10/07/10 Double chocolate mega cake

This is a double chocolate sponge cake with chocolate buttercream icing that I made for my niece and her friends joint 13th birthday party.
The cake was 8 inches wide and about 5inches high with edible glitter polka dot decorations. I piped 'Daisy - Mae' and 'Megan' on top then added gold glitter.
Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the inside.

17/06/10 Gooseberry, polenta and elderflower cake

I made this cake for my friend Rosannas birthday. I had picked some elderflowers the day before and made some cordial, so I thought I would make a cake based on this. I used left over elderflowers to decorate the cake. It probably wilted by the time it was opended!






Above is the final package of cake and below the cordial.

Happy Birtday - chocolate beetroot bundt

I have had am amazing Bundt tin for a while now and I've been waiting for a reason to use it. This volcano birthday cake for my friend Claire was my excuse. I have had a lot of delicious beetroot from the Fern Verrow the Biodynamic veg stall I work on and Claire loves chocolate so I mashed a couple of recipes together to create this... it's low fat and very good for you, with only a couple of ounces of fat in. It's just a shame I can't spell.

Very hard to blog!

I apologise profusely for my silence over the past few months. I have racked up quite a few things to post. However I am currently taking a sabbatical involving a broken wrist (see picture). This has resulted in a ridiculously large cast and the inability to bake, write and wash my face properly. The pot comes off on the 10th May, so hopefully my limp wrist will start to recover quickly after then! x

13/02/2010 Alternative Press Fair CAKES

I did a food stand at The Alternative Press fair this weekend. It's been a while since I've done a one off event and this one was savoury as well as sweet! Everything I made was vegetarian or vegan. I had the full run of the kitchen at St Aloysius social club near Euston.



The sweet clockwise from top left: Victoria sponge cake, gluten free dark chocolate brownie, vegan apple and mincemeat slices, vegan carrot cake, lemon and almond cake and Welsh cinnamon cake (see below). I made this from a recipe in English Food my Jane Grigson. There are many, many things I want to make from this book as there are so many regional and national deserts that have probably been forgotten by all but a few.



Savoury: Roast butternut squash, chickpea and feta pasties, onion bhaji, raita and mango chutney in a cumin flatbread (all hand made), and (below) vegan roast beetroot and red onion with houmous in a handmade cumin flatbread.

06/02/2010 Gateaux Basque

It was a big birthday for my biggest sister on 03/02/2010 and we all went out for a meal to celebrate. I was unsure what to cake to bake for her, as the last few times I've been home I've been forced to make a lemon and almond cake because everyone loves them so much. But I was determined not to pander to my nephew and niece too much! I have been on holiday for 4 summers now with The Jones' and my sister Claire and 3 of those have been in France. The first year we went Claire and I camped outside The Jones' static caravan. It rained a lot, we played lots of 'bullshit' and we ate lots. One time Claire and I came back with a 'Gateaux Basque'. We had no idea what we had bought, but it looked delicious and as we were in Basque country it seemed very fitting. After tea, we got it out on our little camp table and Chris said he wouldn't like it because it had cherries in. Sally, Claire and I are not the fussiest people when it comes to cake but WOW. It was a dense large crumbed cake with cherries and custard sandwiched in between. Chris had some, decided it 'wasn't that bad' and we pro ceded to eat a lot if not all of the cake. Needless to say I was very excited when I came across a recipe in Floyd on France.



The recipe I found had no fruit in but if there had been some rhubarb in my mums garden then I would have put some in. Above is the gateaux in its naked state.



I thought icing sugar on top would be good so I made an 'S' stencil and coated the top. I then used this template to put the candles in. I also made some meringue with the left over egg whites.

27/01/2010 Health buns

I am always trying to ruduce the amount of things in my baking drawer, but it never seems to go down. These muffins were an attempt to use up the odds and ends of packets, plus I was going to Sanctuary Spa with my sister Claire and I said I would make us a packed lunch. I used a recipe from a BBC cakes and bakes book that my other sister Sally had bought for me. It was very low fat, using only 2oz butter and no sugar (honey instead). It was supposed to have loads of berries in, but I still have a massive tub of mincemeat that needs using up, so I put that in for fruit, plus a few brandy soaked raisins. Delicious.