Snooker Cake

                     Happy Birthday John!

Here is a 70th birthday cake I made. it took 3 10"x10" vanilla cakes and 12 hours work with my mum but we did it! Im very proud of my snooker cake and I really like the beer, chalk and cues which are made from chop sticks cut to sizeand coloured.

Chocolate chip cookies

I have been recently experimenting with cakes, pastries and biscuits I don’t usually make, so I decided to make some cookies and I came across this recipe which turned out to be really good. The difference with this recipe to your usual biscuit recipe is that the cookies ask for oats, normal porridge oats, it really gives the biscuit a great texture and unique taste that has become very addictive.

 Chewy Oat and Chocolate chip cookies

Serves: 42

• 250g butter, softened
• 200g light brown soft sugar
• 75g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 150g flour
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 260g porridge oats
• 125g chopped walnuts (optional)
• 175g chocolate chips
  
  (this recipe is from allrecipes.co.uk)
  

1. So to start with cream the butter and sugar until a light colour then add the eggs and vanilla.
2. Next stir in the flour, bicarb and salt stir until just blended then add the oats and chocolate chips.
   
3.  Place even piles of the batter on a tray and bake for 12-15 minutes.

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Happy Easter

pastillage

Pastillage is sugar-based dough used for decorating and creating decorations for pastry, centre piece work and decorative moulded forms. The dough is much like clay or play-dough where you can knead  it and roll it out. Pastillage is worked then allowed to dry, setting up to a hard, sugar-based decoration. Depending on the mix, pastillage can be formed and sanded to remove any rough areas after it is completely dry. 

This piece is a centre piece of a mask and other elements. I didn’t want to use much colour to keep it minimal; the colour we used was powder colour. We used royal icing to pipe patterns on the work. 
Pastillage is very delicate work and you have to have a lot of patience to be able to work with this form of decoration.

Nana nana nana nana BATMAN!

 

 

Chocolate cake!

This chocolate cake recipe has the same amounts as a plain sponge but has chocolate (obviously) and is put together a little differently.

So here’s my recipe:

8oz/230g sugar
8oz/230g butter
200g plain/dark chocolate
4 egg yolks
4 egg whites
8 oz/230g S.R flour
1 tsp baking powder 

First melt the butter and chocolate together over a bain-marie or in the micro wave. If you are using a microwave do it in short bursts so that the chocolate doesn’t get burnt. Leave to cool.

The next step is to separate the egg yolk from the egg white. Mix the egg yolks with the sugar and the cooled chocolate mix.

This recipe doesn’t require you to cream the butter and sugar together to create air bubbles because of the next step which is to whisk the egg whites until they are stiff peaks. Make sure that there is no water or grease in the bowl you use to mix the whites in because otherwise they WILL NOT RISE!

Fold in the flour and baking powder; now fold in the whisked egg whites.

Bake for 20-30 minutes at 180

Enjoy!

Happy 1st Birthday!

My beautiful nephews first birthday was on friday. Happy Birthday Tadhg

He loved his cake and ate the first slice before anyone else had a chance. 

I made the teddy bear out of sugar paste. My siser made these cute cupcakes too.