Football it is

blowing out the candles

This year for Zack's birthday he designed his own cake and I produced it. Entirely built on Victoria Sponge - both the main cake and the cupcakes - and then iced with the design in bright buttercream icing. He was thrilled. I guess it was an interpretation of football - a green "pitch" with cupcakes with black and white chevrons on them. He loved it, I guess I cut the grade :) #yippee

Church Bake-Off : bless

 

Calvin's entry - in progress

Francis "Eagle" Lipman organised a church-wide Bake Off. Our boys were the only entries in their age group, so they won. Delightful!

For the St James Primary School Summer Fair, there was a baking competition. The entries were fantastic and so varied. Our boys made swirly cake with bright buttons. Every child was credited with participation and the winners were in 3 categories. I think it'll be an annual fixture going forward.

cake sale at school : cupcakes

Year 1 held their fundraising cake sale on Friday. Instead of doing crunchies or flapjacks I went for something straight down the line - cupcakes with butter-cream icing. Thanks to Janine Rose, whose cupcake decorating evening I went to some time ago, I whipped up two dozen vanilla cupcakes and used up all the left over butter-cream icing that was in the fridge (pink & white). Calvin decorated them with smarties and marshmallows. We sold everything and had excellent contributions. I think we made £87.00 on the day which is fabulous.

NGS event : cupcakes

My friend Viv is involved with the NGS and this weekend was her turn for an "open garden" afternoon. More than 20 people volunteered to bake cake for her, and I made Nigella's cupcakes and then had to scratch my head for the butter icing. In the end I used the recipe from the Wilton Cupcake book, because I just couldn't find something in Nigella or the Bake book. It's a good recipe because it's half Trex (white vegetable fat) and half butter, so you end up with something that's very light and fluffy - hence my choice of baby pink. I pulled out the Royal (fondant) icing that I had left over from Zack's party etc. and made the little flowers. I've actually cut out more, for use in future decorating - no point in throwing the stuff away if I'm going to use it in the near future. This baking session has made me add two things to my shopping list : I need some green food colouring paste, I'd like another large star nozzle for the toppings. Having one means that I have to wash everything if I change colours.
Negatives : I used the yellow Wilton cupcake papers that I bought in the USA and because Nigella's recipe cooks at 200˚C they came out brown, and the fat content in the recipe meant they were stained. A real pity as they are pretty papers. I wonder if it would have looked better if I'd iced them in yellow ?

half way through

eager little fingers

OK, so we've got to Friday and so far we've made wicked chocolate biscuits (Apple Publishing recipe), and Nigella's cupcakes/fairy cakes recipe last night. I decorated them with the blue liquid colouring mixed into the bog-standard butter cream icing. I have now decided that the liquid colouring is terrible - just like they told me at the cupcake decorating evening. It is such terrible quality. I ended up with blue-grey which you can't really fix. What a waste of icing! Thank goodness for "confetti" which Keith sprinkled ontop. I need to buy some colouring paste now and pronto! I have to make the cake & cupcakes tomorrow for the big day on Sunday.

Take One - post decorating class

I've had an opportunity to test my newly acquired decorating skills and purchases. Rather than use the colouring paste, I used the liquid food colouring I've had for a few years. It is messy, and goes everywhere - stained my fingers, and more difficult to work through. I did use fondant for the flowers/ hearts, instead of the marzipan we had on the course. It behaves slightly differently. I thought Janine Rose's cupcake recipe was okay - not remarkable, not bad. I think I'll try another recipe I have from my Apple Press book of 500 Cupcakes & Muffins.