Roses......

I was asked to make some cupcakes for a birthday present and was left to come up with my own decoration. I thought it would be nice to make some roses to go on top of them. At first I was dabbling with the idea of using marzipan or sugar paste but then I came across the recipe for chocolate plastic. Basically chocolate and glucose syrup. It is quite easy to make and work with. It holds its shape, tastes better than sugarpaste ans looks pretty too.

To make the chocolate plastic you can use white, milk or dark chocolate. I simply melted mine in the microwave or you can do it over a bain marie. Then you add glucose syrup to the melted chocolate and stir it until it thickens and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

You should then transfer the chocolate plastic mixture onto a piece of clingfilm and pat it into a disc about 6mm thick. Cover it with another piece of clingfilm and leave it in the fridge to harden. To use the chocolate plastic take it out of the fridge and leave it for about 10 minutes at room temperature.

To make the roses I cut out the bits I needed and rolled them in my hands to make them smooth and pliable. This was my first attempt at making the chocolate plastic and attempting the roses. I was quite pleased.

For more information there are plenty of tutorials on the net on how to make these roses.

For the recipe for the plastic chocolate I used 200g chocolate and 4 tablespoons of glucose syrup.

Here are the cakes I made.

Vanilla cupcakes topped with vanilla frosting and then a white chocolate rose.

Chocolate cupcakes topped with chocolate frosting and milk chocolate roses.

finishing touches.....

So I finished the cake this morning ready for the party this afternoon. I was going to stick one of my nephews toy Lightning McQueen cars on top but I thought I'd have a quick go at making one. I spent five minutes making this sugar paste version. I was having trouble with the paste it was very soft and decided to keep the detailing to a minimum. But I think it looks ok and I'm sure my nephew will like it. Thanks to the person who gave me the idea for the cake.

Birthday cakes.......

At work the other day I was asked to come up with a quick cake for one of the receptionists. I had lots of other work on so I quickly put this together. A chocolate fudge cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate writing. She was happy.

TodayI have been decorating my nephews birthday cake for his party tomorrow. He wanted a Lightning McQueen cake, from the animated movie Cars. I saw one that was very similar on the internet and this is what it looks like so far. Tomorrow I will add the finishing touches.

Its a chocolate cake witha chocolate ganache filling and topped with sugar paste decorations. The desert is made from crushed digestive biscuits.

Birthday cupcakes......

Today I dropped off some birthday cupcakes for a family friend. Her son turned 14 so she wanted some cakes with a few of the things he likes on top. Wallace and Gromit, Batman, Bart Simpson and Ben 10. I managed to mould some gromit heads and my boyfriend made the little batman cutouts, and for the other characters I made some little tags and attached them to cocktail sticks.

I found a great bargain last week whilst shopping, a big tin of black treacle for 12pence. One of the best recipes I have using this dark, luscious stuff is ginger cake. So I took out my trusted recipe that I was given at catering college and got to work. Its really easy to make and stays deliciously moist for up to a week if kept in an airtight container. Great as it is or topped with lashings of cream.

This will easily serve 10

250g butter

250g muscovado sugar

250g black treacle

300ml milk

2 eggs

375g plain flour

2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon allspice
3 teaspoons ground ginger

Butter and line a 9inch cake tin. Heat the oven to gas mark 3.

Place the butter, sugar and treacle in a saucepan and heat gently until dissolved. Remove from the heat and add the milk. Add the eggs beating well.

Mix the flour, bicarb and spices in another bowl then make a well in the centre. Pour in the treacle mix and mix well. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 70 minutes. Check if its done by inserting a skewer, if it comes out clean its done. Leave the cake to cool in the tin.

Will keep for a week in an airtight tin.

Enjoy.

Toffee apple cake......

We had a load of apples to use up this week so I decided to make an apple cake. Mum used to make this all the time when we were little. I used to think it was a real treat when we had apple cake and loved finding small juicy bits of fruit inside. It's really easy to make and you can substitute the apples for pears if you prefer. Use equal quantities of flour, sugar, margarine and fruit, then bake and out pops a corker. It's lovely whilst it’s still a little warm.

Serves 8-10
250g self raising flour
250g margarine or butter
250g sugar
250g apples chopped
4 large eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons milk

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5. Cream the butter and sugar then add the eggs one at a time beating well between each addition. Add the apples and mix in well then add the flour and baking powder and fold in. Add the milk, if the mix is too dry add a little more milk. Pour into a greased and floured 9 inch cake tin and bake in the oven for 40 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

As I had lots of apples I made a few cakes and decided to turn two into a toffee apple gateaux.

The filling I used is condensed milk that has been boiled in the tin for a few hours, turning it into a luscious caramel, toffee. I layered this in the middle of the cake and then topped it with chantilly cream. After sandwiching the cakes together I covered the cake in chantilly cream and then dusted liberally with ground down caramel. A few strawberries added the finishing touches.

Bargains.......

Whilst walking around my local supermarket today my jaunt along the baking aisle ended with me buying a load of bits and bobs they were selling off. So back home, along with some vanilla cupcakes I was baking for a friend I decided to make some carrot cakes, sticky toffee puddings, triple chocolate muffins and some rum and coconut cakes.

Along with them I decided to make a "torta caprese"Capri nutty chocolate cake and some "quaresimali", Neapolitan lenten biscuits. I bought a load of almonds this morning and they are the main ingredient in both. I also had a few things to use up from my larder.

The saying is that this cake was made for three of Al Capone’s American associates, who were visiting Capri on his behalf for "some business". The chef was making an almond cake and forgot to put the flour into the cake mix. The result was so delicious that the Americans demanded the recipe and the chef having to come up with a name, named it "Caprese". The cake became famous and still is to this day, especially around the Sorrento peninsular.
This cake is very moist in the centre and has a harder crust on the outside. Traditionally dark chocolate is used however I like to mix both dark and milk chocolate.
You will see these cakes throughout Campania and they are often stencilled with the word Caprese or Capri.
Torta Caprese does not contain any flour. The eggs and almonds form the body and structure, so it is crucial that the egg whites are stiff and folded in with care, to keep the cake light and fluffy.
You can also make this cake as my aunties do substituting the almonds with hazelnuts.

Makes a 20cm cake
250g butter
250g chocolate
300g almonds
5 eggs
200g sugar
icing sugar to decorate

Mix the butter and half of the sugar together. Add the egg yolks and mix. Add the ground almonds and melted chocolate and mix well.
Whisk the egg whites with the remaining sugar until stiff and glossy.
Fold in a third of the whites into the chocolate and almond mix, then fold in the other thirds, taking care not to knock out too much air.
Pour into a 20 cm prepared cake tin and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C/350°F/gas 4, for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and leave in the tin to cool thoroughly.
Dust with icing sugar and serve.

These Lenten biscuits are so called because they are made without fat, no butter or lard. However the large content of almonds and nuts makes up for this. The dough for these biscuits like many other Neapolitan biscuits uses "pisto", which is a mix of cinnamon, cloves, white pepper and nutmeg. You can buy this already mixed in Naples but they don’t sell it here in England as far as I know.
These biscuits are made throughout Italy, some use a variety of nuts, mine are filled with almonds. Traditionally eaten at Lent these are now eaten at Easter and most other times of the year.

Makes approx 16

150g ground almonds
50g whole almonds
200g sugar
50g plain flour
2 eggs
40g mixed peel
For the pisto mix
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teapoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon white
pepper
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5. In a bowl mix together the flour, almonds, sugar, pisto mix, eggs and candied peel. Bring the mix together to form a soft dough. Form into a small log and then transfer it to a baking sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes then remove from the oven and leave to cool. Cut the loaf into 1cm thick slices then layer them on the tray and re-bake for 20 minutes. Cool and serve.

retirement cakes.....

Today I finished decorating 125 vanilla cupcakes with red sugarpaste "c" 's for an event at my sister's school. I must mention here that my adorable boyfriend helped to make the little c's until he was "c sick"! In fact he made about 3/4 of them. So thanks Mr P.

I also finished decorating two retirement cakes I was asked to make. Both Victoria sponge cakes with buttercream and jam filling covered in marzipan and icing. The decoration is made from coloured sugarpaste. One for an art teacher and the other for a maths teacher. The text is written in black ink and white chocolate. Hope they like them. This is my first attempt at making a cake like this. I need some cake smoothers to get a better and cleaner finish next time and some more decorating equipment, but I'm quite happy with them.