Delia's Treacle Sponge

I love treacle sponge, and since I just received some pudding basins for my birthday, I decided to give it a go :)

Recipe here: http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/sweet/steamed-treacle-sponge-pudding.html 

The prepared basin (with plenty of golden syrup!)

The mix

I don't have a steamer, so I used my big cast iron pot, scrunched up some tin foil so that the basin wouldn't touch the bottom of the pan

When cooking the boiling water came half way up the side of the pudding basin.

All tied up.  I watched a video on YouTube on how to do this before I did it!

The finished product.  Despite my excessive greasing, the top still stuck a bit.

Yummy! With ice cream. The best way!

Baby Shower Cupcakes

One of my husbands colleagues asked if I would be able to make some baby shower cupcakes for her daughters baby shower.  I saw it as a good opportunity to practise some skills whilst having the materials paid for :) 

So the brief was 30 pink and white vanilla cupcakes, with dummies, nappies and bottles as toppers and glittery if possible.

Glitter is a difficult issue with cakes, there is lots of products out there for cakes which aren't always edible.  Non-toxic doesn't mean edible! And the edible versions aren't the sparkliest, but I think they looked good in the end.

The Village Show Bake Off

I know I haven't finished my wedding cake posts yet, I think that is going to be a long term commitment!  I have the week  off work this week so hoping I might get round to it :) (maybe!)

This weekend I celebrated my first year wedding anniversary with my lovely husband, but as well as this, it was the Village Show!  So I decided to get my granny on and try and compete against the local WI.

There were several categories including: Jar of Jam, Jar of Chutney, Cooked Apple Dish of your choice, and 3 Decorated Cupcakes.

Blackberry and Raspberry Jam

I had some frozen blackberries in the freezer from a trip to my parents so thought these would be a good starting point for a jam.

I googled some recipes and came up with this recipe.

I just plonked the blackberries in frozen but the raspberries were fresh.  I did wonder how this would work out but in the end I was really pleased.  The frozen fruit retained their shape much better rather than disintegrating into a mush, so I think the end result was good.

I did have trouble working out whether the jam was at the setting point yet.  I have a jam thermometer but I wasn't quite sure if it was quite at the right temperature!

In hindsight I think I kept it on the heat too long.  The jam is pretty firm set (still delicious, but firmer than your average Bonne Maman!).  I'm not sure on the science behind jam, but that would be my first guess.

Anyway, no prize at the village show for my jam, but for my first attempt I was pretty chuffed.

Apple Chutney

The only chutney I know is Mango Chutney, and the "chut-e-ney" Schmidt refers to on New Girl (love that show!)

Once again, I hit up google and looked for some recipes and inspiration.  I chose this recipe to make for the show.  It was the easiest recipe I could find, and used ingredients that I mostly already had.  

Cheat: I didn't have any mustard seeds so I just put some wholegrain mustard in a fine sieve, washed with water, and then scooped up the seeds in the sieve for the recipe.

I'll copy the method here so you can see just how straight forward this is:

"Combine all the ingredients in a large, heavy saucepan. (I used a big cast iron casserole dish).  Bring the mixture to a boil over a medium heat, then simmer uncovered, stirring frequently, for 30-40 mins, or until thick and pulpy.  Remove from the heat, leave to cool and transfer to sterilised, clean, dry jars and seal."

Simples!

On tasting, I thought it was disgusting, haha! But I think this is because I don't like chutney :)  The WI loved it though, and I was genuinely shocked when I saw this...

There were probably 30-40 entrants in the Chutney category, so to come third, I was chuffed!

Apple Tart Tatin

Next up, a tart tatin.  I've wanted to make one for a long time, but never had a suitable pan.  I went to TKMaxx a few weeks ago and spotted a small shallow cast iron pan for £7 - bargain.

I used a Delia recipe for this one, available here.

Because my pan was a bit smaller than the one they were using (mine is about 8" diameter) I adjusted the quantities slightly.  I made the same amount of pastry as they suggest but just rolled it out larger than necessary and trimmed.  For the fillling I used:

• 3 1/2 Golden Delicious apples
• 2 oz (50g) softened unsalted butter
• 4 oz (117g) golden caster sugar

The first time I made this, I left the pan on the hob too long and the apples burnt :( but second time around (and for the bake off), I did it perfectly - just make sure to keep an eye on it.

Otherwise, I followed the instructions to the letter.  Photos below:

Unfortunately, no prize for this one, but I was pleased I'd finally gotten round to making one.

Farmyard Cupcakes

This was possibly my favourite category.  I loved these little cuties.

The bases are just chocolate cupcakes (8oz caster sugar, 8oz butter, 7oz self raising flour, 1oz cocoa and 4 large eggs will make 12 cupcakes).

The topping is just a simple butter cream icing piped with a variety of nozzles.

The cow was piped with an Ateco 885 nozzle - the perfect cupcake swirl.  The face and spots were modelled with sugarpaste.

The sheep was piped with a JEM 2D nozzle, and the face was modelled with sugarpaste.

The pig was piped by adding a little pink colouring to the butter cream, and by chopping the end off an icing bag (no nozzle required).  The face (and tail!) were modelled with sugarpaste.

I don't have any fancy modelling tools, just cocktail sticks and everyday cutlery that anyone should have in the kitchen drawer.

On eyeing up the other entries, I knew there was stiff competition.  There was some really intricate sugarpaste and flowerpaste work so I knew my little farm animals were going to have to put on their best faces!

And I was rewarded with... THIRD! Yay!

And I've just had an order for 50 sheep for my lovely mum's 50th birthday next year :)



Next on the cards is Macmillan's Coffee Morning next week:

http://coffee.macmillan.org.uk/Home.aspx#.Ujg3OcakqTM

I'm organising a bake sale at work so need to get my thinking hat on for what to bake!

                                               

Wedding Cake for Bushra and Daemian - Part 6 : Decoration

This might be a bit of a long post - I will take you through the decoration of the whole cake.

The base board was covered in sugarpaste, Layer 1 and 3 were filled and covered with a flavoured buttercream, Layer 2 was filled with strawberry jam and buttercream, and covered with sugarpaste, and Layer 4 was filled with buttercream and covered with sugarpaste.

The plan was for Layers 1 and 3 to be covered in cream cheese  frosting - but being August and the weather being unpredictable, it was a humid 27 degrees.  It was a disaster.  So the buttercream was plan B.  But a successful Plan B I think.

For the whole cake, I used about 6 quantities of buttercream - 1 quantity consisting of:

• 112g butter, unsalted, at room temperature;
• 450g icing sugar;
• 3 tbsp milk (varies - use more for crumb coating, use less for piping roses)

For the buttercream that was meant to be cream cheese I also added a few extra ingredients to each quantity of buttercream:

• 0.2ml LorAnn Cheesecake Flavouring Oil (available here)
• 3 tsp Sugarflair Superwhite (a whitening powder to make it less yellow, available here)

To make the buttercream, whisk the butter,and add the sugar a little at a time, with a few drops of milk if it gets too dry.  The longer you whisk, the lighter and fluffier it will become.

Base Board

Equipment Needed:

1 x 16" Cake Drum

750g sugarpaste, coloured grey with Sugarpaste Sugarflair Liquorice Colouring

1.8m of 15mm wide ribbon - I used a red grosgrain ribbon.

Double sided sellotape

Roll out the sugarpaste into 4 long strips, 2 to be 16" long and 2.5" wide each, and 2 to be 12" long and 2.5" wide.  

Brush the board with a small amount of water - which will act as your adhesive.

Lay the strips around the edge of the board, and blend the joins together so you can't see them. Use a fondant smoother to smooth out the joins and any fingerprints.  

Tape around the edge of the board with double sided tape.  Peel off the backing and attach the ribbon, with some overlap.  Secure the overlap with a further piece of double sided tape.

You can do this stage as far in advance as you like - the earlier the better as it will set hard and will resist imprints when stacking the cake.

Layer 1

Equipment Needed:

1 x 12" Square Hardboard (~4mm thick)

~3 quantities of flavoured buttercream

a No.30 icing nozzle

Icing bags - either disposable or reusuable

Put a small quantity of buttercream on the board, and stick one layer of red velvet cake onto the board.  This means it won't slide anywhere.

Fill each layer of cake with buttercream and stack the 4 cakes. 

Crumb coat the cake - this means cover the sides and top with a thin coat of buttercream to seal in all the crumbs.

Then fill an icing bag using a no. 30 nozzle with buttercream.  Begin to pipe small roses onto the cake.  Apply pressure to the bag, start in the middle of each flower, then work you way to the edge.  Once the flower is the size you want, release the pressure and take the bag away from the cake.  Be patient, on a 12" cake this can take a while!  You will also need to refill your icing bag several times.  If it is a hot day your hand will melt the buttercream in the icing bag, so put small quantities in the bag so you can pipe it before it melts.

This recipe "crusts" over, so is fairly stable in moderate high heats.

I did not refrigerate at any point after icing the cake as putting sponge in the fridge can often make it go a bit dense.

Layer 2

Equipment Needed:

1 x 10" Square Hardboard

2kg grey sugarpaste - sugarpaste is available from cake decorating suppliers - Renshaw is a well known brand - however I use a sugarpaste made in my local cake decorating shop (available here)

200g white sugarpaste

1.25m of 15mm ribbon

double sided sellotape

1 quantity buttercream (not flavoured)

1 jar strawberry conserve (either Tiptree or Bonne Maman - it's worth investing - cheap jam will be too watery)

Trim your sponge cake to have a flat top.  Then slice in half.  A cake leveller is handy, but not essential, for this job.

Put a small quantity of buttercream in the board, and place the top of the cake face down on the board.  This way we will get a really flat top as the bottom of the baked cake will now become the top.

Pipe a buttercream dam around the edge of the bottom half of the cake (to stop the jam splurging out) and put a thick layer of jam (a whole jar) inside the dam.  

Put a layer of buttercream on the other half and place together.  Right, now you should have the bottom of the baked cake facing upwards, filled in the middle with buttercream and jam.  Crumb coat the cake and put to one side.

Dust a large work surface with icing sugar and roll out just under half of your grey sugarpaste.  Roll it out to about 3-4mm thick, large enough to cover the cake top and sides, approximately 16" x 16".

Place the sugarpaste on top of the cake and squeeze out any air bubbles. Smooth down the sides.  This is an art and requires practice.  I won't try and explain it in writing but I suggest you refer to youtube for this technique!  Don't worry about being tidy with this layer - this is only a base layer so if you get cracks and tears in it, don't worry about it.

Leave this is a cake box for at least 12hours, to dry and harden up.  You can do the next layer straight away but this hardening process gives you a better base to work on for the top layer.

Do the same process for the top layer of sugarpaste, using the rest of the sugarpaste - but this time, be a lot neater.  Before you lay the sugarpaste on the cake, brush a thin layer of water over the base coat of sugarpaste to make it a bit tacky, for the top coat to stick to.

This post is turning out to be much longer than I thought! Will finish writing it soon...

Wedding Cake for Bushra and Daemian - Part 5 : Gluten Free Clementine Cake

Layer 4: 6" Gluten Free Clementine Cake

This is a recipe that Nigella does, which I love.  You hear it's gluten free (it's actually also dairy free!) and you instantly think therefore that the cake is going to be a bit naff... well, you are wrong!  This cake comes out delightfully moist and full of flavour.

Ingredients:

• 375g Clementines (I have also used Tangerines, Satsumas etc. in the past with no problems - usually about 4 or 5 fruit but obviously very dependent on size so weigh them if you can)
• 6 medium eggs
• 225g caster sugar
• 250g ground almonds
• 1 tsp baking powder (if you need the cake to be gluten free, check your baking powder is gluten free - Dove's Farm do a gluten free version which is what I used in this instance)

Method:

1. Wash the clementines and pop them in a saucepan.  Cover with cold water and boil for 2 hours.  It helps to have a pan lid to stop all the water boiling away.  I set myself a timer every 30 minutes to keep checking the water level so they don't burn ( - I have done this far too many times!)
2. After the two hours is up, strain and leave to cool for a bit.  When cool enough to handle, slice the oranges open and remove any pips you find.  Then blitz everything bar the pips (yes, including the skin!) in a hand blender / food processor / by hand - whatever you have available to you.  At this point you can refrigerate the orange pulp until you are ready to make the cake.  I often boil the oranges one evening after work, then make the cake the next.
3. Whisk up the eggs and add the sugar and baking powder.  Then tip in the ground almonds, and finally the orange pulp. (Again, you can do this by hand, using a hand mixer, or a food processor) 
   
4. Grease and line your cake tin (either a normal 8" round, or a deep 6" square if you want a deeper cake) with baking parchment , and pour in the mixture.
5. Bake at 190 degrees, or 170 degrees for fan assisted.  Bake for about an hour, although you may have to cover the cake with foil if it gets a bit too brown.  A 6" deeper cake will take a bit longer than this so be patient.  When a skewer comes out clean the cake is done.
6. Leave to cool in the tin, and then take it out when completely cold.

So, that's it - we've made our cakes - now to decorate them.  Stay tuned, that's coming up next.

Wedding Cake for Bushra and Daemian - Part 4

Layer 3 - 8" Square Rainbow Cake

Bushra saw the cake I made for my mum's birthday (see here) and wanted it to be inorporated into her wedding cake. I used the same method as shown in my earlier post but changed the quantities slightly to account for a slightly larger cake:

8 large eggs
430g self raising flour
430g caster sugar
430g soft margarine (I use flora light)
6 x food colours (I use Sugarflair Spectral colours)

Follow the method in my previous post - link above.

6 equal bowls of cake mix

Now with some colour...

Layered up once baked

Wedding Cake for Bushra and Daemian - Part 3

Layer 2 - 10" Square Victoria Sponge

I used the recipe from Lindy Smith's "The Contemporary Cake Decorating Bible" (book available to buy here).  I really like this book, and it certainly is a bible to me.  It has a great section on lining cake tins and lots of good basic recipes in it.  Lindy also has a great website with lots of additional hints and tips - I particularly like this page on how to bake a perfect Madeira cake - all of the tips I used when baking this cake.

The recipe for a 10" square madeira cake is as follows:

700g unsalted butter, at room temperature
700g caster sugar
700g self-raising flour
350g plain flour
12 large eggs
3 tsp glycerine (optional)

1. pre-heat oven to 140 degrees C for fan assisted, 160 degrees C otherwise.  Grease and line cake tins
2. to prevent the sides from crusting and the top doming, fold up about three sheets of newspaper to the height of the tin and tape around the edge of the pan.  There are products available specifically for this purpose (BakeEven strips I believe they are called), but good old newspaper does the job for me.
3. cream the butter and sugar in a bowl.  Until I made this cake I don't think I really understood what creaming was.   I always thought I had got to the right point until the other day when I actually did!  When you think you have got to the right consistency of a light and fluffy mixture, just keep mixing, for several more minutes.  You will get there eventually, and when you do, it will all make sense!
4. combine the flours in a separate bowl - sifting if you feel the urge but not essential
5. beat the eggs (at room temperature - don't store your eggs in the fridge) and add one at time along with a spoonful of flour to prevent the mixture from curdling.  Fold in the rest of the flour into the mixture with a metal spoon.
6. at this stage you can add glycerine, 1/4 tsp per egg.  Glycerine is available in all good supermarkets.  This isn't essential but can help the cake to stay moist.
7. pour the mixture into the prepared tin.  Scoop out the mixture in the middle of the tin and pile it up at the sides.  This will help to get a flat top on your cake to minimise trimming required.  Don't be nervous and just make a small dip with a spoon, I want to be able to see the bottom of the tin!  Trust me - it will be fine.
8. place in the oven on a baking sheet and place another baking sheet on the next shelf above.  Put a small bowl of water in the oven too - this will once again keep the cake moist.
9. bake for about two hours.  this will very much depend on your oven and the amount of newspaper you have used so just keep checking around the two hour mark.  it's done when a skewer comes out clean.
10. leave to cool in the tin and then transfer to a wire rack.  Keep the lining paper on until you decorate/ fill it to keep all the moisture in!

Wedding Cake for Bushra and Daemian, Part 2

Layer 1 - 12" Square Red Velvet Cake

I based this cake on the Hummingbird Bakery recipe with some scaling adjustments.  I baked all the cakes in Invicta cake tins (heavy duty quality tins) and I would recommend them to anyone who wants to invest in cake tins to last them a lifetime. 

Recipe for the Cake:

I made the cake up of 4 thin layers.  The recipes below are the quantities required for each thin layer, so when shopping you will need 4 times the amount of ingredients shown. Ingredients listed in the order that you will need them.

90g unsalted butter, room temperature

225g caster sugar

1.5 large eggs (beat the second egg up but try and pour in only half - it's an art not a science!)

15g cocoa

1/4 tsp of Red food colouring paste (I use sugarflair spectral colours and the results are brilliant every time, available in specialist cake shops and online)

20ml water

3/4 tsp vanilla

180ml buttermilk

225g plain flour (doesn't need to be sifted, the only thing I sift is icing sugar)

3/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 1/4 tsp (12.5 ml) white wine vinegar

You can do this recipe with a wooden spoon, a hand mixer or a stand mixer.  I've done it with both a hand mixer and a stand mixer and they both came out the same. 

1/ mix together the butter and caster sugar. The hummingbird bakery book says mix until light and fluffy. Personally I think the ratio of sugar to butter is too high to get anything that resembles light and fluffy so I just mix until well combined.

2/ beat the eggs and add slowly to the mixture whilst mixing. Keep mixing until thoroughly combined.  

3/ in a small separate bowl, weigh the cocoa, add the food colouring, water and vanilla essence.  Mix together into a paste. It might take a while, I found the cocoa was a bit hydrophobic so it was determined not to combine for as long as it could.  When the paste has come together, put it into your egg/sugar/butter mixture and mix until you get a nice consistent colour throughout the mixture.

4/ add half the buttermilk and keep on mixing until combined.  Then add half the flour and mix until this has all been incorporated.

5/ repeat step 4 until all the buttermilk and flour have been added.

6/ add the salt, then the bicarbonate and then the white wine vinegar mixing all the time. Mix for a few more minutes for good luck.

7/ pour into your lined and prepared baking tin and bang the tin on the table a few times to level the mixture and get rid of any big air bubbles.

8/ bake in a preheated oven for 25 mins at 150 degrees C for fan assisted, otherwise at 170 degrees C. A skewer should come out clean when inserted the full depth of the cake.  I find an oven thermometer helpful to really be sure of your temperatures - they only cost a few pounds from somewhere like TKMaxx and can save a cake disaster from happening!

9/ remove from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack, you can leave the lining paper on to prevent the cake from drying out. I found the best way to get it out of the tin was to grab the lining paper on opposite sides of the cake and lift it quickly and smoothly out of the tin.  The cake will bend in the middle, but its not detrimental. It might crack a wee bit, but let's face it, it's going to be slathered in frosting anyway so no-one is ever going to know :) 

I've raided my photo album on my phone to disappointingly find I have no pictures of the cake at this stage.  I've got one of a small sample cake I did with frosting on it but the sides are open so you can clearly see the nice red colour.  It's a colour that you just won't get with liquid food colourings, and the natural food colourings you will find turns the cake brown instead of glorious red.  If you can get hold of sugarflair colours you won't go wrong.

I will explain the frosting of this layer in a separate post.  I think it's going to take me a few days to get the whole cake up on the blog so please bear with me (grrrrr! no?) on this one :)

Wedding Cake for Bushra and Daemian, Part 1

So once again it's been a long time since my last post. A fair bit has changed in my kitchen over the last few months, the biggest thing being my new stand mixer.  Like many who lust over stand mixers for a long time before investing, I did some extensive research. I love, love LOVE the look of the kitchenaid and always dreamt about getting one in almond cream. But when I got a bonus at work and started looking more seriously at buying a mixer I started to look in much more detail at the specifications of all the different machines. I did a lot of reading of other people's blogs, checked out Which to see what they had to say, and asked myself serious questions about what I was going to use it for.  In the end I settled on a Kenwood Major Premier (only available on Amazon in the UK). It doesn't have the obvious beauty of the kitchenaid, but I still really like the way it looks my kitchen. Also, it has a LOT more power, has cheaper attachments, and was about 2/3's of the price, so overall a no brainer for me.

It also has more bowl capacity than the Kenwood chef, so for an additional £20, I thought this model would future proof me in case I ever took wedding cake making more seriously.

Which happens to take us on to the real reason for my post today.  Yesterday was the wedding of my good friends Bushra and Daemian.  I work with Bushra, and when I told her I was booked onto a cake stacking course, she asked me if I would do her wedding cake for her.  I knew this would be a great opportunity to practise my skills so I said yes! That was probably about 8 months ago now and since then I have done them some cake tasting sessions, as well as a design consultation. The end result was this:

(Bride and groom cake pop toppers by Neli at www.wearedelish.com)

I will now take you through how to bake and assemble this cake layer by layer

Rainbow Cake Part 2

So... Part 2.

I got the cakes out the freezer this morning and left them in their wrapping.  By the time I got home from work they were nicely defrosted. I was ready to put it together.

To make the butter icing I probably used about 25 oz of icing sugar, 4oz of flora light, and 4oz of butter. Whizz it all up in the food processor. You can combine it by hand, it just takes a lot longer. 

I trimmed the cakes where required and stuck them together with a very thin layer of buttercream.  

I used a 2D tip in a disposable icing bag (Lakeland -expensive but very good quality), started in the centre of the rose and worked my way out.  It takes a bit of practice but once you get used to it it's pretty straightforward.  Here's the cake half covered:

And now fully done:

I love the fact that the icing looks so innocent and elegant but when you cut inside its going to be so bright! 

As Miranda's mum would say: "such fun!"

I hope my mum enjoys eating it tomorrow :o) 

Not sure I will be baking much over the next couple of weeks as will be focussing my attention on sewing but will be blogging about that too! 

Rainbow Cake part 1

I got cracking this weekend on my mum's birthday cake for next weekend.  I won't have time to make it next weekend so I've made the sponges today which I've frozen, then I will decorate it on Friday night.

Recipe for the sponge:

12 oz self raising flour

12oz caster sugar

12oz soft margarine (I always use flora light, it does wonders)

6 large eggs (the size is important)

1 tsp vanilla extract (not essence, extract is expensive but a bottle lasts ages)

6 food colours (don't go near the liquid ones, paste colours are best - try Sugarflair) - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple

You will also need at least one 8" tin but two is ideal.

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees or 150 degrees for a fan oven.

Make sure you weigh your empty bowl before you start and make a note of it.  

Throw all the ingredients into a bowl and mix with an electric hand mixer, or whizz it all up in a food processor or stand mixer.

Once everything is mixed in, weigh your bowl again. Subtract the empty bowl weight from the weight it is now, and divide the remainder by 6, (mine came out to 227.5g). This means that each cake you have will have about 220g (allowing for some stuck to the bowl) of mix in it.

Portion the mix out into 6 bowls and add a small amount of colour to each bowl.  You can always add more so start with a little bit. 

Line the tins with a circle of baking parchment and grease well. 

Pour one mix into each tin, and bake for approx 20 mins until a skewer comes out clean.  If you have two tins bake them next to each other on the same shelf, do not put one under the other as will affect the bake.

Turn out onto a wire rack to cool and remove the grease proof paper circle.

In order to freezer, wait until the cakes are completely cool, then wrap in grease proof paper, wrap well in several layers of cling film, and a final layer of foil. 

To defrost, leave in all the packaging at room temperature.

That's all for now, I will post info and pics of part 2 next weekend.

Singer Treadle Sewing Machine Restoration

So, I love sewing, and this 100 year old (exactly) beauty caught my eye on preloved:

Now, I doesn't look much now, but I could see it's potential.  Whilst I would love to use the machine itself, I also fancied the table as a possible desk or dressing table.  So I set to work. I disassembled EVERYTHING - taking lots of photos on the way so I could remember how it all went together! 

I then sugar soaped all the wood work and gave it all a good clean.  Next up was a lick of wood primer.  1 coat and it was ready for the good paint :) I chose a Laura Ashley Eggshell paint in Biscuit, a really lovely cream colour.  It took two coats, three in some places like the worktop.

Next up, the iron base.  I issued some Hammerite rust remover gel (available from Halfords) as the base was in a right mess.  I also had used a wire brush prior to this to try and get rid of some of the looser rust. Quickly after I had washed the gel off, I set it out in the sun before getting on with some spray painting so as no flash rust could develop.  It was amazing the difference that even one thin coat of black paint did! Lots of thin coats was definitely the way forward as opposed to one thick coat so it didn't run.

It took me a long time to find some nice drawer knobs that I thought would look right as all but one of the original handles were missing.  I thought I wanted some black cast iron ones to match the base but  in the even I settled for some jazzy gold ones from Wilkinsons (much cheaper than the cast iron ones too!) 

And here is the finished project :) I'm so happy with how it has turned out. I know it's probably a crime to paint these original pieces but the old wood veneer just didn't do it for me.

I also think the machine is beautiful, which is fully functional:

Can't wait to try it out!

Bits and Bobs

The good news is, the yorkshire ale fruit cake went down a treat with the couple who are having it as their wedding cake.  I had made one and let it mature for 5 weeks, and another one and let it mature for 1 week.  We sat down and tried them both at the same time so we could directly compare them.  Now, I'm not a fan of fruit cake myself, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was :) The one that had matured for longer was slightly darker and held together a lot better overall - you couldn't taste the beer very much, but that was ok.  The "younger" one had a much crumbier texture and I think the flavour was nice for someone not too fond of fruit cake - it wasn't overly rich.  Both were very moist though which was excellent, and I think that was partly due to the amount of beer that was in the cake, as well as leaving the lining paper (the lining paper used to line the tins when they were baked) on until served.

I have also recently been on a course to learn how to stack cakes - i'm fairly happy with my decorating abilities but stacking (despite being an engineer) was always that one step too far for me.  I attended a course with the lovely Lisa Sims of the Melbourne Cake Decorating Company in Derby and I spent a very enjoyable Sunday covering a stacking a two tier cake.  This was the result:

I have also been practicing my mum's birthday cake too which is in just over a week's time - I've been experimenting on my work colleagues this week.  My mum has requested a rainbow cake which is 6 thin layers of different coloured cake.  I was dead chuffed with my practice run at the cake itself but the icing left a lot to be desired!  I had used a recipe for cream cheese frosting but it was horrendous - much too thin and runny, just a big ol' gloopy mess.  So I think when I make it for real, I will stick to what I know best and use butter cream to ice it instead.  Photos and recipe coming soon!

I also need to tell you all about my vintage treadle sewing machine restoration project, and some of my new sewing projects I have got on the go, but I shall save those for another day :)

That's all for now peeps x

p.s. can't believe it has been two months since my last blog post! I blame Rupert - our new addition to the family (coloquically referred to as Pooper as he likes to poop!)  He's such a cutie :)