Today was my Granny’s 90th Birthday. I don’t even know how to begin describing her to you, for she is the most incredible person. Granny tells the best stories about her childhood in New York and countless other tales from her interesting life. All her anecdotes come with every detail as if it happened yesterday and I love hearing all her memories. My favourite accounts of hers are about the amazing foods she remembers, such as halloween ice cream cats from Manhattan or famous cookies from Boston. I hope she will be recounting her 90th birthday cake to people for years to come. I of course wanted to make something extra special for such an important birthday. I had the idea to make a cake version of a painting I did for her one Christmas. For the cake I made a three tier vanilla sponge and sandwiched the layers with raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream. I covered the outside of the cake in a layer of white vanilla buttercream, then added the colour on top. To achieve the paint-like appearance I mixed the white buttercream with food colouring as if I were mixing paints and used a palatte knife to create the brush strokes. I topped the cake with flowers I made in advance and let dry. I learnt how to make flowers out of flowerpaste especially for this cake and I loved it. I started with the roses as I vaguely knew how to do those and used the internet for help where I needed it. I made up how the other flowers would look just based on the painting and created the purple one by stacking lots of cut out flower shapes in different shades. I finished the cake with a ribbon that matched the border of the painting. I think it really does look like the painting, almost too pretty to eat. Almost. I absolutely adored making this cake, especially as it combined painting and baking. But mostly I adored making something special for a very special Granny. Happy 90th Birthday! x
I seem to think that making birthday cakes for family and friends is the best time to experiment and try different things. I guess it’s not really a bad thing, it allows me to learn new techniques and make a cake special to that person. This cake was for a dear family friend of ours. We’ve known her forever and she’s so kind and lovely and one of my favourite people. I made her this giant 3- tiered pink cake made up of layers of vanilla sponge, raspberry jam and vanilla frosting. I covered the top with fondant flowers which I left to dry in cupcake tins so they stuck up and then painted them with edible food colouring. I finished it by wrapping it in a matching pink bow. I hope she enjoys it and has a special birthday. Happy Birthday Azra! x
Yesterday I did a course at the Peggy Porschen Academy in London. I’m a big fan of Peggy Porschen for her amazing designs and how perfectly finished all of her cakes are. I chose to do the ‘Stripy Rose Cakes’ day course as it covered learning how to ice and cover individual cakes, make roses and some piping techniques. It was such a brilliant day and I really did learn so much. It was so nice to be surrounded by people that were equally enthusiastic about cake! The Academy was lovely with a great workspace and atmosphere. My teacher Elyse was great, she was very clear and made every step easy to follow. The part I found the hardest was making the roses, something that I have been wanting to be shown how to do for a while. It was great to learn properly and to be given lots of tips to help make them extra pretty. I think with some practice I will really get the hang of it. In the afternoon we were given a cup of tea and a piece of cake to taste. It was lemon and so delicious. I can’t recommend the Academy enough, I’m really pleased with how my cakes turned out and even happier I now have some new skills.
Our lovely friend Annette recently came over to teach some friends and I a food safety course. We all passed. Woop! I can’t really thank her enough for taking the time to come and teach us. In attempt to express how grateful we were I made her these cupcakes. I wanted to make them really pretty and to compliment the flowers I sent with them. Thank you again Annette! x
As well as the lemon cake I made these pots for Grandy’s birthday tea. My Grandparents have always had the most amazing garden so I thought these mini plant pots would be perfect. You bake the cake in the silicon pots just like a cupcake case, I obviously chose chocolate to resemble earth. They were cute but seriously difficult to get out the case in one piece.
I wanted to make something really cute for our friend Katy’s birthday and have been wanting to learn how to make sugar flowers for ages. So I bought some flower paste and followed the instructions in this year’s Great British Bake Off Book. It took a bit of practice but now my efforts resemble roses. I let them dry out for a few days and then used them to decorate these vanilla cupcakes. The frosting is raspberry flavoured and I made it by adding a couple of spoons of seedless raspberry jam to this frosting recipe. I finished the cupcakes with some edible glitter to give them some birthday sparkle!
