Birthday Cake: Chocolate Cake for Dad!

It was my dads birthday yesterday and we had a lovely day! I offered to make a cake (my mum is very happy now i 'do cakes') and thought you can't go wrong with a chocolate cake. My dad was diagnosed with diabetes a few months ago so i should have made a no sugar/no fat/no taste cake, but i thought he could have a little slice...what harm can it do (apart from make him sneeze...i have no idea why but he now sneezes every time he has sugar! Weird!)

Here's the recipe:

6oz Butter

6oz sugar

6oz Self Raising Flour

3 Eggs (beaten)

Dash of milk

2 Tbsp Cocoa

Small bar of Dairy Milk

1. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy

2. Gradually stir in the flour, cocoa and eggs

3. Stir in the milk

4. Melt the bar of chocolate, keeping one piece to one side, and stir into the cake mixture

5. Grease two round tins and pour in the mixture, spread out with a knife

6. Cook on Gas Mark 5 for 20 minutes

7. Take out of the tins and place on a wire rack until cool

You can then decorate however you like! I made a butter cream icing and added cocoa to make it nice and chocolatey, then spread it all around the cake. I then grated my remaining piece of chocolate and some Milky Bar over the top and then gave it a little sprinkling of edible glitter!

Birthday Cake: Carrot and Orange Cake

Another day, another cake order! ( i wish...don't have any pending at the minute, eeek!)

I made my friend Gabrielle's dad a carrot and orange cake for his birthday.

If you want the recipe it's exactly the same as the cupcakes i made (see previous post). I just made it in two round tins and then decorated with butter cream, orange zest, grated white chocolate white chocolate. Turned out well and was enjoyed by all the family!

Look how professional the boxes look with my business card on!! Wooo!

Business Cards

I finally got round to doing some business cards. My dad is going to print some for me, but i thought i should do some arts and crafts in the meantime...and they turned out really well! I did have a slight nervous breakdown though after realising i had put the wrong blog address on all the business cards i had done! Argh! Luckily managed to fix the problem with my swanky new gold pen! At least it was only half of them...

Check them out, i'm rather proud!

Birthday Cake: 30th Birthday

Another cake order yey!! This time is was a friend who's husband was turning 30. The spec this time was that she wanted it in the shape of a 3 and an 0 (which did panic me slightly) and she wanted it chocolate flavour. It turned out really well, another happy customer. I was more nervous doing this one with it being the first one for an adult...but she loved it, yippeee!

I made it by making a basic cake mix, but adding a couple of tablespoons of cocoa and a small bar of melted chocolate to the mix. This was distributed into one rectangular greased tin and two circular greased tins.

I made a buttercream, but again added cocoa and then got on with the decoration. The rectangular cake was cut into two and sandwiched together with some of the icing, then cut into the shape of a three. The circular cakes were also sandwiched together with some of the icing, a hole was cut in the middle and then it was trimmed so it was a similar size to the three.

Then I covered each cake completely in the chocolate icing and decorated it with Caramel Nibbles (have you tried these? Amazing), chocolate buttons, grated white chocolate and a touch if edible glitter.

Voilà!!

Apologies about the attractive presentation of the cake i.e. the oven dish...none of my cake tins have been returned yet...need to get myself some cake boxes.

Tiffin Recipe!

My tiffin recipe was inspired by the yummy piece I had at Kendal Calling last weekend. I feel a bit weird calling it tiffin though as it I know it as Chocolate Biscuit Cake. I used to make it all the time with my mum when I was younger and it was one of my favourite things to eat...turns out it still is. It's a really easy recipe as it doesn't involve any oven time, which is also why it's known as 'no bake chocolate cake.' I wonder why it has so many names??

Here's the recipe for you to try out...please do...you won't regret it.

100g Butter

25g Soft Brown Sugar

3 Tbsp Cocoa

4 Tbsp Golden Syrup

225 Crushed Digestives

150g Raisins or your dried fruit of choice (optional, I didn't use it...might add to your five a day though!)

Big bar of Dairy Milk (to melt on the top)

1. Put all your ingredients apart from the chocolate and biscuits in a pan and heat gently until all melted

2. Crush your biscuits (I did it with by putting them in a plastic bag and bashing them frantically with a rolling bin...and yes, I did split the bag!)

3. Stir the biscuits into the melted mixture

4. Press the mixture into a greased tin

5. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot water and then spread over the cake

6. Put in the fridge until set, slice into big or small pieces (maybe small, it's very sweet) and eat eat eat.

It's best to leave it in the fridge rather than take it out and put it in a tin as the nice thick layer of chocolate stays all yummy and solid!

Kendal Calling!!

We went to Kendal Calling last weekend so didn't get any chance to do any baking. It was a fab festival, near Penrith in the Lakes District and me and the other half had a great time. With it being quite small there weren't that many 'big acts' playing so it was great just wandering between the different stages and finding out about some new music...not to mention eating AMAZING food. I know this is a cake blog....so i do feel a bit naughty, but we sampled some food from the Seychelles (yeah, not what i expected at a festival either) and it was sooooo good. I had the coconut chicken curry all three days for my tea and am still desperately trawling the internet to find a recipe! Enough about the savouries anyway....

What really got me through the weekend was a lovely little organic 'cafe' which sold coffee/cakes/cereals...all organic and all solar powered...i felt so very green! the hazelnut lattes were to die for and they had a great little selection of cakes.

The staff were so lovely and didn't look at me too strangely as i rocked up in my wellies, hair all over the place, sunglasses on (it was early...do people not sleep at festivals?).

I didn't get much cake eaten though (probably too full from all the curry) although i did have a delicious slice of tiffin which inspired me to make some when i got home (will put the recipe up next)

All in all we had a great weekend and I'm looking forward to going back next year...unless I've moved to the Seychelles. :)