Monday 20 June 2016

Confirmation Day! (I'm Getting Good at Jam and Cream Gâteaux)

Yesterday was confirnation day for my church youth group, and about 200 people were crammed into the church. Extra chairs had to be brought down from upstairs and everything! It was quite an amazing day. There was a big hooley afterwards with all different kinds of African food, and of course, all different kinds of cakes.

I contributed by making a lovely big cream and jam gateau, as is my usual go to for big gatherings. I seem to be getting better at them.

I also tend to fortify the whipped cream icing with cream cheese, for extra stability. I had some black icing leftover from making that Goth cake last weekend, so I used that to do the lettering.

This is only a short little blogeen, just to keep y'all updated! Life is a little hectic at the moment with work, looking for somewhere to live in Galway, and all that jazz, so my baking projects are few and far between.

Friday 10 June 2016

Another Cautionary Tale on the Dangers of Novelty Cakes: Super Goth Birthday Cake

Like what I said in my previous cautionary tale of novelty baking, I’ve never been one for crafting novelty cakes of any kind really. But following on from my enforced sedate celebrations of World Goth Day, I made up for it on returning to my Homeland my making a birthday cake for one of my closest friends.

My friend Caroline and I met in art college in 2008, and we've been good friends ever since. She likes dragons and heavy metal and black clothes, like I do, and in celebration of our shared gothy interests I decided to do something very, very different: a purple cake with black icing.




However, black icing is incredibly difficult to make and work with. The purple cake was simply a matter of adding some violet food colouring to my usual sponge cake recipe, but the icing was a completely different story altogether: you need a Hell of a lot of black food colouring.

In fact, I actually didn't have enough black colour. Even starting with buttercream icing that I had made using 80% dark chocolate to get a good, dark base, an entire tube of Dr Oetker gel still wasn't enough to get it jet black. I then had to start adding other colours from my inventory.

Eventually, I had used black, blue, green, and red to get it as dark as I needed. And using that amount of colouring has some unfortunate side effects: staining of the mouth, tongue, and teeth, and digestive upset.

Next time, I think I may just glaze the finished iced cake with black mirror glaze or something. But I don't think I'll be working with completely black icing anymore!

I would have got some photos of the inside of the cake too, to show off the lovely purple interior, however we all got so carried away with eating it that I forgot! Sometimes these things are better off enjoyed in the moment, I suppose.

The next major birthday I'll have to cater for will by my sister's in early August. She usually goes for cheesecake, or super chocolate cake. Like I've said in many blogs past, trying to come up with new ideas for birthday cakes gets very tedious!

Thursday 2 June 2016

I'm Back from Abroad!

Hi all! I have returned to my homeland after having been in England for just over a fortnight. I actually got back on Sunday, but between getting back into the swing of things at work AND having a grading on Tuesday night for my Red Belt in Taekwondo, I've not had the chance to check in until now.

So, it's good to be home! There will be photographic evidence of my most recent baking project tomorrow: I made a cake for my dearest friend's birthday, and it's epic....

It's been a while! Happy 9th Anniversary!

  It's been a while. The past two years have been a helluva a ride. This year is gonna hold some big changes for this blog. I'm comp...