February's offerings

Courgette tray bake - not sure what the occasion was. But oh, so yummy

cupcakes for Calvin's class cake sale. - SOLD -

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 ?

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake & Icing

I am dead keen to make a fabulous chocolate cake or choccie cup-cakes. I've been perusing Martha's recipes, and the ones on the Waitrose site, as well as my modest collection of cookery books, and decided to try Nigella's Sour Cream Chocolate Cake because it sounded smooth and very chocolatey. Oh dear me... it's turned out to be a far-too-sweet chocolate affair. It has good chocolatey colour and a lovely fine crumb (smooth texture), but overall it's not chocolatey enough for me. Or rather, it's not as 'dark chocolate' as I'd hoped for. The recipe for the icing produced something that's lovely and smooth and light, but far too sweet. I just feel like it needs to be dark and bitter, rather than light, chocolate, whippy.
Another thing is that my decorating technique is horribly OLD FASHIONED. I don't think it works at all. So, overall, there's heaps of room for improvement.

I think I'm going to pension this cake off (to the grateful & hungry souls at Keith's office), and make the box of brownies Heath sent me for my birthday. It's one of those – just add oil, an egg and hot water – jobs. It looks painless, and might be more satisfying in the chocolate arena. Let's wait and see.