Stuff yer bake

This is the Pingu cake I’ve been working on for a little boy’s second birthday. I was also given the added task of making it gluten and nut free, arrrgghh. I did, however, find a recipe that was just that. The actual recipe was for a lemon drizzle cake that used ground almonds but it suggested using polenta instead of the ground almonds for a nut free version.

I knew I wanted to make an iceberg and that came out quite nicely but I’m still not altogether happy with my modeling of animals and people. I feel I need lessons as I don’t think I’m getting the consistency right with the paste and I’m not even sure I’m using the right products. Anyway, let’s just say that Pingu is genetically modified or maybe his appearance has something to do with him eating contaminated fish, same goes for Robbie the seal. The next project is my cousin’s three tier wedding cake that I have to transport across the Irish sea in four weeks time, wish me luck. 

I was asked to do a cake for someone in work whose aunt had been living with her for some time, due to illness I think, and was now going back to her own home. It took me a good few days to decide what to do but I noticed a magical house cake in one of my cake books and thought I could base it on that. I think it worked out quite well and the recipient actually cried when she saw it, so I’m taking that as a compliment (or a huge insult!). The next one I’m doing is for a friends’ little boy’s second birthday and I’m going to attempt to do a cake themed on Pingu, wish me luck! 

I have been a bit overrun in the cake department recently and it doesn’t seem like it is letting up anytime soon. This is the most recent one which was just a simple cake for a party to welcome a new baby boy into the world. I sometimes like simple, although it does draw attention to any ’slight’ mistakes you may have made. Having said that the building blocks were a bit fiddly, my hand was fixed in a claw shape after the piping and I went through about 5 metres of baking paper, making piping bags as I couldn’t quite get the consistency of the icing right. I’ll put it all down to experience and carry on with the next one.

I have been a bit busy of late and haven’t had a much of a chance to post anything on the blog so I have a bit of a backlog. I will eventually get to it but in the meantime I’ll post a picture of the birthday cake I made for the other half for his birthday.

He is a keen cyclist and has been glued to the Tour De France over the last few weeks, so I thought a stage of the tour would be a good idea for a cake. Carving an unusual shape for the mountain and icing it was most fun but making the bicycle was a bit of a chore and I eventually thought that it would be easier to make a broken bike and a rather battered, bruised and disheveled looking cyclist. Throughout the tour you notice a lot of graffiti on the road, mainly for a local terrorist separatist group and large scale male and female genitalia, but I thought it might be a tad more tasteful just to put some of the competitors names on the road instead. He was really impressed with it so I will now use this as leverage for almost any household task for the next thirty plus years. 

This is another cake that I made for someone in work. It was for their Grandmother’s 90th birthday and she apparently was very keen on knitting, sewing and cross stitch so I decided on a sewing box cake. The name is done in brush embroidery, which is a really nice effect where you pipe the required design and then take a very slightly damp paintbrush and drag the icing in. I am definitely getting better at the icing and having less mishaps which is good really as I’m doing my Cousin’s wedding cake in October!

These are another two cakes that I have made over the last couple of weeks for people at work. Both of them took quite a few hours of work but I’m quite pleased with how they have turned out. I generally make a madeira cake, which is tasty but also quite robust and withstands carving into various shapes. I froze the lorry cake as it makes carving in to shapes much easier so hopefully it will still taste nice. I am dropping the lorry cake off tomorrow and await the verdict.

I wanted to make a cake for my friend who was going off on maternity leave last week so I thought I would try and make a baby out of sugar paste and put various baby paraphernalia around it to jazz it up a bit. When I made the baby I somehow managed to make it look like it had mild learning difficulties and having run out of time, couldn’t really remedy the situation. I tried to think of various things to put with the baby and considering it’s unfortunate appearance a pair of calipers and a wheelchair seemed most appropriate. I thought that the baby looked a little naughty as well as slightly retarded so making a big mess on the top of the cake was probably best and also didn’t require too much technical skill or worry of messing it up. I was actually reasonably happy with the result and everyone really liked it. Another happy customer, just two more to cater for in the next week.

P.S. I apologise for the rubbish picture, I was rushing before I took it to work.

I was asked to do a birthday cake for someone in work, so I set about trying to find a book that I could get some inspiration from and also some hints and tips after my disaster with the castle cake. I have a habit of looking at instructions for things then ditching them and having a go at it myself, normally because I can’t be bothered to read them. This time, though, I read through a new book and followed the advice given. The recipient likes gardening and I had seen an idea of doing an upturned flowerpot and thought I could give that a go. The book recommended baking the cake in a terra cotta pot to get the shape and then I split it, filled it with buttercream and iced it. I then had a go at making the little man following rough guides from the book and I added the other little embellishments to finish it off. I’m really pleased with the result and I got a few more requests for cakes to keep me out of trouble for a while. 

I was given, well offered, the task of making a birthday cake for a little boy’s fourth birthday. I relished the task and, since it was a dragons and castles party, I started thinking about making a castle. Having made little effort to find something that I could get help and ideas from, I started baking. What a nightmare!!! The problem was that icing a tall round cake is very difficult and my icing leaves a lot to be desired anyway. In retrospect a square castle would have been distinctly less problematic.

Having spent hours trying to cover up and draw attention away from the crap bits I was finally reasonably satisfied with the result. Sadly on the way there I found out that the theme of the party had changed to pirates so the castle seemed a little out of place. Everyone seemed to like it, thankfully, which is a good job as they will probably be eating it for about a fortnight after I over estimated the amount needed to fill twenty hungry little mouths.

I was watching Jamie Oliver a couple of weeks ago and spotted this tray baked meringue. Incidentally I’ve just had a look at his new website and it’s worth a look. I always save egg whites when I’m only using the yolks and freeze them so I can whip up meringue really quickly and with a meringue not having many ingredients, it was ideal to make while we were on holiday in self catering accommodation last week. I love chocolate and hazelnuts so anything with those in is winner in my book.

Serves 6 to 8

Ingredients:

4 large free-range egg whites

200g unrefined golden caster sugar

a pinch of sea salt

100g hazelnuts, skins removed

2 x 400g halved pears, in syrup

2 pieces stem ginger, thinly sliced

200g dark chocolate

400ml whipping cream (he suggests double but I just can’t bring myself to do it)

50g icing sugar, sifted

1 vanilla pod, halved and seeded

zest of an orange

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees centigrade and line a large baking tray with grease proof paper. Put the egg whites into a very clean bowl and whisk until it forms soft peaks (this is when it forms a peak but it flops over at the end, the eggs whites will not whip up properly if there is any grease or yolk in them). Keep the mixer on and gradually add the sugar and the salt. Whisk the eggs on full power until they are soft, silky and smooth. Heap the meringue onto the baking tray and spread out into a rectangular shape with the back of the spoon making sure you don’t spread it out too thin. Bake in the oven for about an hour until crisp and slightly golden. Whilst the meringue is cooking, place the hazelnuts on another baking tray and put in the bottom of the oven to cook with the meringue until golden brown (this should take the same amount of time as the meringue but keep an eye on them). Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool

To make the topping softly whip the cream and add the icing sugar and vanilla seeds  (you get these by slicing the vanilla pod down the centre and scraping out the seeds with a sharp knife). Drain the pears and reserve the syrup from one of the tins. Add this to a saucepan with the ginger and warm gently. Take off the heat. Chop the chocolate and add to the pan stirring to combine.  I didn’t have any ginger but instead added a little pear brandy. Heap the whipped cream on to the meringue, tear the pear halves into chunks and place on top, scatter the roughly chopped hazelnuts, drizzle the chocolate and zest the orange over the top to finish. Perfect to revive you after a long walk along the beach on a very windy day.