Eggless apple cake

The recipe for this cake was eggless, and would have been dairy free, but instead of using coconut milk (which I didn't have) I used regular milk.  I also filled it with cream which is not specifically dairy free... the recipe book recommended some branded dairy free whip stuff which really didn't sound very nice at all.  The recipe for the cake made three layers in the tins that I had, but given the depth it would have looked out of proportion and been very difficult to cut.  The cake was very appley, nice and spicey and I had sprinkled some granulated brown sugar on the top which made it reminiscent of the country slices made by a certain Mr K which we used to have on train journeys when I was little.

Cheesecake

Tempted as I was by the Nigella cheesecake recipe, I made the recipe out of the new cake book - it worked very well and the cheesecake was delicious.

I tried to find a link to the cheesecake song, which is hilarious, but I couldn't find it - I'll dig it out and see if I can get the details as it's well worth a listen (it's here! ignore the video though - I don't know what that's about).

The cake stand that the cheesecake was on was a recent aquisition from everyones favourite swedish furniture supplier...
You can also glimpse the crispie cakes I made aswell - these aren't getting a separate mention as they were very simple and not overly glamorous, but did provide another dairy free alternative.

The guest slot...

For my own cake-fest I have to confess I didn't do all of the baking - special mention goes to my Mum who is the Queen of Scones, and who also provided an enormous lemon meringue pie (made with real lemons and NOT the lemon-bath-pearl thing from the packet mixes...), and the swirly topped chocolate cake.  We didn't manage to get a picture of the lemon meringue pie as it was put out last and eaten first before we could snap it with the camera, but we did get the scones and the cake!

Russian Tea Cake - Different, interesting, but not entirely successful...

This cake had a lot going for it in terms of ingredients and make-up - it had cake in many many layers, custard and somewhat bizarrely, TEA.  The recipe said rooibos, but on the basis I don't like it I substituted Earl Grey (which I do like, I like very much!).  So, the idea was simple, bake the cakes (I managed to do two batches of four at a time in the oven, rather than the two at a time suggested by the recipe), make the tea flavoured custard filling, and sandwich the lot together.  So I did this, it looks pretty impressive in a kind of leaning tower of cake kind of way.  But, I have to say it was overall disappointing - the cake layers were dry, it was a nightmare to cut, and the custard, which actually tasted really nice, was like rubber.  For future reference I think I will cook the cakes for less time, consider soaking them with some of the tea, and omit the additional cornflour from the custard mixture, as I think this will help it all to 'sog' together a bit better.  This version didn't even make it to being the next day's dessert with custard it was so bad!  I knew I should have stuck to my original plan and made the Nigella Autumn Cake!

Custard Creams

This is Nigella's recipe and copied exactly in the Nigella style - even down to making the little pin prick pattern round the outside with a skewer (which does take ages...) if I had a smaller heart shaped cutter I would have just used that to make an impression in the larger heart shaped biscuit, but I don't, so pin prick it was!  These are my husbands favourite and this was the main reason why I made them - although I am a huge fan of custard and my small child clearly enjoyed them as he managed to pinch one or two from the table while we were setting up!

Meringues!

These started off as a way to use up left over egg whites when I had used multiple yolks to make a very rich chocolate cake, I then got a little bit addicted to forming the snowy peaks and experimenting with the crunchy-on-

the-outside-and-soft-in-the-middle (like an aardvark) texture and it just went from there.  I have made them previously in little petit four cases, but I think freestyle is much more beautiful.  I thought they looked lovely piled up in the vintage pink bowls I bought from a little independent vintage shop in the South - where I also managed to find a cake plate to match my tea set, so that was a good day!

Rose scented macaroons

I have talked about these before - they are the memory of a friends lovely wedding, and of a day spent in Laduree (!) with friends drinking tea, eating cakes and catching up.  In addition, these are ridiculously easy to make, and are also gluten free! The pink and rose flavour cream are optional, although I personally feel they are essential...

The glass comport was my birthday present from my husband - it is vintage and locally produced and suited us as a piece of social history.  The man we bought it from was also very interesting and was more than happy to discuss the history and the factory, which we found really interesting.  It also happens to look stunning with cakes in it...

Of course there were cupcakes!

I made the red velvet chocolate cupcakes that I made for my godmother's 40th wedding anniversary (these look like milk chocolate on the photos and have the small marbled chocolate squares on the top, as previously they are iced with a cream cheese icing.  The dark chocolate cupcakes are a really interesting vegan recipe from my lovely new cake book.  The recipe had no eggs or butter, but instead used vegetable oil (which, just like making carrot cake still freaks me out to pour into a bowl in quantity in a way that I just never feel when putting in half a pound of good hard fat...), and cherry balsamic vinegar.  This was a new venture for me and they came out very well - they also pleased those of my friends who were dairy intolerant too!  These were both large muffin-sized cupcakes which also rose quite amazingly and so appeared to have the general huge-ness of the sort of pre-wrapped muffins you sometimes find in shops which was bizarre.

It's my birthday and I'll make cake if I want to... make cake if I want to...

The only problem I had was what to make...  I mentioned in an earlier blog post somewhere (and this is where if I was organised I would do some kind of linking back wizardry - but I haven't) about my wonderful new cake book that I bought when buying bits and pieces for the 40th Wedding Anniversary Cake - well, for my birthday I decided I would make lots of the cakes from this, plus some of my Nigella favourites AND invite lots of friends round to eat them.  I have included the long shot of the table which shows the cakes and some of my favourite pieces of glassware - I'm now going to cover each of the cakes separately!

The mother of all French Fancies...

This cake started life as a rashly made promise at a meeting - the conversation had somehow drifted onto the fact that Mr K apparently makes pink fondant fancy available in a large size at a big named supermarket near you.  I then said 'it's my birthday soon - I'll make one', while thinking how hard can it be!  The picture doesn't do the size of the cake justice - it was HUGE - I had to take it to work in a plastic crate thing as I didn't have a cake box large enough, still, it amused my bus driver and the lady sitting opposite me.  The cake itself is 2 layers of the ultra reliable BERO rich chocolate cake mixture which I sandwiched together AND iced with (shock) ready made chocolate fudge icing - as I just couldn't cope with the thought of making such a large batch of butter cream! The 'bump' was another layer of cake that I made by baking it in a bowl to get the right shape, which was then stuck on with the icing...  I then added the finishing black decoration with a writing icing pen.
The cake went down very well and very quickly with colleagues - I would say it was and ex**dingly good cake, but that would probably infringe some copyright somewhere and I don't want to be sued...

Catching up with all things cake-ey!

It's been a while since I've updated the blog, although I did bake more in November than I have for ages - I just never seemed to find the time to put the pics and the commentary on here.  So, tonight I'm aiming to put up the November cakes, and then in the fullness of time have some kind of slide show of the rest that pre-date the blog!

40th Wedding Anniversary

 Wedding Anniversary cakes made for my parents who celebrated their Ruby Anniversary this weekend.  The cakes were Nigella's Christmas cake recipe, with my usual addition of cocoa powder instead of some of the flour, with fruit steeped generously in amaretto and the cake fed with some measures of single malt (being the only type of whisky we keep in the house...).  The cakes were then covered in a double layer of marzipan - which for future reference is MUCH cheaper in the supermarket than in the cake decorating shop, and then in a double layer of white fondant icing.

We tried the cake with a lovely glass of champagne!

Moving Party Cakes

The moving date is nigh and so to celebrate our last few days in the historic building we thought we'd have a party, and parties always involved CAKE!  To keep with the party theme I thought I would make something a bit different and a bit funky and so there were chocolate chilli mini cupcakes, mojito mini cupcakes, and mini meringues - which also have the bonus of being gluten free!  The chilli-choclate were just spicy enough to have a kick, but without being inedibly hot, and the mojito cupcakes were strangely minty and limey - although no rum in these ones... and the mini meringues were crumbly on the outside and soft and squidgy in the middle. A good time was had by all!

Birthday mini-cupcakes

These were baked as a birthday gift for a friend. Vanilla cupcakes with yellow vanilla icing, birthday letter candles and some small sugar flowers.

Staycation Mini-Cupcakes

It's 11am, it's coffee time at work - an social tradition of which the days are now numbered in its present daily form. However, one thing is guaranteed, that the number in attendance will increase exponentially when the work 'cake' is included in the invite. The unwritten rule, is that people are welcome to contribute offerings to share to celebrate birthdays, work anniversaries, holidays, retirement, moving on, moving up, pregnancy (announcement and return), and the welcome of new colleagues, or visitors, plus any other excuses that can be thought of to share biscuits, cakes and dodgy produce from foreign climes.

However, these mini-cupcakes were my contribution from our August staycation. The choices were vanilla cupcakes iced with pink icing and appropriate decorative accessories, chocolate cupckes with chocolate icing, and iced fancies which I made on a whim from the surplus of chocolate cake mixture.

Macaroons

These were made to remind me of a friends wedding from last year (and bizarrely I made them on the day of their Wedding Anniversary - although it's a shame they lived too far away to share...). However, they had a large pyramid of the very stylish macaroons from the creme de la creme of macaroon patissiers, Laduree. We had to leave before the pyramid was dis-assembled, however, this gave us the perfect excuse for breakfast and macaroons (and a host of other purchases) in the Laduree concession at the well known large department store in Knightsbridge.

These ones were shared between friends who we went to for dinner, ourselves and my parents. The macaroons were plain almond, but filled with a mixture of double cream and raspberry jam, and I although they were delicious, next time I have a hankering to mix some drops of rosewater in with the mix...

Traditional Maderia Cake

This is a traditional Maderia cake (Nigella's recipe) made as a birthday cake for my Uncle for a significant birthday! It was just trimmed with a ribbon to liven it up a bit. The recipe was nice and easy, although I increased the quantities by a third to make the cake a bit bigger...

Ruby Wedding Cupcakes

A dozen cupcakes made for a family Ruby Wedding celebration. The cakes are Red Velvet - a variation on chocolate cake dyed red either with beetroot (which does go very well with chocolate - which I first experienced thanks to a friends recipe), or in the abscence of beetroot, with red food colouring. They are iced with a cream cheese icing mixture and topped with real ruby rose petals.