First birthday cupcakes

One of the babies at play group turned one this week, so naturally he needed a cake. I still had plenty of purple and green fondant left over from hubby's welcome home cake, and I wanted to trial run an idea for another birthday I am doing cupcakes for this month, so that's how these lovely cakes were created.

I kneaded some CMC into the fondant before cutting out the shapes, to help them dry out quicker. I did the cutouts and let them dry overnight, then glued them together with sugar flower glue and let that dry overnight before putting them on the cupcakes.

The cakes themselves were the recipe from the Planet Cake book. Normally I would use the Crabapple recipe, but it makes 24 cakes and I didn't want to make that many. The Planet Cake recipe made 12, which was a much more managable number. However, I didn't have any lemons so I had to leave out the lemon zest. The frosting is the Crabapple Cupcake Bakery's vanilla buttercream, but I made a half quantity (and still had heaps left).

I love this cupcake recipe. It's really easy, and the cakes had a lovely dome on top, which made the soft-serve frosting effect really easy to achieve. They tasted pretty good too, as did the frosting. And I loved how the number stars turned out - they reminded me of Toy Story. Though I'm seriously considering switching to vanilla extract instead of vanilla essence - I found these tasted a tad chemical. I'm also thinking of trying an Italian meringue buttercream in future, because the frosting is rather gritty.

Welcome home cake

Hubby went on an overseas business trip recently, and I wanted to give him a special surprise when he got home. So I took a whack at the Exploding Stars cake from the Planet Cake book.

The cake itself is chocolate mud, from the Planet Cake recipe. This cake was surprisingly easy to make, but next time I plan to leave out the coffee. I found the coffee flavour too strong.

Under the fondant is a layer of ganache, which is supposed to help the cake keep its form under the layer of thick fondant. Honestly, I think I may have used too much. Once the fondant went on the surface of the cake became like play dough, the slightest touch left a dent, so I couldn't get the sharp edges that Planet Cake is so famous for, and on the whole my cake looks a but smushed.

Also, hubby returned home a day early to surprise me! This meant I never got time to fully complete the decorations. That said, the cake he was surprised with still looks pretty good, and I'm quite proud of it :)

Fun times with baby food

I have a confession to make. Annabel Karmel is my hero!

Little Princess is now ten months, so has been on solids for some time now, and it's been quite adventure. Early on I was petrified of starting her on solids, jusst because I had no idea what I was doing. So I bought a book recommended by a friend called What Do I Feed My Baby? By Leeane Cooper. Full credit to this book, it gave me a lot of confidence with solids. It gave me a rough schedule of what to feed her and when, which I didn't follow perfectly, but it really did help. The only problem was it told me what to feed her, but not how to cook it. I had never stewed an apple before in my life, so I was still a bit lost.

And to be honest, I don't think I was doing too well at it, because very soon Little Princess was refusing anything I cooked, and only eating purees from a jar. She never knew it was from a jar because whatever I fed her was always in a bowl, she just preferred the jar foods. By the time she was 7 months she progressed to jars of things like spaghetti bolognese and shepherds pie, and I started to wonder if Heinz had a recipe to make such things, surely there were recipes out there I could use too? So I marched into Dymocks, and a very kind shopkeeper went through all the baby food books with me until we found one that suited my needs. It ended up being The Complete Baby And Toddler Meal Planner by Annabel Karmel.

This book has been brilliant. It took all the guess work out of making baby food, and meant I could try her on things like fish and beef, which I hadn't been brave enough to try before because I didn't know how to cook it for a baby. At ten months Little Princess has now hit a fussy stage, but I'm proud to say it's now the jars she turns her nose up at. My cooking she eats by the bucketload.

Here are some of the dishes she has liked best:

• Cheese and vegetable pasta
• My first bolognese
• Tomatos and carrots with basil
• Sweet potato with spinach and peas
• Cauliflower cheese
• Tasty fish with cheese sauce and vegetables
• Fish with spinach and cheese
• Chicken in tomato sauce
• Fruity Chicken with apricots*
• Apricot, apple and pear puree
• Apple, strawberry and blueberru puree
• Apples and blackberries
• Tasty brown rice
• Zuchini and tomato pasta stars'

She wasn't so keen on Lovely Lentils or Fish with Sweet Potato. Soon I'll be making the tasty rice with meat and vegetables, and the chicken and apple balls. I love this book, and any of my friends that have babies in the future will be recieving a copy at their baby shower.

* The Fruity Chicken with Apricots, when made to the exact directions in the book, I found to be far too wet and saucy. It was almost a soup. So I twaeked it a bit, and now we have a dish that Little Princess just loves. It also freezes really well in ice cube trays :) Here is my tweaked recipe:

• 3 tsp light olive oil
• 1/2 smaall onion, finely chopped
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 250 g chicken breast mince
• 9 dried apricots, chopped
• 300 ml Passata
• 150 ml Campbells Real Stock reduced salt chicken stock
• 1/2 cup brown rice, washed then cooked until soft

Heat the oil in a saucepan, saute the onion and garlic until soft. Add the chicken mince and cook, stirring, until cooked. Add the apricots, stock and water, bring to the boil then simmer, covered, for about 10 minutes. Add the cooked rice and stir through.

Red velvet cupcakes with pink jasmine decoration

We used to have a lovely lady at work who made cupcakes for our social get-togethers, but as she moved to Perth a few months ago someone had to pick up where she left off. And a recent farewell for yet another work collegue was a great opportunity for me to have some fun with making pretty cupcakes.

I used the red velvet cupcake recipe from issue 41 of Donna Hay (Oct/Nov 2008). I've used it before and it always impresses. The colour comes from red food colouring, but the delicate flavour comes from only 1/4 cup of cocoa. The small amount of cocoa gives it more of a subtle spiced flavour, rather than a chocolate flavour, which goes beautifully with the cream cheese frosting. I do usually find though I have to add a bit more icing sugar than Donna uses in the frosting. Like three times as much, otherwise the frosting won't hold its shape on the cupcake.

I piped on the frosting with a star tip in a piping bag. The last time I used this piping tip was three Christmases ago using white chocolate ganache, and the results were so disasterous i ended up smoothing the icing over with a knife so noone would see how much I sucked at piping. This time though, I seem to have gotten it right. My piped frosting looked really cute, but still showed off the red colour of the cake, and made a great backdrop for my pink flowers.

The pink flowers I made myself using fondant I had coloured pink, and a small jasmine flower cutter. I placed the flowers onto sponges I had dusted with icing sugar, used a ball tool to press them into shape, then left them to dry for a few hours before piping the centres with glace icing. For the record, I should have used royal icing because it would have lookd better and been easier to pipe, but I don't have any mix and I didn't want to fuss about with beating egg whites and whatnot for the sake of some tiny white dots. I attached the flowers to the cakes by simply pressing them gently onto the cream cheese frosting while it was freshly piped, and therefore still very moist and clingy.

Thoughts - OMG I have to make red velvet cupcakes more often! They really do have the most divine flavour, my co-workers were all very impressed. And I must say I'm very proud of my piping efforts, they really have improved dramatically. That said, my flowers still need work. I don;t expect to get good at them overnight, I will need more practice. I've already gotten some tips from some fellow decorators at the Planet Cake forum, and from a friend who is a pastry chef, so I'll get there :)

Chocolate Caramel Slice - second attempt

I decided to have another go at chocolate caramel slice, this time though I worked off a recipe by the ever-inspiring Donna Hay.

It called for a thinner base, twice as much condensed milk in the filling, and vegetable oil in the chocolate layer, rather than copha. All of this appealed to me. The caramel is after all the best part of a caramel slice so I liked the idea of having more of it. And the vegetable oil seems easier to work than copha... it always seemed a waste to buy a whole block then only use 50g, because once the bblock is opened it just dries out and gets ruined and winds up in the bin. But vegetable oil I can use one teaspoon and put the rest in the cupboard to use later.

Unfortunately I forgot a few of the basics I learnt in science class. A lack of space in my main fridge meant I had to cool the slice in the drinks fridge, and I placed it on a glass shelf not realising that the hot slice would cause the cold glass to crack. My clumsiness knows no limits....

Thoughts - we ate the first pieces before the chocolate had fully set, and before the caramel had completely cooled, and we weren't impressed. By the next day however, all the ingredients had time to settle in and it tasted so much better. I was really impressed, except that I felt the base was too buttery and as a result too greasy.

Victoria Sandwich

I was asked by my lovely husband to make a cake. A special cake, just for him. Specifically, a cake filled with cream. I do love cakes with cream in the middle so I agreed.

And the timing couldn't have been more perfect, as he asked just a few days before my copy of the Women's Weekly Sweet Old Fashioned Favourites arrived at my work book club. I had a quick flick through, and decided a Victoria Sandwich would do the trick nicely.

In all honesty, the recipe didn't actually have cream in the middle, only jam. But I figured since the jam was there already, cream would be fine.

Thoughts - not great. Not bad, but not great. Hubby was dissapointed first off because although it had cream like he has asked, it had no frosting on top. He also said it was like eating a slice of a very big scone. And he wasn't far wrong. The buttercake was a tad dry, and with the jam and cream it really was just like a big scone, but with one difference - vanilla extract. And you could really taste the vanilla extract. Usually vanilla is meant to be a subtle flavour, but in this cake it was a bit strong and as a result tasted a bit chemical, despite the fact I use a natural extract.

If I'm ever invited to a high tea I might consider making it again... maybe. But it feels more likely I'd try something different, in the hope I wouldn't be quite so dissapointed.

Funky flower cake

I haven't done much in my kitchen lately that qualifies as something new, so I haven't had much to blog about. But I've been watching a great show on Foxtel called Ace Of Cakes, and some videos on Youtube, and I'm feeling all inspired and want to practice my cake decorating skills. The hope is that I'll be able to develop my own little portfolio and start my own little cash in hand cake business.

The cake itself was an old favourite, the Chocolate Birthday Cake from the Crabapple Cupcake Bakery Cookbook. Since I was basically creating a prototype it made sense to use a recipe I was familiar with, because I could just slap it together quickly and focus on the decorating part.

I created the fondant flowers first. I made them a day ahead, using a cookie cutter I had on hand. The centres were just balls of fondant I flattened with my fingers. On the very last flower I decided to experiment, so I made a very thin sausage of fondant and would it into a spiral, which I used as the flower centre. I liked the look of the swirl much better, but by then the flowers were all glued together. So I'll use the swirl in future.

I used a crumb coating of chocolate buttercream, then a layer of rolled white fondant. Then in the morning I glued on the flowers.

Thoughts - I find people often complain there is too much icing on a cake, so I tried to roll out the icing incredibly thin so this wouldn't be a problem. It turns out there is a reason there is usually too much icing. The thin icing didn't completely cover the various lumps and bumps on the cake, so it looked a little rough. Also I found that the flowers turned out more cartoony than I was hoping. I was trying to achieve a wedding cake look, but instead wound up with something more suited to a birthday party. But then, that's the whole point of making prototypes, right? Overall I'm pleased though. I've learnt a few new tricks, and I've improved a bit since my handbag cake, and at this stage that's the most important thing, that my skills progress.

Chocolate Caramel Slice

The other day council decided to paint my street. And I don't mean they painted lines, or resurfaced. They literally painted the whole road a blacker shade of black. Questionable use of ratepayers money aside, this also meant my street was closed off for about five hours, and I had no food in the house.

I did however have the basics of food, and managed to muster up the ingredients to make a chocolate caramel slice, which is something I've never made before.

This recipe came from Epicure Chocolate, and what I like about it is that the caramel wasn't made on the stovetop, as it is in most caramel slice recipes. Instead you bake the base, then combine the caramel ingredients, pour them on top and bake in the oven until it goes all brown and gooey.

Thoughts - I had no copha, so I ended up using butter in the chocolate topping. This meant there was butter in all three layers, which made the overall flavour very buttery. Also due to the caramel being baked it went very hard around the edges, a bit like a Scottish Tablet. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Overall I was happy with it, though next time I might ditch the butter/copha in the chocolate layer and just use straight up chocolate.

Handbag bridal shower cake

I was attending a bridal shower this weekend for a very dear friend. She was my bridesmaid once upon a time, and she put so much effort into my bridal shower and hens night, so I wanted to make her something really special.

The theme for the day was "An Afternoon of Glamour", so my original plan was to make petit fours. I was going to bake three different cakes, each of which was going to be cut into nine squares and iced and decorated individually... seemed easy enough until the orange and almond cake fell apart when I took it out of the tin. So I decided to simply things, make just one cake, but make it glamorous somehow. Inspired by the Womens Weekly book of childrens birthdays cakes my first thought was a shoe, but since this was my first ever attempt at a novelty cake I opted for a handbag instead, which seemed simpler.

I used the Chocolate Birthday Cakes recipe from the Crabapple Cupcake Bakery book, but baked it in two square pans instead of cupcake papers. The first cake I just leveled and covered in a thin coat of chocolate buttercream, followed by pink fondant, which I found easier than I expected. The other I cut levelled, cut in half, sandwiched the halves together with chocolate buttercream, then shaped into a trapezoid that resembled a handbag.

Then came the tricky part - I made handles and a front medallion ahead of time from fondant I had dyed black. The first ones I made fell apart, and the replacements didn't have time to dry properly so one of the handles broke, but it didn't shatter like the first one so I could still make it look alright. I covered the bulk of the handbag in white fondant, the sides in pink, and the piping and "zipper" in black. I then gently pricked all the black parts to look like they had been stitched.

Look, for my first ever novelty cake it's not bad. Everyone at the shower loved how it looked and how it tasted. I am really proud of it, but I was frustrated, because I know it could have been better. I'm considering taking a cake decorating course to hone my skills a bit. At the very least I plan to make a few more fondant cakes, because I want to make one for Little Princess's birthday and I want it to be perfect :)

Layed chocolate mousse

In the interest of being a fair and impartial blogger, I think it's fair that I post the good and the bad - and the disasterous. This recipe falls into that third catergory.

The recipe looked simple enough, with the added bonus I could make it a day before having friends over. But since I only own one bowl for my mixmaster, I decided to do the white choc layer first, and the dark one much later. Thank goodness I did.

I managed to get the cream semi-whipped with no problems. Melting the chocolate was a tricky process (some found it's way on the floor) but that went fine. Whipping the eggs in a steel bowl over simmering water proved trickier than I expected, but still went ok.

When it came time to add the eggs to the chocolate that's when things went wrong. Adding the eggs caused the chocolate to seize. Enough stirring just managed to save it, but then I added it to the cream and the whole mixture curdled and went lumpy. I didn't even bother trying to let it set, I just chucked it out.

I'm not sure where I went wrong. I've since re-read the instructions, and I think I did everything right. I may attempt it again one day, for for now I'm just relieved I still have plenty of eggs, cream and dark chocolate left over because now I can attempt something else for my dinner tomorrow :)