Pumpkins and Ponies

I am loving the recent autumn weather of late with those crisp mornings and the sun putting in an appearance as the day moves on.  It really is my favourite time of year and celebrating 7 years of marriage in a weeks time affirms my love for this season. I choose winter boots over flip flops, stylish scarves over sun tops and a good old hot chocolate over a glass of Pimms any day!  Because the summer weather was bitterly disappointing it really did pass me by.  Don’t get me wrong we had two great holidays (and in this country!) and as a result I have not needed to add to my summer wardrobe since 2009!  This kinda means I have to indulge in some lovely autumn wears (doesn’t it?) Whoops too late I already have! Love a good knit and a bit of fairisle! anyway enough about that….

Halloween is upon us and I haven’t missed a trick (or a treat for that matter!) I have been busy making spooky bakes for the Lavender Barn ready to up the anti during the half term hols next week.

I was also asked to make some pony themed cupcakes to accompany the Lavender Barn pony parties.  I wanted to make something that would represent the pony party theme so I used their party rosette for inspiration.

It’s amazing how difficult it is to find pony themed cake toppers.  Sugar horses or horseshoe sprinkles are simply not easy to come by.  I stumbled across an animal themed ‘Tappit set’ (an icing cutter set to me and you) which happened to come with a rather splendid horse.  I bought some black flower paste and set to work ‘tapping’ out 30 black beauties.  I coloured some fondant in green and lavender and used fluted and round cutters to emulate a rosette, here are the results…

I have now been given ‘free rein’ (I know very apt!) to make this the official ‘Lavender Barn Pony Party Signature Cupcake!’ 

 Happy Days x

Rapunzel Cake

As promised….

As you may remember from previous blogs it was my daughter Tamsin’s 6^th birthday two weeks ago.  Because Tamsin is very ‘arts and crafty’ (gets it from her Grandma Dee!) She chose a decopatch party.  We went to the Bean and Brush Café in Sale where Tamsin and 14 friends diligently decopatched their own large free standing initial.  They had a ball; I would highly recommend it as a party venue.

Incorporating the arts theme I suggested to Tamsin that I could make a cake in the shape of an artists paint pallet.  Tamsin needed some convincing! To be honest it was a ‘cop out’ on my part because I felt that an artist’s pallet would be an easy option!  Serves me right….Tamsin set her heart on a Rapunzel tower cake! My biggest challenge to date!

I researched castles and princess tower cakes and looked at various ways of how to form the tower.  Because the Rapunzel Tower has one specific turret I knew I had to get the formation right.  The cake only needed to produce enough slices for 15 children so I decided the best option was to make the base of the cake 8”and that way I would not need to cut into the tower.  My intention was to use various size Swiss rolls and cover in fondant icing.  I would not be able to bring myself to serve ‘bought Swiss roll cake’ which didn’t matter as I did not need to use this part of the cake!  After cutting and shaping the Swiss roll I felt that it was 1.Too heavy and 2.Did not give the right cylindrical shape.  I considered using a polystyrene ‘dummy’ but again struggled to find the right size cylinders.  The answer was ‘a cocoa container, baking powder container and an ice cream cone!

You might have noticed that I got an early Christmas present in the background of this shot! Thank you Santa!

My large pot of piping gel came in very handy for sticking on the fondant icing as well as sticking the containers together.  I don’t think I have ever made a cake which needed so many fondant colours; it was a very lengthy process colouring all the icing.  The detail was quite intricate and required A LOT of patience!  Once the tower was formed it was actually quite heavy and I was worried that it would sink into the cake.  I decided to ‘dowel’ the cake (there are some good clips on youtube) by inserting 3 dowels it gave enough support to stop the tower from sinking into the cake.  I stuck the tower on to a 4” cake board which I covered in green fondant to blend in with the rest of the cake.  I did not attach the tower to the cake; I transported the cake in two parts and positioned the tower on the main cake right at the last minute.

Here is the result....

 

There was a lot of ‘ooohing’ and ‘ahhhhing’ from the other 5 and 6 year old girls, who turned to their mummies and asked if they too could please have a Rapunzel tower cake for their next birthday!  The look of terror on the other Mums faces might mean that there could be another couple of orders coming my way.  Can’t say I am in a hurry to repeat the performance anytime soon!

Happy 6th Birthday Tamsi Wams! x

Wurzel Gummage and Angel Cake

Lying in bed the other night reflecting on my week all I could relate it to was Wurzel Gummage and his infamous changing of heads!  I have been flitting from Baker to Teacher and back to Baker! Wurzel got me thinking about Sunday teatime growing up.  My Grandma would always come for the day and Mum would always make sure that we were fed to full capacity!  After a traditional roast with all the trimmings followed by a pudding (usually steamed with custard) we would spend the rest of the afternoon recovering! Dad usually having a crafty snooze in his chair, Mum and Grandma doing the washing up then spending the rest of the afternoon with non stop nattering! I’m not sure what my brothers and I used to get up to (usually involved ‘playing out’) but we always made it back for Wurzel Gummage.  It wasn’t Sunday teatime until Wurzel fell off his perch! 

That was mums cue to roll out the cold cut sandwiches, pork pie, pickled onions, and some sort of cake.  If it wasn’t one of mums home baked favourites (Victoria Sandwich, Ginger loaf or Malt loaf) it would be (shop bought; heavens forbid!) The choice….Angel cake! 

I used to love perfecting the technique of carefully peeling away the white and pink sponge layers to skilfully reveal the yellow sponge with (hopefully) both layers of cream attached to either side!  God we used to eat a lot but you couldn’t beat that traditional family Sunday, it really was a great day; a day which nowadays has much less significance which is a shame.

So with my ever changing ‘heads’ As ‘Baker’ I have managed to create a Rapunzel cake (blog to follow) 90^th birthday cupcake and cake pop favours, some more lavender bakes, Halloween gingerbreads and trialled and failed two batches of lavender fudge (watch this space I will not let it beat me!) As ‘Teacher’ I was back at the Academy teaching my first class of new Hospitality hopefuls! Finally to end the week, today I’ve been on a one day photography course!  So my ‘3^rd head’ is now filled with apertures, ISO’s, compositions and shutter speeds! I learnt a lot so let’s just hope I can put it into good practice!

Ben 10 Cake and Lavender Bakes

After meeting Audrey a couple of weeks ago (a very pretty blonde haired angelic little girl) I was surprised when I was asked to make her a Ben 10 cake for her 4^th Birthday! The most important part of the cake was getting the wording of the Logo correct (trickier than it looks and took far longer than it should of!)  To make the ‘splattered slime’ I used piping gel and coloured gel paste to make it green, it was most effective and now I am finding lots of uses for my rather large tub of piping gel (namely sticking every loose piece of icing down to ensure there are no mishaps during cake transitions!) It came in VERY handy when I made my daughters Rapunzel tower cake (that’s a whole other blog!) Here is the finished result:

 (adding glitter (and a bow!) was my failed attempt to make it just marginally girlie!) 

Meanwhile I am loving my little baking job at the Lavender Barn.  It is really great to be able to get back to some good old fashioned baking.

I had forgotten how much I love to bake and it is great to experiment with lavender; something I have not used in baking before.  I am really starting to develop a taste for it! The constant taste testing of new recipes is not good for the waistline and extra penance has been necessary at the Gym!  So far I have found the best sellers to be lavender scones, lavender shortbread, gingerbread men and lavender cupcakes (my Banana tea bread was also a hit!)  This week I trialled a new recipe: mini lemon and lavender Madeira cakes.  They looked fab (even if I do say so myself) they smelt great and the sponge was lovely and moist.  I resisted tasting them as I was aesthetically pleased with them; so fingers crossed they tasted as good as they looked!  I used Sainsbury’s mini loaf cases they were really sturdy and peeled away a treat! 

I will have to wait until Friday to see if only crumbs remain!  I keep forgetting to take pictures of my bakes so you’ll have to use your imagination! Here is the recipe for 'Lemon and Lavender Madeira cakes' well worth a try!  Next week: Halloween goodies, chocolate chunk flapjack (Thanks Farah for the recipe!) Lavender fudge (chilling as I blog, very sweet and very tempting!) and Mum’s sticky ginger cake! Oh and a one day photography course for me....hopefully I will learn how to be more creative with my new camera, its about time I moved off the automatic setting!