Calendar Cakes - May

Thanks for all your great entries in April for the Great Village Show. You can check them out over on the Calendar Cakes page at Dolly Bakes.

For this month's Calendar Cakes we have a special challenge for you. On Sunday 19th May it's World Baking Day when everyone is encouraged to bake up a storm. You can check out the website here.

Last year for WBD we were encouraged to go out 'caking' which involved taking a picture of your cake in an unusual location. You can see my caking effort below as I made a crown cake for the Jubilee.

The WBD challenge for this year is to 'Bake Brave'. There are 100 recipes on the WBD website which are levelled in difficulty from 1 to 100. You can choose your baking level, starting at 'I bake and cross my fingers', moving to 'I bake every now and then', next up is 'I bake at every opportunity' and finally the top level...I bake therefore I am! All you need to do is choose the level and recipe that best suits you. We are urged to step out of our comfort zone and bake something we've never baked before.

So for our Calendar Cakes Challenge this month you can choose to do one of two things...either bake something from the list of 100 recipes...in which case you will go straight to the top of the round up. Alternatively, we would love to receive any other cakes and bakes that you make this month in celebration of WBD, even if they're not on the list of 100. We'd also love to see any 'caking' pictures this month too!

WBD looks like a lot of fun, so I do hope you'll get involved. On Sunday 19th May you can also tweet your entries to @WorldBakingDay if you've made one of the recipes from their list of 100.

* Please note, you are welcome to add as many entries as you wish to the linky but if there are too many entries overall then only one entry per person may appear in the round up.

To enter this month, here are the guidelines...

Entry Guidelines:

• Post your entry on your blog and include the ‘Calendar Cakes’ logo
  
  
• Add 'Calendar Cakes' as a label on your post.
  
  
• Follow Dolly Bakes and Laura Loves Cakes blogs using the Google Join this Site button.
  
  
• Add links on your post to your hosts Dolly Bakes and Laura Loves Cakes.
  
  
• Link to your blog from here using the Linky tool below. It's dead easy...
  
  
• If you don’t have a blog you can still join in, just email us a picture and a bit of information about your bake. Email to calendarcakeschallenge@gmail.com
  
  
• If you're on Twitter, tweet us a link to your post @dollybakes and @lauralovesbakes - otherwise we won't see it! Use the handle #CalendarCakes.  

Calendar Cakes Challenge Rules:

1. You can enter as many times as you like. Bake to your little heart's content.
   
   
2. It can be your own recipe or one you found elsewhere (please just state where you found it).
   
   
3. You can use old posts as long as you update them with the 'Calendar Cakes' logo and link back (see above).
   
   
4. If you want to enter your bake into other challenges too then please feel free.
   
   
5. You must submit by the 28th May. 

Fondant Fancies

 

Since Fondant Fancies appeared on the Great British Bake Off they've been all the rage. On the show John, Brendan and James found them somewhat trickier than you would imagine and ended up with some rather sad looking fancies.

Home bakers have since taken up the challenge, and recipes and how-to guides have appeared in magazines and on TV. I've also seen a number of courses teaching the secrets of a perfect fondant fancy. One such course is run by Cakes 4 Fun which I attended this weekend.

On the course we learnt how to cut our squares evenly and add the marzipan on top, adhering it with a layer of apricot jam. These fancies don't have buttercream but you could add it if you wanted to.

The secret to preventing the fancies breaking up upon covering is to freeze them for at least an hour and a half beforehand. To cover the fancies, each one was speared with a chocolate dipping fork, usually used for covering truffles, before being dipped in runny fondant icing. You can use Squires Kitchen Fondant Icing Mix which works perfectly. As we discovered there is quite a knack to dipping and covering which takes quite a bit of practise.

To add a little something extra to our fancies we used decorative moulds such as these from Squires Kitchen to make the pretty little cakes, teacups and teapots on top. We also used a mould to make the style of rose on the right below, however you can also hand roll roses, such as the one on the left below.

As always with Cakes 4 Fun, this was a fabulous class which has given me the confidence to try fondant fancies at home. The staff are extremely knowledgeable and are happy to help. Above is only a taster of what we learnt on the course as I don't want to share too much. If you'd like to learn more I'd thoroughly recommend attending!

 



In the video below you can see Mary Berry explaining how to make Fondant Fancies, however she used a different method to the one we used. She covers her sides in buttercream and adds the little blob of buttercream on the top. In addition, Mary's fancies are refrigerated and not frozen. She also melts down sugarpaste to make her fondant for covering.

Finally, I'm going to try and sneak these into this month's Calendar Cakes Challenge. Rachel over at Dolly Bakes is hosting in April and you'll find the latest challenge posted here at Laura Loves Cakes on May 1st. The theme this month is The Great Village Show and British baking institutions. I know, I know...I can already hear the outcry...fondant fancies didn't originate in Britain. But I rather think of them as a bit of a British institution, admittedly I'm probably thinking of the Mr. Kipling kind, however since they were first introduced in 1967 they have quietly infilrated society and can be found in many a fine establishment purveying that most British of traditions...afternoon tea.

 

In addition, fondant fancies were voted as one of the top foods Britain's miss when they move abroad and furthermore during the Queen's jubilee someone even made a portrait of her using these sweet treats. I for one would be delighted if I found fancies gracing my local village show. I hope I've convinced you but if you think otherwise, feel free to leave a comment! ;-)

Apple & Almond Bear Claw Pastries

When I decided to make these bear claw pastries from the Hummingbird Bakery 'Home Sweet Home' cookbook I didn't really check the recipe that closely and just assumed they would be fairly easy to make. However, when it actually came down to it, they were a little more tricky than first anticipated.

When thinking of pastry, I was thinking of the Danish kind but that turned out to be incorrect. The pastry here is made with milk, sugar, butter, salt, yeast, egg and flour. The mixture also had to be left to prove which was not what I was expecting.

When the dough had proved, the recipe requires it to be rolled out into quite precise rectangles. I did have to wrangle with it a bit as the dough kept springing back when I rolled it which I don't think is quite right. I also found it quite difficult to shape and seal the pastries and as a result they were all slightly different sizes. Given all this I was quite expecting a disaster when they came out of the oven but they actually looked rather better than expected, puffing up nicely and browing on top with the egg wash. 

Inside the pastry is a filling of apples, butter, sultanas, light brown sugar, cinnamon and cornflour. On top is a sprinkling of sugar and some flaked almonds which were added before baking. The finishing touch is a drizzle of icing over the top when cool. And how did they taste?...much better than expected! Kind of a bready/pastry outer with a sweet filling. Apparently these are found in traditional bakeries in America and are often eaten for breakfast with coffee. I think I could quite happily consume these for breakfast on a regular basis...but probably only if they didn't take quite so long to make! However, the bear claw finish is very cute and was achieved by cutting into the pastry along a short edge. I used scissors and cut in about a centimetre.

These pastries are my entry into this month's Alpha Bakes, hosted by Ros over at the More than Occassional Baker and Caroline at Caroline Makes. Ros is hosting this month and the letter is 'A', so this is a double whammy with apples and almonds!

3D Chocolate Owl Cake

This 3D owl is such a cute little cake and it's perfect for a birthday or christening. It's pretty in pink for  a girl but the decorations work just as well in blue or any other colour that you might choose.

I made this cake on a course at Pretty Witty Cakes which is located in Crowborough, East Sussex. Pretty Witty Cakes offer a great range of courses with something for everyone from beginner to advanced. They also attract a number of international tutors. I was particularly keen to attend this owl course as it was a great opportunity to learn about 3D cakes as the 3D aspect really adds something extra special to a cake!

At the beginning of the day this owl started life as a stack of sqaure chocolate cakes which were ganached together and then carved into the shape of the owl. At one point the whole thing did look a bit like a transformer with bits of the carving stuck on at other points to give the shape...however, the tutor did warn us in advance and as predicted the finished carving eventually morphed into the owl...although my owl ears are a little too pointy!! :-)

Once carved the cake was covered in two thick layers of ganache before being covered in sugar paste, the covering was a little tricky as it was tough to lay it over the cake without tearing it on the ears. With the hard work done it was down to the decorating using a template for the wings and some cutters for the eyes, flowers and hearts. You may also just be able to make out the stitching outline on the wings above which was made with a stitching wheel.

The course tutor was Michelle Rea of Inspired by Michelle Cakes. Michelle is from Australia which is where she runs her business, but her classes are in demand internationally so she's currently in the UK for a few weeks, teaching a number of classes including this 3D owl cake. As the techniques for creating the owl were learnt on a course I can't go into too much detail about how to make the cake...but if you'd like to learn I'd definitely recommend attending a course with Michelle or at Pretty Witty Cakes.