Gravity defying cake

This is the cake I made for my mum and dad for their anniversary. It is a Victoria sponge filled with butter icing and strawberry jam, and the decoration is made out of roll out icing. I was really proud that this cake turned out like this, and I was so happy with how it looked once it had been finished!

Maple apple puffs

These were made following a recipe from The Great British Bake Off recipe book. I was a bit disappointed because the pastry didn't puff up in the oven like they were supposed to. However, the filling was really sweet; the combination of apple, maple sauce and cinnamon worked really well together, and although the pastry didn't have that flaky texture like it should have done, it was still really sweet and tasted good.

Chocolate cupcakes

These are chocolate cupcakes which I made for my friend's 18th birthday. They are decorated with chocolate ganache and chocolate sprinkles. Everyone loved them! The cake was soft and moist with the occasional chocolate chunk, whereas the ganache was silky, smooth and creamy. I love this recipe (from Cakes, Bakes and Cupcakes recipe book), and I will definitely be making them again.



Giant cupcake cake

This is the cake I made for my Granny's birthday. I used a Victoria sponge recipe to make the cake, and baked it in a giant cupcake tin I had brought a while ago. For the filling I used butter icing and lemon curd. I then piped the remaining butter icing on top of the cake, and I also piped lemon curd in a swirl on top of the icing. Finally, I sprinkled sprinkles on the icing and stuck white chocolate fingers around the base of the cake with butter icing. Everyone said they enjoyed it, but I thought that there wasn't enough icing in the middle of the cake. But overall I was happy with how it looked and tasted, and I'm happy my Gran liked her birthday cake.

Custard Tarts

I attempted making Egg Custard tarts again, and this time they turned out better than before. I used a round cutter that I had recently brought, which made it easier to get the tarts out of the tin, so this time none of them crumbled. The pastry was sweet and short, and the filling was sweet and creamy. I really enjoyed these, and thought they were a real improvement on last time! 

Strawberry tart

This is a strawberry tart I made yesterday afternoon. I found the recipe on the Good Housekeeping website. The shortcrust pastry was sweet and short, the creme patissiere was really nice, and the strawberries were sweet and worked well with the rest of the tart. However, the sides of the pastry fell down during blind baking, meaning the tart wasn't as tall as it should have been. Also, the edges of the tart wasn't very neat, so next time I will make sure I trim the pastry neater. Finally, I would slice the strawberries and arrange them that way, as they would have covered the whole top of the tart and looked more appealing. But everyone enjoyed it and it was all eaten the same day I had made it, which is always a good sign!

Happy birthday Chris!

I made this for my brother's birthday. It is a chocolate fudge cake cut in half and filled and covered with chocolate orange ganache. I had made this ganache before, but I made it to be chocolate orange flavour by substituting half of the milk chocolate for chocolate orange segments. Also, Chris loves Smarties, so I adapted this cake to turn it into a piñata cake. This was done by cutting a circle into the middle of both cake halves, and scooping out the cake. I then filled this with Smarties and placed the cakes together. After covering the cake with ganache I arranged some chocolate orange segments on the top of the cake, grated another segment and sprinkled this on top. I then scraped a fork around the edge of the cake to create the pattern you can see on it. Although I'm not a fan of chocolate cake, I did enjoy this, and I really liked the ganache. Luckily, everyone else did too, especially Chris - he said it was the best birthday cake he had ever had, and I have my work cut out trying to make a better one for next year ehe!