Pudsey Bear Cupcakes...

As it's Children in Need tomorrow I thought I'd try some Pudsey Bear Cupcakes, they look very cute and hopefully my generous colleagues will donate to a good cause! To make them I used Dr Oetker's Ready to Roll Icing which was extremely handy as it comes in a box with a small packet of each colour featured (except white).

Making the spotty bandana was also easy. I rolled out some white icing which was slightly thicker than needed. I then cut out lots of small circles in blue, green and red using a Wilton No.12 nozzle, these circles were then arranged on the white icing (as below) before lightly rolling over the top which blends the pastes together. This is a great technique which can be used in a variety of ways in your cake designs. Further instructions can be found in Lindy Smith's Contemporary Cake Decorating Bible.

Enjoy Children in Need tomorrow!

Iced Buns: Technical Challenge One

Well, as promised here is my first attempt at a technical challenge from the Great British Bake Off. I followed the exact recipe from the accompanying series cookbook and was rather pleased that they actually turned out quite well...which I was not expecting...obviously I should have more faith!!

Overall, the recipe was fairly easy to follow, however once you have mixed the ingredients you are then instructed to add water and if you add it all at once the dough can become very sticky, so if you are going to attempt these iced buns then I would advise adding the water slowly a bit at a time. When shaping the buns I didn't have a ruler to hand... the recipe stipulates that each should be 12cms long... turns out mine were only 10cms(!) but my theory is that my rounded buns gave more room for icing on top, although Paul Hollywood may not have approved!!

Once the cream was piped in I added the thin line of jam... I did cut little too much off the end of the piping bag so the lines ended up a little wonky but ultimately they actually looked quite tasty... and they tasted delicious!!! I'd definitely recommend having a go at iced buns and you can find the recipe here...definitely an old-fashioned favourite. I will be attempting another technical challenge next month and will post the results for you to see.

Cake International

This weekend I made my way up to the NEC in Birmingham for my first visit to Cake International! If you've never been then I'd highly recommend it...although your purse may come back quite a lot lighter!! There were a great range of stalls offering all manner of cake decorating equipment. In addition, there were cake decorating demonstrations, a baking theatre, cake competition entries, a live competition, as well as some hands on areas to learn new skills. During the day I watched two demonstrations including Lisa Slatter from PME demonstrating their dove cutters amongst others and also a demonstration of the Cricut Cake machine. If you've never seen a Cricut machine before it cuts patterns and designs out of paste...it does produce lovely uniform designs but it's a bit of a faff, relatively expensive and is it cheating...I'm not quite sure! ;-)

I also managed to spend far too much money on an array of cutters including a Scottie Dog from Cakes4Fun, flowers from Patchwork Cutters and a Babouska Doll from Cakes by Bien.

The pictures I've included here show only a fraction of the cakes that were on display and some were truly amazing...a great source of design inspiration!! I better get decorating now to use all my new cake tools!! If you fancy a visit then Cake International at the NEC will be back next year...and they're now planning a show in London next June if that's closer to home...this may become an annual trip!

Bonfire Night Cake...

I made this Spiced Toffee Apple Cake for Bonfire night...and it was the perfect combination...fireworks and a lovely spicy, toffee covered cake. The recipe is below, the original was in the BBC Goodfood magazine last month. I followed the recipe with no problems but it seemed to cook a little quicker than anticipated and the apples started to catch on top so I covered it in foil for the last 10 minutes. I also added rather more toffee sauce than suggested...you can never have too much!! A slice of this would be perfect with a cup of tea of an afternoon.

200g dates, chopped

200ml milk

250g butter, softened

280g self-raising flour

200g light soft brown sugar

½ tsp baking powder

4 large eggs

1 tbsp mixed spice

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 small red apples

Lemon juice

Toffees

Icing sugar

Line a 20x30cm tin with greaseproof paper and heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.

Put the dates and milk in a saucepan and bring to a simmer and then set aside for 15 minutes to cool. Once cool put the mixture in a food processor and whizz until smooth. Then put the mixture in a bowl and add the butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, mixed spice and vanilla extract.

Then thinly slice the apples and toss in apple juice.  Beat the cake mixture together with an electric whisk and then pour into the prepared tin, before arranging the apples in three rows. The cake should then be cooked for 45-50 minutes. Once cooked, put to one side and cool in the tray. Finally, melt the toffees in a small saucepan with a splash of milk until they melt down to a smooth sauce. Then to finish off, dust the cake with the icing sugar and then drizzle over the toffee sauce. Then enjoy!