake Off - Week 6 - Pastry Week

There are some pastries that I love, I love to make, I love to eat. There are others that do not fall into this category, simply the process of making certain kinds of pastry makes them less enjoyable, not to mention how messy they are. 

So here we have it, pastry week and 3 more challenges. 

Week 6 - Pastry Week!
The Challenge - 1 set of savoury vol-au-vents and 1 set of sweet vol-au-vents.
My challenge this week - vol-au-vents! They had to have 2 different flavours - 1 savoury and 1 sweet. 

I hate making puff pastry. This was going to be a nightmare.

The Ingredients:
For the Pastry
500g Strong Flour
300ml Water
450g Cold Butter
50g Cocoa Powder
1 Egg
For the Filling
Savoury - Chicken Tikka Masala 
2 Chicken Breasts
1 Onion (Finely chopped)
1 tbsp Vegetable Oil
1 1/2 tbsp Tikka Masala Paste
1/2 Red Pepper
1/2 Jar of Passata
1 tbsp Mango Chutney
70 ml Double Cream
70 ml Natural Yogurt
Chopped Corriander
Sweet - Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake
250g Cream Cheese
40g Icing Sugar
150ml Double Cream
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
110g Hazelnut Chocolate (Chopped)
1/4 Jar Nutella

Puff Pastry requires the most effort, alongside the ingredients listed above, you also need a lot of patience. 

I did mine in two batches as 1 batch was savoury and 1 batch was sweet. I placed half the flour into my mixer and slowly added 150ml water whilst the mixer was on a slow setting. Once the dough had come together, it went into the fridge for 20 minutes. I rolled out the dough on a floured surface. Then between two pieces of cling film, I rolled out the butter to about half the size of the dough, folded it over, rolled it and then created a book fold.

To create a book fold the dough it flat, the right side is brought to the middle.

Then the left side meets the right in the middle

Then it's folded like a book, then chilled for 20 minutes. The folding, rolling and chilling process is repeated 2 more times.

The same process for the second batch was also followed, except the flour and the cocoa are added to the mixture with the water when mixing the dough. Then it's all about the rolling...

The folding, more folding...

and the chilling. Rinse and repeat twice more as before.

Whilst in the process of waiting for the chilling. You can be doing useful things, like preparing the fillings. I started on my Tikka Massala. I placed the vegetable oil, onion, red peppers and chicken into the pan. I then added the Chicken Tikka Masala Paste and stirred through and cook for 2 minutes. Once the chicken had browned, I added the passata, along with 50mls water. When I was happy that the chicken was cooked through, I mixed in the chutney, double cream and natural yogurt and set aside to cool.

When my pastry was ready, I cut out bottom circles, brushed it with a beaten egg and added a ring on top

I then added another layer to get the height that I needed.

I then baked at 180C for 8-10 minutes.

Some looked really good

 Others looked a little drunk

I added my filling and topped with a little coriander 

To make the chocolate hazelnut cheesecake filling, I beat together the cream cheese with the icing sugar. I then whisked together the cream and vanilla essence until soft peaks form, I then gently mixed into the cream cheese and icing sugar. I then stirred through the chopped hazelnut chocolate and set to one side. Over a very low heat I warmed the Nutella until melted, I spooned small amounts into the bottom of my chocolate vol-au-vents and added the cheesecake mix on top. 

The savoury ones were pretty good, but the chocolate hazelnut cheesecake ones were just heavenly. I scored another 4 out of 5 for this challenge - thanks to the semi drunk looking ones. Note to self - if you ever decide to make vol-au-vents again - 1) Don't do it, remember you hate making puff pastry 2) Don't forget to chill before you put the shaped ones in the oven.

Bake Off with the Bake Off - Week 5 - Alternative Week!

I know, I'm horrendously behind again, I have 3 challenges to write up and 2 bakes to complete! Best crack on.

There were a few options to choose from but Gav set me the challenge of Sugar Free Cake.

Alternative was a little difficult for me as usual alternative sweeteners that are used in cake, neither Gav or myself are a big fan off - Tricky.

Week 5 - Alternative Week!
The Challenge - Sugar Free Cake
The Idea - Blueberry, Lemon and Poppyseed Cake

The Ingredients:
For the Cake
400g Plain Flour
3 tbsp Poppy seeds
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tsp Baking Powder
120ml Rapeseed Oil
130ml Honey
Juice of 1 lemon
3 Large Eggs
250g Blueberries
For the Icing
250g Cream Cheese
2 tbsp Honey
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
100g Blueberries

I preheated the oven to 180C to start with. Then combined all of the dry ingredients in a bowl. In a pan on a low heat, I melted the honey and rapeseed oil, then added the lemon juice.

I then added the honey, rapeseed oil and lemon juice to the dry ingredients and added the three eggs, then stirred until combined.

Happy that it was sufficiently mixed, I then added the blueberries to the cake batter and roughly incorporated.

 

I then poured the mixture into the cake tin and placed in the oven for 40 minutes. The cake was golden brown and spongy to the touch.

Whilst the cake was cooling, I made the topping. I beat together the cream cheese and honey and added the vanilla essence. I spread the topping over the cake and added the remaining blueberries to the top.

I surprised even myself with this bake, it was incredibly delicious and will be something that I would like to try again. I earned 4 our of 5 for this bake, due to the presentation - need to work on that.