Pimms O' Clock contd

So I have made it back from today's amazing cake club well fed and truly amazed by all of the fabulous cakes everyone has made and brought with them. There was everything from a Lavender Victoria Sponge to a beautiful raspberry and white chocolate cake decorated with icing bunting. Gorgeous!
There was even a gorgeous lemon cake with meringue icing called a meringue-atan cake!! I have asked for the recipe ( it was devine!) and will share it as soon as I get it!

The thing that astounds me everytime is that there never seems to be the same cake made twice at each event. People's perceptions and interpretations of the themes are always so different and you always learn something new, whether that be a way of decorating a cake or combinations of flavours, like the beet root and chocolate cake (who knew it would be so delicious?) simply decorated with icing and red edible glitter. Stunning!

I get so much pleasure from this club and cannot explain to you how fabulous it really is. You should all find a local group, or start one and go. You won't be disappointed.

Pimms o'clock darling!

As I type this, I am getting ready to attend another cake club and the theme is "Great British Fete". We have to be there in an hour, but I am app excited about my cake that I had to do this before I left!!

The whole idea about cake club for me is that is allows me to push myself, both in skill and imagination. Not for
one minute is the club competitive, or does anyone actually judge anyone else. It is just like minded people meeting up for a slice (or ten!) of cake and a chat about all things cakey. Heaven!

However, I like to push myself and think that there are so many different things you can do with baking, that it would be a waste of my brain to just keep baking the same few cakes that my family know and love. So I relish the challenge of trying to come up with something a bit different when we get the themes through from our club organiser.

This time I went through all sorts of ideas but finally came upon 2 that I have not made before and sounded a bit different. A Lancashire honey cake and a Pimms Cake. I tried both and the Pimms cake won.

The recipe was just a basic sponge mix with the addition of Pimms and lemon juice in place of the milk.

Pimms Cake with Strawberry, Blueberry and Pimms Cream Cheese Frosting.

175g butter
175g caster sugar
3 large eggs
175g self raising flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
60 ml Pimms
Zest and juice of 1 lemon

Pre heat the oven to 180C and grease and line a cake tin - I used a round 9" cake tin
Beat together the butter and sugar with an electric whisk.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each one and beat for about 5 mins.
Add the sieved flour and baking powder and lemon zest and mix.
Add the Pimms and lemon juice and mix.
Place into the cake tin and bake in the oven for about 30mins.
This makes 1 x 9" cake.

Frosting
190g cream cheese
40g butter
3 - 4 tbsp icing sugar
3 cap fulls Pimms
Handful blueberries and strawberries blended.

Beat the cheese and butter together.
Add the Pimms and mix.
Add the icing sugar and mix.
Add some of the blended fruit and mix for a min of 5mins until light and fluffy.

I made two layers and spread some of the frosting between layers and topped with some chopped strawberries. Then I laid the top layer on top and piled the top of the cake with some more of the frosting and decorated with a couple
of strawberries.

To me this is heaven on a plate. Light and fluffy with a refreshing frosting. Delicious!!

I have to go now as cake club awaits. I'll fill you in later as to how it went and what people thought of the cake.

I can't believe I have just made butter!!

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been working on a little project, ready for June, so any additional baking has been put onto a bit of a back burner. As a result, there have been a few ingredients quietly losing their best in the old fridge. Included in this was a large quantity of double cream. Now there are many different ways to cook with cream, but as I have not had much time to cook at all, I needed something that would help to preserve it. My first thoughts were freezing it, but there is no room in the freezer due to the amount of cake and bread that is currently residing there! So after chatting with a friend, I decided to try and make my own butter.

The end result was very tasty (if I do say so myself!) and was incredibly easy to make. It is really one of those things that sounds like a complete faff to make and people always seem to be incredibly impressed when you tell them that you have made it, but trust me, it is really worth doing!

First of all you put the cream into a bowl and mix it in a mixer or with a whisk until it starts to turn into a thick creamy mxture. It will go from being cream to an almost curdled, butter like substance, after a few minutes of whisking. Drain off the buttermilk and place the mixture into a muslin cloth inside of a dish.                                                                                                                                                     

Then squeeze the mixture out by wringing the mixture out inside the muslin as tightly as you can, until you have managed to squeeze out as much of the buttermilk as possible. Then decant into a butter dish or into a container and enjoy!! (If you want salted butter, add the salt into the cream mixture before you start whisking, in whatever quantity you like). Super easy and super tasty. You have to try it!

"Cup" Cakes

I have had a highly exciting weekend!! I entered a local bake off. Yes, that's right people, little old moi put her work out there to be judged and it was brilliant. I managed to enter 2 entries. A white cocolate and cardamom cake that I have posted earlier and a batch of three cup cakes.

The criteria was that we were to display the cakes on a cake stand or plate and there should be no more than three on the plate if they were biscuits or cup cakes. So i began to think. WHat could I make that would be a little bt different? I hit the local village for some inspiration. Whilst trawling the charity shops looking for old glass wear or cake stands (this is one of my favourite things to do whilst J is in nursery), I became distracted by a trio of tea vintage tea cups and a milk jug on sale. I was uming and ahing about what I could do with such gorgeous things, when it hit me. I could make "cup" cakes!!!

I have read somewhere that you can bake these beauties in quite a hot oven and they will take the heat quite well, even though you cannot dishwash them or use them in the microwave. I paid my £2 for them and skipped off home to let the alchemy begin.

I first of all made a devils food cake mix and poured about 2 level ice cream scoops of batter into each cup. Then placing them in a muffin tin so that they were supported in the oven and not touching each other, I placed them into an oven pre heated at 170C and baked the cakes for about 12 mins. I literally sat in front of the oven on a chair, watching for any signs of breakages or explosions! Then they emerged in all of their vintage, edible glory:

The idea was to make them look like little cups of tea and have them displayed on a platter:

Here's the finished, displayed product:

And the chocolate cake:

So after a 2hr wait whilst the three judges delberated, the results were announced. I did not earn a place, but we found out that I was only 1.5pts behind the overall winner, with a score of 32.5 out of 40 (the winner got 34). Not bad for a first attempt!

I am now well and truly hooked and am looking for another bake off to enter. So watch this space!!

Oh My Goodness!!!!!!

Well I have attended the first meeting of the Clandestine Cake Club!! It is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!! I may sound a little (read LOT) excited about it, but it really is that good! There were over 30 people there and at least twenty cakes to be tried by everyone. My gorgeous friend T came along and the two of us struggled to chomp our way through a third of what delights people had baked for the occasion. At the last count, there were 16 cakes that we had not managed to even get near to trying!

It was so wonderful to chat to like minded people and chat about all things cakey!! We even managed to bring some cake home. Excellent! The next event for May has been posted and the thinking hat is on for the next cake. Smashing!!!!!

Clandestine Cake Club

So I am stupdly excited (again!!!!). I have joined a local group of the Clandestine Cake Club (website here). It is a group of like minded people who like to bake and eat cakes, who meet up every 4-6 weeks in a secret location only revealed a few days before. For each event, there is a theme and the one for this month is Sugar and Spice. After much searching, Mum came a cross a fantastic recipe in a magazine, that I adapted and have tried out below. I am quite excited about it, because I have never used such an unsual ingredient as Cardamom in a sweet recipe before! The only problem with the cake is that I won't be able to try it until tomorrow. Boo!!! The plus side is that there are 27 people going to the event tomorrow and they are bringing 27 different cakes, of which we are able to bring home a slice of each.

                                                  Bring It On!!!!!!!!                                                                                     

White Chocolate and Cardamom Cake.

Makes one 8” cake.

Cake:
14 Whole Cardamoms
100g White Chocolate
175g Butter, softened
175g Caster Sugar
3 Large Eggs
Finely grated zest 1 Orange
175g Self Raising Flour, sifted
75g Desiccated Coconut
3tbsp Milk

Icing:
75g Unsalted Butter
300g White Chocolate
4tbsp Icing Sugar
Chocolate Mini Eggs to decorate

- Preheat oven to 160C/ 120C Fan/ Gas 3 and grease and line an 8" round cake tin.
-Crush the cardamom pods with a pestle and mortar and remove the pods and continue to crush the seeds until finely ground.
- Break the chocolate into squares and place into a heat proof bowl. Put over a pan of simmering water until just melted, taking care not to let the base of the bowl touch the water. Or melt in a microwave in 30 second bursts, until melted. Leave to one side until the chocolate is cold but still liquid.
- Beat the butter and the caster sugar together. Then beat in the eggs one at a time. Then add the orange zest and the crushed cardamom seeds.
-Gently stir in the flour, coconut and milk and then add the melted chocolate.
- Pour into the cake tin and smooth out the mixture with the back of a spoon. Bake for 40 mins, but check the cake after 30mins. Cover if browning too much. Leave to cool in the cake tin for 5 mins and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
- For the icing put the butter and chocolate into a heat proof bowl and melt as above. Stir in the icing sugar and spread or pipe on top of the cake once the cake has cooled. Decorate with mini eggs.
Note:

The recipe makes one 8” cake. If making a layered cake, double the quantities above and divide mixture into two greased 8” tins. Spread a little of the icing on top of the bottom layer and then sandwich the top layer on top and then decorate as desired.

Baking, Builders and Giraffes

So we have been AWOL for a couple of months, but with very good reason. Si decided that we needed to do some major home improvements that started on the 2nd January this year, and we are still only half way through them! I have been without hot water and gas most days, so the baking has had to be put on hold. Boo!!!  Instead I have been focusing on keeping J from climbing the walls, as we are under house arrest most days, industrial scale cleaning and trying to come up with new and exciting ways to use a slow cooker (Si is now fed up with what he calls "one pots")!

It was with relish, that I offered to make a cake for my beautiful twin nieces 2nd birthday earlier this week. On a rare couple of days of having gas and hot water, I managed to make 2 Griaffe cakes. Using the vanilla custard cake that I made for J's 2nd birthday tractor cake, I managed to carve a 2D shape of a giraffe which we mounted on a basic tray lined with foil. This was then iced directly on the tray and then the background was made by dying desicated coconut with green food colouring and then cutting out little yellow flowers to mount on the background. I do have to say it did look quite effective. Here it is:

Now for some reason, the photo will not rotate. But you can still see how it turned out. This is only the fourth novelty cake I have ever made, and I am quite pleased with it. I have aslo realised how much I have missed baking and making. I just hope that we manage to get some more baking done over the next couple of weeks. We will have to watch this space!