Cloud Cupcakes

I spotted these cute cupcakes on Pinterest a while ago and thought they'd be a perfect bake for summer with their pretty sky blue frosting and fluffy white clouds.  As the sun has FINALLY decided to make an appearance it was time to give them a go!

My little girl helped make the sponge batter which we flavoured with lots of vanilla as its her favourite but you could make it any flavour you like, I think lemon would be great to go with the summery theme.  It's just a basic 2 egg sponge mix so I won't type out the recipe or method.

The frosting is a vanilla buttercream tinted with blue gel colour (reserve some for the clouds before colouring!) and roughly swirled over the cakes.  The little clouds were done by my daughter using a piping bag fitted with a star tip and the reserved vanilla frosting.

The rainbows are cut from strips of 'Rainbow Belts' sweets.  We are lucky to have an amazing pick and mix shop on our doorstep which stocks all kinds of hard to find sweets so these were easy to find but you can always order them online.  They are simply cut into shorter lengths, bent slighly in the centre and then pushed into the buttercream clouds so they stay in place.

Lovely, summery, colourful cupcakes that taste as good as they look!

First ever successful MACARONS!!!! (Attempt no 7!)

At last I've managed to make something that resembles a proper macaron!!!!!  For some reason these little meringues have been my baking nemesis but with the help of a shiny new KitchenAid mixer I've almost cracked it.  These were by no means perfect, the shells were very irregular in size as I didn't use a template and some were underbaked but they tasted great nonetheless!

I used the Italian meringue method for these which involves heating a sugar syrup to 118 degrees and pouring it onto whisking egg whites.  The first time I did this the syrup solidified as soon as it hit the eggs leaving me with a great big lump of crystalised sugar and an unhappy sounding mixer.  Undeterred I boiled up a second sugar syrup, whisked fresh egg whites and all went well second time around.

I didn't flavour these shells and filled them with a simple white chocolate ganache leftover from the damask cake I made previously.  Next time I'm going to try chocolate shells with a hazlenut filling and maybe some lemon ones with a sharp lemon curd.  The shells are very sweet so I'm not keen on the idea of a sugary buttercream filling, I think you need something tangy to stop them becoming sickly,

I've heard the French meringue method is more reliable so I think I'll give it a go to compare next time too.  Be prepared for lots of macaron posts coming up!!!

Damask print White Chocolate and Raspberry Cake

I had a bit of spare time this week and decided to make a more elaborate cake than usual with a few decorative touches. Instead of going down the normal route of making sugarpaste decorations I made a damask printed joconde sponge which was wrapped around a white chocolate and raspberry cake.

Joconde sponge looks very complicated and tends to get responses of  "how did you do that????"  but the technique is actually quite simple and doesn't take very long although it does make quite a bit of washing up! It involves first making a thick coloured paste which creates the design and then a light sponge to hold it all together  For this design you will need a rose damask print stencil which I found in The Works for £1 but you can use any stencil you like or just pipe a design freehand if you're feeling creative!

The top of the cake looked quite plain so I piped on rose swirls using a Wilton 1M nozzle and white chocolate ganache.

For the Joconde Sponge - 

25g soft butter
25g icing sugar
25g egg white
30g plain flour
Gel food colouring

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
Beat together the butter, icing sugar, egg white and flour til you have a smooth thick paste.  Add your chosen colour and mix in well.
Place your stencil onto the greaseproof paper and spread the mixture evenly over it.  An angled palette knife makes this easier but a regular one will also work. Peel off the stencil and  repeat until the greaseproof is covered in the design.  Place in the freezer for 15 minutes until firm while you make the sponge batter.

45g egg whites
10g caster sugar
60g ground almonds
2 eggs
60g icing sugar
20g plain flour
20g melted butter

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
Whisk the egg whites and caster sugar to stiff peaks.
Whisk the almonds, icing sugar and 2 eggs til pale and fluffy.  Fold in the flour followed by the meringue.
Stir 1 tbsp of this mixture into the melted butter then fold it back into the batter.  Retrieve your baking tray from the freezer, pour the batter over the frozen design and spread evenly. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes then allow to cool on the tray.

For the Sponge ; 

225g soft unsalted butter
225g caster sugar
225g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
75g frozen raspberries

Line 2 x 20cm cake tins and reduce the oven to 180 degrees C.
Place all the ingredients except the raspberries into a stand mixer and beat until well combined.  Once you have a smooth mixture add the raspberries and mix lightly so they are just beginning to break up.  It is important to use frozen berries so they don't turn to mush.  Divide between the tins and bake for 25 minutes til golden and springy to the touch.  Cool completely on a wire rack.

For the Ganache ;
200g white chocolate, broken into small pieces
175ml double cream
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste

Heat the cream and vanilla until almost boiling.  Take off the heat and add the white chocolate. Leave to melt for 5 mins before gently stirring until smooth.  Cool to room temperature then whisk using an electric hand whisk until thickened and holding its shape.  Whisking the ganache makes it much lighter and easier to pipe.

To Assemble ; 

Place one cake on your serving plate.  Spread over a layer of ganache (you could use raspberry jam / curd if you prefer) then top with the second cake.

Flip the joconde sponge onto a large board and peel off the greaseproof, revealing the pattern! Trim the edges so they are perfectly straight then cut into long strips the same height as your cake.

Spread ganache or jam around the sides of the cake then wrap around the strips of joconde.  I used 2 whole strips then cut an extra piece to fill in the gap.  Try to match up the pattern as best you can.

Place the remaining ganache into a piping bag with a 1M nozzle and pipe roses over the top of the cake.  For an extra girly touch you could even sprinkle over some edible glitter,  I was making this cake for boys though so I left it off!

Tom and Jerry birthday cake

A few years ago I began decorating cakes aswell as baking them.  My first ever cake was the fairy toadstool from Debbie Browns' 50 Easy Party Cakes and since then I have made everything from a 3 tier Michael Jackson themed cake to a farmyard and most recently an Ipad!


This Tom and Jerry themed cake was made for a little boys' 6th birthday and involved lots of different techniques so I thought I would share some of them in this post rather than a recipe.

I started off by sketching a few designs and eventually settled on this 2 tier cake in bright primary colours with handmade Tom and Jerry figures sitting on top.

The figures needed time to dry so I began sculpting them about a week before I made the actual cake.  I add 1 tsp of Gum Tragacanth to 500g sugarpaste rather than buying super expensive flowerpaste and have found it works just as well.  I buy white sugarpaste and colour it myself as buying lots of different colours gets expensive and leftover paste doesn't keep well.  The only colours I buy ready are red and black as these are really difficult to make.  I also made the stars which explode from the cake on wires as these needed to dry too.  \If the sugarpaste is soft the wire will just tear through it!  Simply cut out stars from sugarpaste that has been pre mixed with gum tragacanth and rolled fairly thickly.  Dip the end of a thin piece of wire into edible glue and gently push into the bottom of the star ensuring it doesn't go all the way through.  Leave to dry for at least 24 hours.

The cake itself is a vanilla madeira with strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream.  As both tiers are round no carving was needed so I just levelled, filled and iced the cakes with a smooth coat of buttercream before chilling them overnight. The buttercream needs to be really firm so you can get a perfect flat surface on the cake. The next morning each tier got covered with sugarpaste and left until the evening when I finished the decorating.  I find this allows the sugarpaste to firm up so you don't get any dents or fingerprints in it.

To decorate the cake I cut large stars from yellow sugarpaste and stuck them evenly around the larger tier.  Each star was then topped with either a rice paper Tom and Jerry image or a blue sugarpaste 6.  The smaller yellow tier was decorated with a birthday message and more stars, blue this time.

To stack the cakes I placed the larger tier onto a covered cake board, attaching it using royal icing.  I then cut plastic dowels to the height of the cake and pushed 4 into the centre.  The second tier sits on top of the dowels so it doesn't crush the bottom cake.  I rolled the leftover sugarpaste into small balls and placed them around the bottom edges of the cakes in alternating colours to make a border.

Finally I stuck the Tom and Jerry figures onto the top using royal icing and inserted the star wires.  The only time consuming part of this cake was making the figures but you could always buy plastic ones to make life easier.  The rest of the decorating is fairly quick and easy yet looks super impressive!  I think it would be easy to adapt this design for any childs' birthday party by changing the colours and adding their favourite characters to the top!