Heres some Examples of what I do at school.

I said I study patisserie and confectionary I would show you what I do every Thursday I will have to keep updating every week but here is a little sneak peak of MY classroom activities. You jelly?
 This isn't everything just a few little treats I thought you would like.

Pork pies

Lemon cake with tempered white chocolate 

Chocolate cakes with tempered white chocolate squares 

tuile biscuits, chocolate roulade and lemon almond loaf

Chocolate torte with tempered chocolate 

 A selection of breads 

Savarin dough, croissants and spun sugar 

Chocolate souffle 

Pear and caramel mousse 

I guess I should tell you how to ice the damn thing

So as I the title suggests I am going to tell you about butter icing (this is the icing I use the most)
This icing is fantastic for flavouring and colouring without compromising the texture too much by adding more liquid. When piped or spread on cupcakes it looks wonderful.

This recipe is for about 12 cupcakes for a good amount of icing on top or a large cake up to 9 inches big. If this makes too much for your product you can always freeze the left overs and use at another time.

300g/10oz butter
500g/17oz icing sugar
First thing you have to do is whip the butter to soften it so it’s easier to mix in the icing sugar.
Next add the icing sugar bit by bit otherwise it will fly everywhere! Use a tea towel over the bowl to stop making a huge mess. If you think the mixture is too dry or not light enough you can always add a bit of milk but only about a tablespoon.

That’s pretty much it. You can add any flavouring you wish for example a teaspoon of vanilla or mint or banana or anything really...
always taste in case you need more flavouring.
Recently I have been experimenting with flavours that go with chocolate, so far I have made mint choc chip cup cakes which turned out very good. (Chocolate cake recipe to come soon) and orange and chocolate chip cupcakes.

We built cake city, we built cake city...

MY CAKES!

I thought i would show you some of the cakes I have made and decorated.

 Easter.

This turned out really good for an Elvis themed birthday party. so Elvis rainbow cake.

I made these cuties for my sisters baby shower. 

So she had the baby and this was the christening cake.

Just something I whipped up for a friend. 

Diamond wedding anniversary cake.

Me and the boyfriend made this for our joint 21st. The best part was the layers, the top tier was banana and chocolate sandwiched with chocolate. The bottom tier was coffee and chocolate sandwiched with chocolate. 

 Chocolate and orange cake.

This was my final project in craft studies at the National Bakery School. 6 mini cakes in the theme of a festival, I chose Woodstock.

Let’s Start At the Very Beginning

So… this is my blog and it will be mostly about cakes and pastries. I thought I would start right at what I think is the easiest and post my recipe for a plain sponge or Victoria sponge, because this is a brilliant cake to be able to make and is always a winner.

 I use  this recipe for cakes and cup cakes. And just so you know I use ounces (because my mother is old fashioned) but will try to convert my recipes to grams. 

People always ask me my techniques for making a good sponge. Do I weigh my eggs? How do I make it rise? Why does it sink? etc. I hope I can answer all these questions. 

Ingredients:

6oz/ 170g Caster sugar 

6oz/ 170g Butter 

1 tea spoon (tsp) vanilla extract

3 Eggs 

6oz/170g Self raising flour

1 tea spoon (tsp) baking powder

Recipe:

• First thing you do is CREAM the butter and sugar. Creaming is mixing the two ingredients together until they are a pale colour, light and fluffy, you cream the butter and sugar to get small air bubbles trapped between the fat, this helps the cake rise and is one of the most important mixing methods. 
• Next add the vanilla and incorporate it in to the mixture.
• Weigh the flour and add the baking powder to it, make sure you mix the baking powder in the flour because you don’t want big lumps of baking powder in your batter or large air bubble in the batter.
•  Now add one egg then a table spoon (tbsp) of the flour mix, and continue until you have used up the three eggs. 
• The last thing is to fold the remaining flour mix in to the batter until it’s just fully mixed in. This is also to help the cake rise.
• Now my final tip is bake the cake at 180 degrees for approx. 20 minutes. When the cake is cooked you will know this by pressing your finger on the top and if it springs back up then it’s cooked. 

well I hope this helps explain few things and gets you baking. more to come very soon.