Claire's Cake Bake & Other Foodiness

Elodie had a little party for her friends last Sunday, so I made a little buffet and cupcakes for pudding.  Well, their mums & dads needed feeding too…

Elodie turned one this week. I can’t believe she is a year old already, where has the time gone?

We had a small family party on her Birthday to celebrate and of course, she had a Birthday cake too. It was themed on her wallpaper – delicate girly butterflies & flowers (sparkly of course, but that doesnt show very well in the pics).  It was another traditional madeira sponge with jam & buttercream with white regalice.

This time for my Mums birthday.  Another madeira cake with white regalice and flower decoration.  I didn’t fancy a bow made out of icing (icing overload) so managed to find some wired organza ribbon. It was very tasty and has lasted a good week.

This year I’ve been quite busy and have not had as much time in the kitchen as I had hoped for in my 12 months of maternity leave!

I did not get a chance to make the usual Christmas cake so my Mum made the cake and I offered to ice it. This is my third Christmas cake and I reverted back to a traditional Holly decoration… simple but I quite like it.

It was Anthonys 30th birthday last month so I planned to make a birthday cake for him. I wanted it to be themed with his present – a Mini Cooper Racing Experience.

After a few ideas (like making a cake model of a Mini!) I decided it was best to keep it simple. I already had a silicone rectangular cake tin, so based on that, I thought a simple sponge with white icing, a 30 in black icing which would be the track and a mini cooper cake topper. How easy…

First of all I needed to find a firm sponge so I tested out a Madeira recipe from a cake decorating book I have. It worked well and Anthony even did a taste test for me under the guise that it had come from my mums work! hehe…

Next, I wanted to make my own icing. So after taking over my mum and dads kitchen and covering it in icing sugar I came to the conclusions I wouldn’t be able to (a) make a piece big enough to cover the cake/roll it out to an even thickness or (b) get it from the worktop to the cake (it was rather sticky!). I decided quite quickly that I’d use a ready rolled fondant icing instead.

Making the cake
I made the madeira sponge 3 days before the big day and the sponge turned out well. After leaving it overnight I turned up at my mum and dads house (our kitchen is too small) ready for some cake decorating… with my mum looking after Elodie I set about triming the sponge (cakes in silicone tins splay out at the sides!). Triming the cake was a time consuming and delicate job as I was scared a huge chunk of cake would come off!

Once I’d managed to make the cake more rectangular I set about splitting it in half and filling it with a thin layer of raspberry jam and buttercream. With a little help from my mum we managed to put the cake back together in one piece.

Next, I covered the cake in a very small amount of warmed marmalade to allow the icing to stick and started to ice it… I have to admit at the point I was rather lucky with the ready roll icing – I could only get a circular one which just fitted over the rectangular cake with a little nip and tuck ;)

I had bought a block of pre-coloured black fondant icing. With some careful rolling out I cut out my 30 and with my mums help again, we transferred the numers to the cake (they were very flimsy!).

It had taken a few hours to get to this point! So I was relieved to put the finishing touches to the cake (white icing for road markings and a black ribbon to hide the bottom of the icing!) and we put it away in a cake tin until his birthday.

Anthony seemed to like his cake but I think he enjoyed the driving experience even more – I thought I was giving him something to pacify his love of Minis when all I seem to have done is make it worse :) Ah well…

Here are some pictures of the cake and one of Anthony enjoying his present…

Last weekend I made some Lamington cupcakes as a ‘Get Well Soon’ gesture for my brother who had just had an operation.

I had intended on following Bill Granger’s recipe for Lamingtons themselves but the sponge mix didn’t set and with 6 eggs in it I wasn’t overly surprised. So after a quick re-think I whizzed up a batch of Nigella’s trusty cupcakes and then topped each with lamington icing.

Carry on reading & leave a comment…