Artist's birthday cake

This is a cake I made for one of my boyfriend's work colleagues. He goes to art classes so his wife was keen for me to do an art inspired cake. It was getting close to my holiday and I had loads to do but I enjoy doing the cakes so I agreed to do it.

It always seems that when you are the most pushed for time, everything goes wrong. I seem to have problems with portion control, in general as well as when I'm making cakes for other people, and the last cake I made was a little small. I thought to myself that I wouldn't make that mistake again so I made a cake big enough to feed forty people. Unfortunately the cake was for a dinner party which would only be attended by 12 people!

Aside from the monster size, it turned out dry. I knew there was something wrong with the batter when I put it into the tin but being in a rush, as ever, I thought it would be fine. Lesson one, always trust your instincts. I worried about it when I came to ice it but I thought that if I loaded it with sugar syrup it would be OK, and I didn't have time to make another one anyway.

I iced the cake, but the next day I decided I definitely couldn't deliver it to my client and resolved to make another one, a little bit smaller this time. I just love putting myself under pressure! Once I finished the cake, even though I was missing a few brain cells and some hair, I felt much better for baking another one and getting it right. I knew I would've fretted about delivering something I knew to be substandard. All's well that ends well.

Chocolate flop to chocolate heaven

Having seen a lot of failed attempts at Chocolate fondant puddings on Celebrity Masterchef this week, I thought I would like to give one a try. I have had shop bought ones before and relished their divine rich taste. To me they are the ultimate of decadent puddings, and the worst things for you always taste the best.

The recipe I followed from the BBC Food page seemed simple enough but I fell at the final hurdle of timings and ended up with a runny, albeit delcious, mess served with orange and vanilla ice cream. I remained undeterred, though, had another go the following night and left them in for a few minutes longer, which was much more successful but still not quite done enough. They still tasted absolutely divine, but I will keep trying until I get the perfect consistency. It's a hard job, but somebody's gotta do it!

Vanilla panna cotta with strawberries and lemon thyme sugar

I have seen quite a few recipes for panna cotta recently and since I have never tried to make it, I wanted to give it a go. I found this recipe and thought it looked nice and simple and now that the strawberries in my garden were starting to blush into a vibrant red colour, I wanted to serve them with it.

I first of all made the lemon thyme sugar. I bought a bunch of lemon thyme the other day to go with squid but I don't actually like it much in savoury things as I think it tastes a bit soapy so I wondered whether I could make something sweet with it. Basil sugar seems to be very fashionable at the minute so I thought I would try and do the same with lemon thyme.

Pick the leaves off a small bunch of lemon thyme and blitz in a blender with about 6 tablespoons of caster sugar. It should go a nice green colour but will also be a bit damp so spread it out on a baking sheet and put in a very low oven for about 10-15 minutes until it has dried out. You can then keep your sugar in a sealed container and use it whenever you like. 

I made the panna cotta next and left it to cool in the fridge for an hour or so. 

Next take a couple of handfuls of fresh ripe strawberries (you can pretty much use any fruit you like here) hull and halve them and put into a saucepan with a tablespoon of icing sugar and about half a tablespoon of Limoncello liqueur. Warm the berries until the juices start to run but don't let the strawberries go too soft. Take off the heat and leave to cool. 

Once the panna cotta is set, loosen it from it's mould and turn out onto a plate, scatter the strawberries around and garnish with the lemon thyme sugar.



The texture and taste of the panna cotta was lovely but the only thing I didn't like was that all the vanilla seeds sunk to the bottom of the mould and made the panna cotta look burnt and I also need to work on getting them cleanly out of the mould. I think my blowtorch may have to be used. I will definitely have another go at making panna cotta and might try a few different flavours too.