(My) Cakes
 

I put the MY in brackets as I'd love to see other people's cakes.

I just realised I bake on a weekly or fortnightly basis and would like to share with you.
This will be a photo thread on my part, because I'm using quite basic recipes - it's only the decorations that make them interesting. They're a feast for the eyes rather than extraordinary recipes. But of course I'll share recipes if requested.

And feel free to post good recipes here of course.

Bringing together some from the past:
Mum's Birthday Cake
Bundt Cake

Cake Pops in the form of ice cream cones
(FAILED) Valentines Day cakes.
For which Clod is not to blame - I overfilled the cases, which made them mutant rather than hearts.

I like the alliterative tone of the first cake ;p

Love the Bundt. Castles and cakes. Two awesome things brought together in harmonic confection.

Lovely, SG. I'd eat 'em.

Rabbit Krispies. Which also went wrong.
The difficulty with molten choc is it does not hold its shape and dried choc falls apart without the mould.

This is all about experimenting, I promise.

So the second pic is how I recovered.

Huh? The top ones look like rabbits. What was wrong with them?

Rainbow Cupcakes.
Although mistakenly identified as Easter Baskets by one member of staff....?!
Yeah, whatever, bless her.

I was tempted to do the cakes as rainbow layered too, but the bottom line is I just couldn't be arsed :)

And finally, Red Nose Day Flapjacks.
And yes, they have very similar faces to the Krispie cakes - I liked them so I brought them forward.
Experimenting, like I say.

More will follow.
I have an amazing idea for Easter Chicks in Nests.
Note - amazing idea.
We'll see how it turns out! It will be all my own work though.

Those ones were fine!

It was just as the choc dried the centre did not hold...
They would not pack into the mould - I only had one - and crumbled when removed. They also broke apart in transit, which is why I made the other cakies so tiny - they're in petit four cases. I stirred some syrup into the mix before making the cakies - it was cold and hard and crumbly by then.

I used too much Krispie to choc ratio initially.

She was confused because they weren't full on double rainbow cupcakes. Still just as awesome, I bet.

Maybe I should have made her a mushroom tart ;)

nom nom nooooooooohhhh

Just as sweet as Sundae herself!

You're too kind to make all those goodies. Most people just buy oreos and are done with it. good work.

Ohhhhhhh....I love this thread! Looking forward to see more of Sundae's cakes. :D

Is molten choc the same as melted chocolate?

I would imagine it's more lava-like. :D

very creative and fun!

more explosive?

Next, make this! :)




Very nice, Sundae. Noms.

Chocolate can melt and reset.
Molten chocolate is still runny.
That is a personal definition not necessaryily supported by any kind of education.

And yes, it is lava-like.
But not like laver bread (Bara Lawr).

This was my attempt to make Easter chicks in nests.
As mentioned on another thread, I had to use a different type of cooking chocolate. It ended up far thinner than the one I am used to. My fault - I should have checked the wrapper beforehand.

So I had a major panic that the choc coating would not set (it did). Which made me skimp on the coating, in the hope it would eventually dry (it did). Which meant the brown of the cake showed through the yellow choc, and apparently gave it a slightly green tint.
Two people identified the chicks as frogs.
I need a better beak if I make them again.

I also didn't add the choc "Spagetti" to the nests, because of my fear that I might have to bin the lot. I think that would have suggested the nest more, and played down the frog aspect.

Funny thing is, I received so many compliments on the taste this time. Just when I'd decided not to do the fiddly stuff any more because the large cakes get the most approval after eating.

Here 'tis:

So.
Chocolate Castle Cake.

I made this with a view to presenting one for the May Fayre.
I am now unsure I will recreate it, and might just go with making a cake using my castle mould.

The main issue with the chocolate "bricks".
I bought a large bar of choc, and just assumed I'd be able to break it into equal pieces. NO. It resisted this furiously, either breaking right across the bricks, or adding a little bit on and taking a little bit off the next one. The result looks more like a castle ruin. Or a cake made by a special needs committee.

Of course I persevered, as no-one else has the picture I was trying to recreate (although you could find it, I'd rather you didn't) and I know I am pretty much my worst critic. The Oreos worked okay, but now I know where I can get the ones with a chocolate filling, so I would use those next time.

Despite my fears, the sponge cake tastes okay, and I have put the offcuts in the freezer to make cakepops.

The only thing I have left to do is to finish the towers. Four chocolate caramel wafer cornets to act as turrets. I won't do that til tomorrow morning because I want to keep the cake in a tin overnight (it won't fit with the cones on) and I don't want actual wafers to go too stale. I doubt they'll be eatn anyway, but best to preserve them if I can.

I was going to cut them down, but it turns o9ut they look pretty good exactly as they are.

So - cake before turrets.
Will take another pic of the finished item tomorrow.

Looks brilliant! How many castles have regular, squared off bricks anyway? Only the one built by Andrew and Fergie!

yyuummeh!

that looks sooooooo good!

ur so gonna get in trouble.......

cake looks great.

Should have chocolate dipped the cones really.
But they might not have baan eaten anyway. In the end, untidy as it was, every other part was scoffed - even the biscuits, which I thought might get left behind.

Going to make a castle bundt cake for the May Fayre instead. At least I've made two of those now and am pretty confident. Might even make a Bacardi cake in the shape of a bat. See how industrious I feel on Saturday. The gratifying thing is I know a teacher or TA will buy it even if a parent doesn't, because they've said as such. They love being my guinea pigs. Yeah, wait til I have them neutered.

As it turns out, there is a MOUNTAIN of cakes in the music room. Think 60 children all taking letters home to their parents asking for cakes for the cake stall. There are some beautiful (and some just sweet in their messiness) home made ones, but those who bought cakes went for quantity - possibly out of mis-placed guilt.

So I am not baking tomorrow.

Honestly, I doubt even half of them will be sold, given that not every child will attend, and some of the offerings are not all that tempting. We're predominantly a middle class school, and buying a tray of prepacked cheapo iced cakes with lots of sugar and additives won't appeal to at least 1/2 the parents.

We already rescued two bags of Tesco jam-filled doughnuts, which would have been inedible tomorrow, let alone Sunday. When I say "rescued" I mean transported to the staffroom! Nom nom nom. But hey - almost every member of staff is putting in 1-2 hours on Sunday. I reckon that covers 10 doughnuts!

I love your creativity Sundae, and the chicks are so cute. But I gotta say, I was reminded of these guys when I first saw them...

I've already said, in another thread, that I WISH I'd made a big cake for the Fayre. We had four as I remember, and ALL were sold in my 90 minute stint on the stall. I could have made a great Bacardi cake and wowed a wider audience with my cathedral mould. Never mind, Ms McM (Deputy Head) said I can do it next year. True. But I reminded her I was on a one year contract. I wasn't being petty, I just have to keep track of these things. I admitted I'd be at the May Fayre regardless next year.

So the only cakes left were shop-bought.
And even in a staffroom of gannets, they were moving slowly.
So I swiped a twelve pack of fairy cakes.
"Ideal to decorate at home" it said.

NO.
VERY crumby, try to spread an icing and half the top of the cake comes off.

Still, I persevered.
I had mini Creme Eggs to get rid of after all.

They seemed to go down okay.

The one on the far right looks like Pilau...

Bring. Cake. To. Glasgow.

I can see it now
Sundae's Sweet Shop

Sweets in front and licker in the rear ;)

Cakes on a train?

:lol:

I've had it up to here with these Mutha#$%&en cakes on this mutha#$%&en train!

(Just don't leave them out in the rain ...)

you need a cake carrier. No, I had never seen them before I moved here. Now I have 4 ...I think ...different shapes and sizes....

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_N1t9Uuf7DC...500_AA280_.jpg

I made my Dalek cake this week.
As told in the Post Whore Thread, I had no camera luck in taking a picture of it whole.

So first picture below is NOT my Dalek cake. But it gives you an idea.
Second pictire IS my Dalek cake - it is what was left next day. Everyone expressed regret at having to dismantle it, so I think saving the head was an attempt not to sully a work of art (snort).

Mrs G had no such compunction - she'd enjoyed a slice the day before and just scoffed the remaining portion at break time. A woman after my own heart. Although I ate none of it. It was all about the fun of making it for me.

I'd like to point out that Daleks have an eye-stalk on their heads. You can't see because of the angle, but there is an eye-stalk on mine. And I chopped the glace cherry in half to make the "plunger" whereas they left theirs whole. Mine looked like a little mouse's heart though...

Great fun, very little effort.
May Fayre, yes. Maybe even two as the leftover decorations would suffice, rather than being scoffed by the 'rents.

Sundae, you know I love you. You know I love and admire you. I think you're swell.

Now. What the HELL is a Dalek cake and why would you make a cake that looks like a caterpillar standing upright and what is it with you English and your cakes?

You have castle cakes and fairy cakes and now this! You should have cakes like we have in 'merica. Proper cakes - cakes that include and are named after CANDY BARS!

;)

Daleks, dear heart, are villains in the longest running sci-fi show in the world, Dr Who.
In the series they are not made of cake, but metal, so they look a lot more threatening.
Had they been made of cake they might have been less invincible.
Or maybe not - think Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

Many people I know make standard cakes. And some are lovely.
And they make their way into the staffroom to muted approval.

I like the unusual and the decorative.
I like being accosted in the corridors by people being amazed at my cakes.
I am a cake whore.

My next cake will be another Bacardi cake (the last I made was in a Bundt ring). I'm going to make it in a bat mould for Halloween.
The staffroom are suckers for chocolate, but they aren't averse to rum either :)

well, ok, then.

be sure to take pics.

So now we know what Dalek Penis looks like

Wait, what?
Which part is the penis?

To Bri, I could get some free stickers from Vistaprint which confirm Approved By Brianna for my next cake.
But by the time they arrive they might already be out of date!

I was just reading an article in Salon about The History of Dessert.

from that article:

"...Put another way, the making of sweet things reflects the impulse to achieve the sublime, the spectacular, the inimitable, and the nonsensical."

I think that says it nicely. :)

don't worry about the stickers. I approve of everything you do. :)

I'm making beer bread this weekend.
Does that count?

And also, if I can have carte blanche, can I seduce your ginger son?



















































Joke. Promise.

;) my ginger kid is now 20! his birthday was Oct 6.

now I've no teenagers at all. They're all grown.

(YAY!)

[threadjack]I was trying to find a video clip of daleks. And stumbled on this little video. Two American fans give the complete history the Doctor (up to the start of this last series) in 6 minutes. It's rather brilliant I think :p



[/threadjack]

Bri: here's what a dalek looks like:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/galle...ery/800/18.jpg

They're kind of ultra fascist, total xenophobes, bent on killing everyone not a dalek.

Actually I didn't mention teens (although you have to trust me as I corrected blanche).
But you have to admit if I were pursuing your 20 year old you would consider me a filthy scrubber.

FTR I was joking.
I mean I haven't even seen his photo ;)

You around for a call this afternoon?

Dana - thank you. The clip and the pic were immensely helpful. You total nerd, you.

Sundae - let me call you, girl, ok? It's 2:30 there now? how 'bout a call around three?

yay!

kewl! I'll call in about 1/2 hour.

I'd be lyin if I denied it...

Sundae, the cakes look great! Good job! :thumbsup:

Sundae: I think your cakes are wonderful. Traditional cakes are only pretty when they are so extravagant that only a professional could do. By the way, what is beer bread and can I try some? :p: And I wish I could try your Bacardi cake too. :D Hehe....I used to love to bake when I had more time. These days, I only make boring cookies. Speaking of cookies, Christmas is fast coming. I need ideas to make as presents for my nephew's teachers. I'm also gonna send a care package to my friend who just moved away to go to college. Any ideas for soft cookies?

I'm trying a very easy beer bread recipe.
So easy, it is in fact called Very Easy Beer Bread.
Flour, sugar, beer!

Except....

Since buying the beer - the only ingredient I didn't have - I've discovered a Beer and Cheese Bread recipe. It looks bloody yummy, but I would need milk powder (when would I ever use that again?) and probably some more cheese, so as not to annoy Dad by using up all of his. Have yet to decide whether to go to Londis (local shop) and buy these, or practice on the simple one first...

Recipe
4 tsp sugar
2 tsp dried yeast
450ml/16fl oz brown ale, at room temperature
520g/1lb 2½oz strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
320g/11oz wholemeal flour
200g/7oz cheddar cheese, grated
75g/2½oz parmesan cheese, grated
50g/2oz powdered milk
1½tsp salt
1½tsp mustard powder
2 free-range eggs, beaten
2 tsp fennel seeds
1 free-range egg, white only, for glazing

Looks really rich & moist, doesn't it?

Hmmmmm.
Will report back later.

ETA I am rubbish with cookies.
Well, not rubbish (although I had a completely spoiled batch when I tried to make them for Limey) but not worth asking the question of.
I love your previous alphabet cookie idea. If'n I can get a cheap set of letter-cutters I'd love to make some for the staffroom.
Or hey, maybe a big Cookie Cake (people buy them from Millie's Cookies here and they disappear within one 15 minute Playtime!)

My youngest sister also go way out to make the birthday cake. This year, I think she really outdone herself. Everything is edible except for the flowers. As for the frying pan, she made it out of chocolate. I didn't quite ask her, but I think she started on the cake, preparations and all, two weeks ahead. I provided a close-up picture of the cake, so y'all can see the details.

Sweet FSM!
That amazes me.

Wow - very nice.

I bought what I thought was a jam tart cutter/ mould from eBay.
Jam tarts in this country (very common treat, very traditional) are approx 2.5" across.
The mould I got is approx 1.5" wide. Hmph.

I got it because it's so cute - you have the cutter to make the pastry shape, and then a mould you press down which adds the central well and makes a leaf pattern on the edge.

But it's too damn small to make tarts.
It's primarily a biscuit mould I guess (came from the Phillipines so something might have been lost in translation). At most it will create an amuse-bouche.

So I have a choice to make.
I already have some pastry frozen. Should I make tiny tarts from it?
I also have some Fun Dough, which is effectively edible Play dough. It doesn't contain any raising agent, but is blue, red, yellow and green.

Either way I intend to cook first and then add molten choc to the 0.5" well in the centre.
I might even colour the choc - I have plenty of colouring AND plenty of white and/ or red candy drops. I might even spray them with glitter spray!

The Fun Dough was supposed to be for making intricate designs, until I read the small print which says dough should be baked same day as it is made and eaten the next. Which puts trial and error out of the window a bit.
I might yet save it - have a play with plasticine first and then present something really unusual to the staff room.

Then again, tiny chocolate tartlets in bright colours, in the shape of flowers and with a yummy solid chocolate centre should amuse them anyway..?

Have to make them tomorrow.
Input appreciated.

Please send "tiny chocolate tartlets in bright colours, in the shape of flowers and with a yummy solid chocolate centre" my way!!

I never did bring you any cake, did I?

You'll have to come in March, then I can show you my whole repertoire, as well as experimenting on you.