Bread That's Still Fresh Tomorrow: Tangzhong Method

Ah, bread... such a simple, simple pleasure. In some parts of the world, access to bread is a human right, and I can see why!

However, sometimes homemade bread doesn't live up to expectations for a variety of reasons: it's dry, it's dense, it's doughy, or sometimes it simply doesn't last for more than a day before going stale. That's not a problem if you have lots of people in your house to eat the bread, but if not even the biggest bread lover couldn't (or if they could, shouldn't) eat an entire loaf of bread in one day. 

So, I took to the internet to do some research on how to keep my bread fresher for longer and lasts for three days without having to become bird food. And it's all to do with the relationship between the flour and the water.

Now, for some science

In the breadmaking world, people talk about dough hydration percentage. Sounds fancy, but all that really means is if you have a bread dough that has 1000 grammes of flour, and 500 grammes of water, that dough has a 50% hydration, because there is half as much water as flour. The higher the percentage of hydration, the chewier and sturdier the texture of the dough after baking, and the fresher it stays for longer. The lower the percentage, the quicker it goes stale. 

Doughs that have a higher hydration percentage need flour with more gluten, so an 80% hydration dough would need strong bread flour that has a high percentage of protein on the label, more than 11%. Lower hydration dough, however, can be made using regular plain or all purpose flour which makes them much more accessible for beginners or occasional bakers who might only have plain flour at home.

Regular beginner's bread doughs often have roughly 60-65% hydration, or a pound of flour (455 grammes) to about half a pint of water or milk (285 millilitres). That's how my Mum taught me, and it's easy to handle. Often very experienced or artisan breadmakers can use bread doughs that have up to 80% hydration, like sourdough, which has great keeping qualities and a delicious chewy texture. However, this kind of dough needs particular handling techniques that take a long time to master that would absolutely frustrate and discourage a beginner. I've tried, and failed, and cried over way too many wasted loaves of bread.

Is there a compromise?

To have a dough with a nice high percentage hydration but can be easily handled, you need to trap some of the water. Introducing a method that's very popular in East Asian countries: the tangzhong.

This method takes a small amount of the flour used in your recipe to make a paste with some of the water. This paste traps the water in the starch of the flour, which has two advantages: the water isn't all in your dough, making it hard to handle; and the water is trapped which makes it harder to escape, keeping the bread moister for longer!

Now, that's some massive oversimplification: the real technical reason has way more longer words in it like gelatinisation and other words I couldn't spell out loud from memory. But all you need to know is that it works very well.

So, the takeaway is

Higher Hydration: 65%<

Needs strong (bread) flour with more protein

Makes bread that has a chewy texture

Can have big air pockets, depending on how it's proofed

Sticky dough which needs specific handling techniques

Almost has a life of its own

Makes bread that keeps longer

Lower Hydration: >65%

Can be made using plain (all-purpose) flour

Make tender, soft bread

Has a more cake-like texture

Easy to handle dough that's good for beginners

Quite a forgiving dough that doesn't need special treatment

Can stale quickly if not eaten or frozen immediately

Tangzhong Method

Traps some of the water in a cooked flour-water paste

Results in a dough which is a happy middle ground between low and high hydration properties

So, for my delicious loaf of white bread that's in the pictures, I used 1 pound (455 grammes) of strong bread flour, 12 fluid ounces (340 millilitres), one quarter-ounce (7 gramme) sachet of dried yeast, 1 ounce (30 grammes) butter or oil, 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) salt, and two teaspoons (10 millilitres) sugar.

One pound is 16 ounces, which means 12 fluid ounces of water is 75% of the flour measurement. If you use more or less flour, the water must be scaled to always be 75% of the flour.

Take 1 ounce (30 grammes) of the pre-measured flour and cook it with 6 fluid ounces (180 millilitres) of the pre-measured water and cook it into a paste in a saucepan over medium-low heat and allow to cool with cling film directly touching the surface to prevent a skin. The paste should be thick and translucent. Notice that the ratio of flour to water is 1:6, and also that half of the overall water is being trapped in the paste. 

Make the bread as usual, adding in the paste and the remaining ingredients. It will take longer to knead and sometimes get a little sticky, but don't be tempted to add a load more flour to knead it easier. You can use plain flour for dusting.

Bake as normal and cool as normal and you'll be presented with some of the most deliciously impossibly soft and fluffy bread you've ever eaten. Just like from the Chinese bakery!

This method can be used to make cinnamon rolls and other kinds of bread treats like dinner rolls, hot dog buns, or hamburger buns. You can use milk in the dough, but always make sure you make the flour paste with water; it just works better that way.

For more information on tangzhong method dough, please read through my sources and explore what the world wide web has to offer on the subject!

SOURCES

https://pastrychefonline.com/tangzhong-bread/

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2018/07/23/how-to-convert-a-bread-recipe-to-tangzhong

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2018/03/26/introduction-to-tangzhong

Brownie Ice-Cream Cake [BACK-DATED]

Happy birthday to my dearest husband! (Still doesn't feel real saying that...) To celebrate, we're having a delicious ice-cream cake with a brownie base!

Simon absolutely loves hot brownies with ice-cream on top, so this year I thought I'd mash the two concepts together by making an ice-cream cake. However, I learnt a few things in the process.

I made this by cooking up an 8 inch (20 centimetre) fudgy chocolate brownie and popping it in a deep 8 inch tin lined with non-stick paper. I emptied about 2 pints of good quality vanilla ice-cream on top of it and froze the whole confection together. However, this led to a rock solid base. So, in future renditions, I'll probably freeze the ice-cream into a cake shape independently of the base, then pop the two together for serving so the base is soft enough to cut without the ice-cream thawing too much.

I decorated the top with swirls of whipping cream, vanilla filled wafer rolls, and a dusting of drinking chocolate powder for visual interest! It was greatly enjoyed, but the next one will be better with the added steps.

Sweetie Pie's Perfect Scones! Part 2: Written Recipe

After experimenting over the course of a few days (which you can read all about here) I found what I consider to be the perfect scone: light and fluffy with pale sides and a brown top, with only a little hit of sweetness. I like my scones very plain.

To get the consistency of texture, the dough has to be worked through properly. This is tricky with something like scones, which need to be handled as little as possible before baking so they don't get tough. The way around this is to add some extra starch to reduce the overall amount of gluten in the flour. With a higher percentage of starch, the scones are lighter, fluffier, and easier to work with.

Split these beauties in half and enjoy with jam, butter, or cream. Or maybe all of the above, if you're feeling indulgent....

~~ ^ _ ^ ~~

DIFFICULTY

Very simple! 

TIME

1 hour

RECIPE RATING

Easy!

~~ ^ _ ^ ~~

INGREDIMENTS

6 ounces (170 grammes) white plain flour: spelt or wheat

2 ounces (55 grammes) cornflour

1 tablespoon baking powder, or 1 teaspoon of baking powder with 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda for Irish style scones

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 ounces (55 grammes) butter, room temperature

2 tablespoons (28 grammes) caster sugar

4 fluid ounces (115 millilitres) milk, room temperature

1 teaspoon lemon juice, if using baking soda

Eggwash, made with an egg and a pinch of salt, or you can use milk to omit the egg

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F) and preheat a flat baking tray also.
• Sieve the flours, baking powder (and baking soda, if using), and salt twice, making sure to hold the sieve high. I like to sieve the mixture out onto a piece of baking paper, then back into the mixing bowl.
• In a mixing bowl, rub the sieved ingredients with the butter until it's like fine breadcrumbs. It doesn't matter what temperature the butter is, as long as it's very well rubbed in. Stir in the sugar.
• Add the milk (and lemon juice, if using baking soda) and mix quickly and throroughly with a metal spoon until just mixed.
• Turn out onto a floured work surface and chaff six times: chaffing is the process of flattening the dough by hand, folding in half, turning through 90 degrees, and then repeating. This is a much gentler process than kneading.
• Cut out scones using a cutter, shape the dough into a rectangle and cut squares, or shape into a round and cut into wedges. You can gather the remaining dough and re-roll, but the second rolling won't be as even as the first.
• Sprinkle flour onto the preheated tray and arrange the scones about half an inch apart from each other: if they're a little huddled together, they will rise straighter. Eggwash the tops, making sure it doesn't dribble down the sides. If you like, you can baste the tops with eggwash another two times during cooking for an even richer colour. You can also sprinkle the tops with coarse sugar or salt.
• Bake near the top of the oven for 15 minutes. This can depend on the size of the scones: when they've risen high and have turned a rich brown on top, they're ready.

These are best eaten the day they are made, but they freeze very well. Freeze any leftovers on the day of baking for best results.

Sweetie Pie's Perfect Scones! Part 1: Experiments

Ah, the humble scone. So many varieties, so many styles, and so many shades of deliciousness. And as such, so many challenges.

What somebody considers a perfect scone is polarising and subjective. I'm sure we can all agree that a Victoria sponge should be light, fluffy and sweet. I'm sure we can all agree that a piece of shortbread should be sandy and buttery. But, I'm not sure we will all agree on what we like about scones.

From my observation here in Ireland, there are three main families of scones: ones eaten in England, ones eaten in America, and the ones that every Nana knows how to make here at home.

• English scones are more cake-like: sweet, light and fluffy, and are usually quite small. The ingredients are typically cold, and the butter is rubbed in fully to make them fluffy.
• American scones are like giant chunks of sweetened shortcrust pastry: the butter is left in small pieces in the dough and not rubbed in fully, and everything is ice cold, making them flaky more so than fluffy. There is also a very high percentage of butter.
• Irish scones are more like sweetened buns of soda bread: bready, not very sweet, and rough on the outside. They are very plain, and often quite dense.

My personal preference is an English style scone: light, fluffy, breaks apart easily for buttering, and is usually small. Achieving this without using shop bought self-raising flour nor butt-tonnes of baking powder is quite a challenge, though.

I did four experiments in the kitchen, which will be presented to you in note form with elaboration as needed. Every single recipe added the ingredients in the same order: butter rubbed into flour and raising agent, sugar added, followed by the liquid mixed in quickly with a knife before finishing the mixing on the work surface. Every mixture was rolled to an inch thick (2.5 centimetres) and baked at 200°C (400°F) for 15 minutes.

NOTE: Chaffing is a procedure where the dough is folded and flattened repeatedly. It's often used for delicate pastries that shouldn't be handled much, and is also used in traditional bread making for doughs which are very wet.

 

From the top to the bottom: Batch 1, Batch 2, Batch 3, and Batch 4

Batch 1

8oz flour

2 tsps b powder

Pinch of salt

2oz butter, cold, or margarine

1oz sugar

4floz milk

Mixed in the machine. Not chaffed. Broke when baking: poor crust colour. Eggwashed once.

I got a Kenwood mixer as a wedding gift, and tried making scones in it. Would not recommend!

~ * ^ _ ^ * ~

Batch 2

8oz flour

1 tablespoon b powder

Pinch of salt

2oz butter, cold, or margarine

1oz sugar

4floz milk, slightly warm

1 tsp lemon juice

 

Lemon juice mixed with milk at the last second before adding to dough. Mixed by hand, chaffed four times. Cut into wedges. Rose nicely, but cracked on top slightly and caught too much colour on the sides. Eggwashed once.

~ * ^ _ ^ * ~

Batch 3

4oz flour

1/4 tsp b powder

1/4 tsp b soda

Pinch of salt

1oz butter, cold, or margarine

1 tablespoon sugar

2floz milk, slightly warm

1/2 tsp lemon juice

Lemon juice mixed with milk at the last second before adding to dough. Mixed by hand, chaffed four times. Cut into rounds. Rose sideways, and coloured too much. Crust too thick. Distinct taste of b soda, though not overwhelming. Egg washed once before cooking, and again a minute before finished in oven

~ * ^ _ ^ * ~

It was at this point that I nearly gave up and realised why I've never done a scone recipe on this blog before. It seems my tastes in scones are very specific! I delved back into the history of my blog and found that I had, in fact, done a scone recipe. It was a quick mention in a recipe I'd done for tomato soup, and I remember eating those scones and thinking they were delicious. Turns out, the issue I was having with overworking the flour was very easily solved by adding in cornflour. The addition of extra starch reduced the overall amount of gluten, and meant that the dough could be easily and thoroughly mixed without exercising the gluten too much. Turns out I was trying to reinvent the wheel.

~ * ^ _ ^ * ~

Batch 4

3oz flour, with 1oz cornflour

1/2 tsp b powder

1/4 tsp b soda

Pinch of salt

1oz butter, cold, or margarine

2 teaspoons sugar

2floz milk, slightly warm

1/2 tsp lemon juice

 

Lemon juice mixed with milk at the last second before adding to dough. Mixed by hand, chaffed five times: withstood chaffing more because of high starch content. Cut into fluted rounds. Rose well -- cleanest cut ones rose the best. Coloured nicely: sides nice and pale, and top well browned. Distinct taste of b soda, though not overwhelming. Eggwashed three times: once before baking, once halfway through -- turning the tray through 180 -- and again a minute before finished in oven.

~ * ^ _ ^ * ~

Batch 5

3oz flour, with 1oz cornflour

1.5 tsps baking powder

Pinch of salt

1oz butter, cold, or margarine

1 tablespoon sugar

2floz milk, slightly warm

1/2 tsp lemon juice

Made in exactly the same way as Batch 4. No noticeable visual difference. Slightly fluffier, lacking the characteristic moisture and flavour of b soda. Suitable substitute for those who dislike b soda.

So, I can conclusively say, that cornflour is the magic ingredient. Whether you use baking soda or powder doesn't seem to matter that much, but what does it that the overall gluten is reduced by adding starch. Read all about the final recipe here!

Cheat Method: Quick Lemon Iced Tea

Nomnomnom, iced tea! A truly refreshing drink for warm summer days... if you have any (they're fairly rare in Ireland!)

Irish people love tea. We drink tonnes of it every year. In fact, we drink the most tea per person of any country in Europe. But still, sometimes it can be just too hot outside for a proper cup of scald. That's why I was really happy when I tried iced tea and actually liked it!

I used to make iced tea by cold brewing black tea overnight, or by making cups or normal tea and letting it go cold. A coworker of mine, however, let me into one of her iced tea secrets. She just made a small amount of extremely concentrated tea and topped it up with cold water and ice. Having done a few experiments, I bring to you my own trusted formula that gives pretty consistent results every time.

INGREDIMENTS

To serve 2 people

2 Lyons (black) tea bags

6 fluid ounces (170 millilitres) boiling hot water

Cold water, to top up

10 ounces (285 grammes) ice

6 tablet sweeteners, or 2 tablespoons of sugar

2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) lemon juice, fresh or bottled. You could also use fresh or bottled juice of any other citrus

METHOD

• In a UK pint (570 millilitre) measuring jug, mix the tea bags and boiling hot water together. Stir very well, and allow to steep for about 5 minutes. 
• Remove the tea bags, and squeeze the water out of them. Add in the sweeteners or sugar and stir very well until dissolved. You'll lose some water in the process, but this is accounted for.
• Top the liquid level up to half a UK pint (285 millilitres) with cold water.
• Divide the ice and the lemon juice between two 12 ounce (340 millilitre) glasses. Pour half of the sweetened tea mixture into each glass, and stir very well until the drink is cold. 
• Serve with a straw, and a slice of lemon if you like.

Something Savoury: Teriyaki Chicken Nuggets (Dairy and Egg Free)

Summertime is party time, and party time is party food time! Here is a different take on chicken nuggets with an Asian flair.

I love chicken nuggets and dippers: they're just so gloriously naff. However, if you're someone who isn't so sure about the quality of the meat involved, or how exactly is was "mechanically reclaimed" from the source animal, then I suggest you make your own minced filling.

I like making chicken nuggets, dippers, and burgers from scratch because you are 100% in control of the meat used. I get thighs and breasts and chop them finely with a nice big knife. I don't mince it so finely that it no longer has any texture. For this you could also use turkey, which has a meatier flavour than chicken.

I served this with some crinkle cut oven chips bought from the supermarket, and a quick homemade iced tea.

INGREDIMENTS

For the chicken filling

350 grammes (about 12 ounces) chicken, either breast meat or 50/50 mix of thigh and breast

1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) dark soy sauce

1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) maple syrup, or brown sugar

One grated garlic clove, or 1/4 tsp dehydrated chopped garlic

1 tsp grated ginger root, or 1/4 tsp ground ginger

Pinch of salt

A few cracks of black pepper

For the coating

4 tablespoons (55 millilitres) plain flour

4 tablespoons (55 millilitres) cornflour

About 4 fluid ounces (115 millilitres) of cold water

Salt and pepper

METHOD

• If using dehydrated garlic, rehydrate it in a teaspoon of hot water. Allow to soak for 10 minutes.
• Chop the chicken very finely into a mince. In a bowl, mix the chicken, soy sauce, maple syrup or sugar, garlic, and ginger with a fork until well mixed. If using fresh garlic, add a teaspoon of water. Season with some salt and pepper. 
• Chill the mixture for at least 2 hours to marinate. I let mine marinate for about 4 hours and it was fine.
• Mix the flours and seasoning in a bowl, and mix with water until you get a consistency of crepe batter. Chill for 30 minutes.
• Heat the deep frying oil to 180C. Or, if shallow frying, heat about half an inch of oil in a frying pan on medium-high heat. 
• Shape the mixture into 12 nuggets, and dust with flour. Dip each nugget in the batter, then put in the oil. 
• Cook for 5 to 6 minutes (flipping halfway if shallow frying) until the batter is crispy, but still pale. 
• Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before returning to the oil for a further 5 to 6 minutes until a delicious golden colour and very crispy.
• Serve with chips and dipping sauces, like ketchup or sweet chili sauce.

Variation
You can skip the batter and fry the chicken in burger patties, and serve in toasted buns with lettuce and tomato. Or, you could make meatballs and serve in teriyaki sauce with jasmine rice and steamed vegetables.

Making My Own Wedding Cake, Part 2: Wedding Cake Recipe

And here it is at last: the actual recipe for the wedding cake and cupcakes! After months of planning, designing, and practicing, it finally came together.... with a few unfortunate incidents (which you can read all about in Part 1)

(I'm awaiting the professional photos: this was taken by a guest, Simon)

This recipe isn't complicated, just time consuming. I made the main cake and 120 cupcakes over the course of a few days: I can only fit 24 cakes in my oven at once, so I had to do 5 batches in total. 

I baked, cooled, and iced each two-dozen cupcakes at a time before freezing, iced and all. However, if you want to add other decorations like sprinkles, they don't freeze well at all so the cakes will have to be frozen un-iced then iced and decorated after defrosting.

I baked the Madeira cake, sliced it into layers, and then froze it in advance before completely defrosting to fill and decorate a few days before the wedding. I recommend making the cake about two days in advance to let the syrup soak in and for the whole cake to set nicely.

My husband Simon hand-painted the figurines that sat atop the cake. Despite giving the hotel instructions on how to mount them on the two provided flower nails and place them into the cake, they simply balanced the models on the cake. Next time I do a cake like this, I'll send a family member in to oversee the construction if I can't be there!

(I'm awaiting the professional photos: these were taken by a guest, Katie)

The ladybirds were bought from Lidl during their Easter season. I used them because they're black and red, like our theme colours. You could always decorate with seasonal flowers, toothpick flags, or even fondant figures or flowers.

For the cupcakes, make sure to get cases that are coloured inside and outside: some coloured cake cases are white cases that have been printed with edible ink on the outside, but better quality cases are made out of paper that is dyed which gives them a solid colour, inside and out. SuperValu sells them in packs of 50, and as of writing this they cost €2 a pack. Or, buy Culpitt brand cases online from Amazon or eBay.

INGREDIMENTS
There are many, many ingredients

Lemon Cupcakes

For 2 dozen cupcakes

5 eggs, at room temperature

10 ounces (285 grammes) caster sugar

5 ounces (140 grammes) sunflower oil

2 teaspoons vanilla essence, or 1 teaspoon of vanilla pod paste

10 drops almond essence

Grated zest of half a large lemon

5 tablespoons (75 millilitres) milk

10 ounces (285 grammes) plain white flour

⅝ teaspoon baking soda

¼ tsp ground sea salt
24 solid black cake cases (see note above)

To ice

8 ounces (225 grammes) salted butter

8 ounces (225 grammes) condensed milk

1 pound (455 grammes) icing sugar, sifted

Up to 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) extra milk

Zest of quarter of a large lemon

1 teaspoon vanilla pod paste

Chocolate Cupcakes

For 2 dozen

5 eggs, at room temperature

10 ounces (285 grammes) caster sugar

5 ounces (140 grammes) sunflower oil

2 teaspoons vanilla essence, or 1 teaspoon of vanilla pod paste

5 tablespoons (75 millilitres) milk

1½ ounces (45 grammes) cocoa powder, preferably Bournville or another good brand

8½ ounces (240 grammes) plain white flour

⅝ teaspoon baking soda

¼ tsp ground sea salt
24 solid red cake cases (see note above)

To ice

8 ounces (225 grammes) salted butter

8 ounces (225 grammes) condensed milk

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

1½ ounces (45 grammes) cocoa powder

14½ ounces (410 grammes) icing sugar, sifted

Two 19g packages of red gel food colouring (I bought mine from Aldi)
If you're not using the colouring, add up to 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) of milk to adjust the consistency


To Make the Cupcakes

• Preheat the oven to 180C (350F) and line two muffin tins with cupcake cases (mine measured 3cm x 5cm). Make sure all of your ingredients are at room temperature.
• Sieve the flour (and cocoa) with the baking soda and salt very well. Set aside.
• In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together until about doubled in size, a pale lemon colour, and looks like a loose foam.
• While running the mixer, drizzle in the oil in a steady stream. Don't overbeat, though: adding the oil should take all of about 15 seconds.
• Fold in the milk and flavourings (vanilla, almond essence, lemon zest, etc.), then sieve in the dry ingredients. Fold well: don't fret too much about overmixing, and be careful not to undermix.
• Divide the mixture between the 24 cake cases, using a scoop or measuring cup/spoon. Fill the cases about halfway, two-thirds at the most.
• Bake the cakes for 14 to 16 minutes, turning the trays through 180 degrees halfway through baking. If the two trays are on different shelves, swap them around too. Do this very carefully so the cakes don't get deflated.
• Once baked, remove from the oven and tap the tins very firmly on the work surface to burst any air bubbles.
• Transfer the cakes to a cooling rack and cool completely before decorating.

To Make the Icing

• Make sure your ingredients are all room temperature, including the condensed milk.
• In a mixing bowl, beat the butter and condensed milk together until light and fluffy. Add the dry ingredients in four additions, beating well after each one. To adjust the consistency, add milk between the additions of dry ingredients, but add no more than one or two teaspoons at a time.
• If colouring, add the colouring in gradually until you have the colour you want.
• Ice the cakes, and then immediately freeze for later use, or store in an airtight container for up to a week.

Lemon Layer Cake

For the cake

One 8 inch Madeira cake, made with 5 eggs' worth of ingredients, and flavoured with lemon zest, lemon juice, almond essence, and vanilla pod paste (details below)
4 ounces (115 grammes) lemon curd, homemade or shop-bought
Lemon simple syrup, or soaking

For the icing

9 ounces (250 grammes) white chocolate, cut into small pieces
3 ounces (85 grammes) caster sugar
3 fluid ounces (85 millilitres) milk
3 ounces (85 grammes) salted butter, in small pieces
Vanilla pod paste
Optional: 1 teaspoon of lemon zest


To Make the Icing

• In a saucepan, heat the milk and sugar together until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil, and cook for only a minute.
• Take off the heat and stir in the white chocolate and butter. Return to very low heat, stirring continuously, until all the chocolate and butter has melted and the icing is smooth and consistent.
• Stir in the vanilla pod paste (and zest, if using) then allow the icing to cool completely, about two hours, stirring every so often to prevent crusting.
• Once cool, beat with an electric mixer until creamy, fluffy, and spreadable. Whipping the icing makes it lighter and makes it go further, but if you want a denser, American fudge style icing don't whip it.
• Be careful not to whip too much! It can cause the icing to go crumbly. If that happens, simply melt it down again, and repeat the cooling and whipping.

To Assemble the Cake

• Bake the cake according to the above link, scaling up all the ingredients in proportion with 5 eggs. Flavour it with the zest of a lemon, 2 teaspoons of vanilla pod paste, and half a teaspoon of almond essence.
• You can use the juice of the lemon to make the lemon simple syrup. Pour the syrup into a large dish, big enough to dip the cake layers in.
• Once the cake is baked and cooled, slice into two layers and dip both sides of each layer in the simple syrup. Layer the cake with the lemon curd in the middle
• Crumb coat the cake, then chill for about 20 minutes before finishing the icing and decorating.

As you can see, there's a lot of making here! But, it was all worth it in the end. I think the cake disaster was a blessing in disguise, as it led me to using the white chocolate fudge icing that was a mega hit! If, however, you want to see how I was going to make the cake with the white chocolate glaze, I'll shortly be uploading a lovely white chocolate and coffee cake recipe....

To everyone who came to the wedding, and to everyone who helped on my journey, thank you all from the bottom of my heart! I hope that in sharing my experiences, anyone out there who wants to attempt their own cake is well and thoroughly warned!!

Making My Own Wedding Cake, Part 1: What I Learnt, and My Reflections

28 years a single woman, and one day changed it all! I have been a married woman for three weeks and, my God, it’s still surreal.

(Part One is where I share my feelings on the experience of planning my wedding and making my cake. For the recipe for the cake itself, click here)

My wedding day to Simon went by so incredibly fast it’s like it didn’t even happen; it was like a dream! I got up at 7:30 on Saturday June 22^nd, and it went from getting my hair and makeup done, to getting my dress put on at the hotel, to getting legally married in the church I’d grown up in, having family photos, back to the hotel for a wonderful snacks and bubbly reception on a red carpet, into the function room for a delicious meal and dessert, then dancing to live music for hours on end and before I knew it it was 02:00 in the morning.

To me, it felt like Christmas dinner: you spend months preparing for, then hours making the dinner, and it takes less than an hour to eat. Simon, my parents and I spent 16 months planning the wedding, which went off without a hitch, and it was literally all over in 18 hours. It’s hard to tell a worrying bride-to-be that it’s only one day in the rest of your lives, but until you've been through the whole “forever planning, but over in a flash” thing yourself, you won’t actually believe it. And, as with all things, there are things you learn in the planning process. The issue is with weddings, you don’t really ever plan to “do it differently the next time”! I’ll just have to pass the wisdom onto my other bride-to-be friends, and to my sons and/or daughters when their time comes, decades from now.

Wedding Things I Learnt, and Would Advise

The main thing I was taught by the planning was don’t let planning take over your life! Set aside a certain amount of time in the week for planning, or even set aside days of the week that are your planning days, and then live your normal life the rest of the time. Don’t neglect your friends, your hobbies, or your time off. It’ll make you miserable, and anxious.

If planning the wedding with family, remember to do un-wedding related stuff with them too. Don't let the wedding come between you and your relationship with parents and siblings. Especially when money is involved.

Don’t skimp on a photographer or videographer. Make sure your special day is recorded well, and that you’ll get a wonderful album of photos and a lovely video to look back on as you age together. Maybe your kids will want to see them, too! I love looking at my grandmother’s wedding photos, and I know our grandchildren will love looking at ours.

Also, people will remember the bride and groom’s outfits, the food, and the entertainment; the other, smaller stuff will fade from memory. We chose a band which we knew were solid professionals who played excellent music, and the dancefloor was on fire for the whole night. We chose our hotel based pretty much completely on the food, and it was a wise choice: our guests waxed lyrical about how excellent the food and the service was.  But, most likely, the guests won’t remember what our ring box looked like, or that the roses printed on the service sheets were the wrong shade of red. 

(On the topic of the hotel: make your life easy and go with a venue that pretty much has everything included in their package. All I had to do was send them the seating plan, tell them what food we wanted, and turn up two days before with any extra decorations and the cake. They were a dream to work with, because at no point was I worrying about doing everything.)

But anyway, speaking of sweating the small stuff, that’s where the cake comes in: nobody really paid attention to the icing I spent hours agonising over, or to the coordinated paper cases, they remembered that the cake was delicious. Success!

(This was taken by a guest, Katie. I'm waiting for the professional pictures)

The Cake Design

I asked Simon what kind of cake he wanted, and he said a lemon drizzle. I explained that it’s a fairly rustic cake that would suit the naked cake trend very well. Simon, however, doesn’t like the naked cake trend: he says it looks unfinished. So, we settled for a lemon layer cake with white chocolate icing: lemon and almond cake layers, layered with lemon curd and soaked in lemon syrup, flat iced with lemon and vanilla buttercream, and finally glazed with white chocolate for a smooth finish (this ended up not happening in quite that way, but I’ll get to that later).

As I have written about in previous blogs, we opted for cupcakes to feed the guests. As such, I made 120 cakes (we only had 95 guests, but it was to have extras just in case.... and every single one was eaten), half of which were lemon vanilla, and the other half were chocolate.

(This was taken by a guest, Simon. I'm waiting for the professional pictures)

Simon painstakingly painted the toppers by hand. As a hobby, he paints Games Workshop models, which are collectable models usually in the shape of fantasy soldiers, wizards, or robots. He painted two models, one a man and one a woman. They were placed back to back on the cake.

I also had some cute little chocolate ladybirds, which I buy in Lidl whenever they’re on sale. They have them in stock normally every other Easter season.

Making the Cake

My cake was made in two stages: first, the fairy cakes were baked, iced, and frozen two weeks in advance, along with the sponge for the main cake. On the Thursday before the wedding, which was on a Saturday, I defrosted the main cake and filled and decorated it.

Decorating the cake hit a few snags, however. Bizarrely, my husband agreed to let his brother and mother stay in our house for the week before the wedding, despite my mother having cleaned her own entire house for them to stay in for the week. He was very nervous, and I’d say he wanted them around him, but having my panicking husband-to-be and two extra guests in the house was not what I needed to make the cake!

White chocolate is notoriously difficult to work with, and I unfortunately had a disaster while working with it. Because I was distracted by my guests, I accidentally poured the white chocolate ganache on the buttercreamed cake while it was still hot. This, of course, melted the whole thing. Not a worry! It’s not what I wanted, but it was fixable. I scraped the melted icing off, and re-iced it.

I had popped the cake in the freezer to chill the outer layer of buttercream to prep it for another coat of ganache (cooled, this time), and in his excitement to show his brother and mother, he accidentally knocked it over, destroying the icing and some of the little cakes. Needless to say, I lost my temper. My mother came to pick me up to finish the cake in her house instead. I opted out of the glazing idea, and just used the leftover ganache to make some white chocolate fudge icing and iced the cake with swirling designs.

Transporting the cakes

Over the Christmas period in work, I collected all the plastic tubs from chocolates and biscuits and collected a good 10 or 12 tubs. I used these to store the cakes in the freezer. Simon and I bought a chest freezer specifically for the purpose of making the wedding cake.

To move them from the house, I bought some cardboard boxes on eBay. Each box housed 24 cupcakes, so I bought 5, which --  including postage – came to about £24. They were delivered from England within 5 days, and arrived on the Tuesday before the wedding.

On the Thursday before the wedding, my brother and I packed the boxes with the frozen cakes, taped them shut, and wrote the important information on the top. He then took them to the hotel, where they arrived, defrosted, in perfect condition. The boxes also fit perfectly in the boot of my brother's car.

The following day, the main cake was also transported. I made sure to get him a gift for all the work he did, and also for his partner, who ended up being my maid of honour. I had originally asked by sister-in-law, but she gave birth 5 weeks before the wedding so she had enough on her hands!

(Saying "Goodbye!" to the cakes before they headed to the hotel)

Reflection

Firstly, I’m still a little disappointed in the result of the icing on the main cake, but nobody noticed it in the end, so I worried over nothing. Nobody really looked at the cake (only one guest took pictures of it, and we’re still waiting for the photographer to give us his pictures), and once people ate it it was all cut up and no-one could see the icing job anyway.

Secondly, the cardboard boxes were a great investment. If you ever need to move cupcakes, get some!

Lastly, the main lesson I learnt, is that even if you practise making a cake a hundred thousand times, you can still make mistakes. Big, massive mistakes. I made 120 cupcakes that went perfectly well, and then I made a big cake which I had done practise and test runs of a hundred times, but it didn’t work on the day. My Dad used a great analogy: “Olympic athletes train for years. They dedicate hours of their lives to their sport. And even once they have been chosen to represent their country, they can still make mistakes once the pressure of competing is put on them”.

I've learnt a lot about making things under pressure!

If you're gonna make your own wedding cake, make sure that when you're working on it your environment is peaceful and exactly how you need it to be to work properly. If you need to banish people from your house, do it. If you need to listen to blaring music or prefer working in silence, do it. And, for the love of God, don't worry about wasting ingredients! It'll happen, it's inevitable. But even if a cake goes horribly wrong and you have to start again, it'll still be cheaper than commissioning a cake.

And also, try to make as much of it in advance as possible.

Conclusion

All in all, I enjoyed the experience, and the wedding was wonderful! I've learnt so much about baking for events, and I think I did very well all things considered! I hope you've enjoyed reading about my experiences!