I kind of feel like a princess after making this cake!
My friend emailed me a few weeks ago asking if I could make a cake for her daughter's 5th birthday party. She then mentioned they were keen on a princess castle cake. As you will very quickly pick up by reading my blog, I have a son and to date have had no excuse to make a super girly cake... until now!!! So of course I immediately said yes and then had lots of fun researching a cake design.
I had already committed to making a Carnival Cake from my son's school fete and had planned on using fondant to decorate it. I had never used fondant before and wanted to practice before the Carnival Cake. While researching for the princess cake, I found many recipe that used fondant and knew this was my chance.
Why you may ask did I have want to make and decorate a girly cake? Well, for some reason I find the older I get, the more girly I become. When I was a teenager, I never wore dresses or skirts and was pretty shy. I never seemed to like typical girl colours, like pink and purple, always opting for green. I don't actually think there's anything wrong with that, however as I reached my mid 20s, I realised I owned NO pants, only dresses or skirts (that includes jeans, I did not and still do not own a pair of jeans), and I even found some pink sneaking into my wardrobe. Now, having recently turned 30, I love glitter and I own a fair bit of purple.
So, back to the princess cake - why wouldn't I jump at this chance. And on that note, why did I wait to do it for a five year old? I should have made this cake for my birthday!!!
I was just sitting at my computer, feeling a little irritated and stressed, so decided to take 5 minutes to browse some of my favourite blogs. I always find this takes my mind off being annoyed and helps me refocus. Yes, technically I am at work and should be "working", but today I haven't had a lunch break so don't believe I am being naughty :-). Also, I'm in Marketing, so any website or blog browsing can be considered research... kind of.
So, I started looking at my top 5 blogs. I started with Raspberri Cupcakes and found a delicious looking Orange Tea Cake and instantly decided I needed to do some baking tonight. That then reminded me, I haven't posted my cheesecake from my sibling's dinner last week - whoops. So here it is, along with my Top 5 de-stress baking blogs (in no particular order): Raspberri Cupcakes, Sprinkle Bakes, Bakers Royale, Sweetapolita and Tastespotting.
It was my birthday recently and I felt like celebrating with something pretty, but fresh and tastey. It's been a while since I've made a cheesecake, so thought I'd whip out my favourite recipe and give it a makeover. What resulted was a wonderful white chocolate and strawberry cheesecake. As always, the cheesecake was light and fluffy, but had a delicious sweetness from the white chocolate and a fresh buzz from the strawberries. It was a great way to celebrate entering the final year of my twenties.
Another birthday, another layer cake. I really wanted to bake a caramel cake for my brother's birthday on the weekend. I searched the internet for a caramel cake recipe that looked delicious and wouldn't take four hours to bake. I then thought about how I could add texture and found a simple honeycomb recipe that would be delicious between the layers of my caramel cake. Once I had finally decided on what to make, I got baking. The first thing I did was make the honeycomb... first issue, no honey. However, I had treacle, so thought "why not give that a go?" It looked ok, a bit darker than honeycomb, but didn't foam up the same way and wasn't crunchy, so left that. Then I went to start on the caramel cakes. I pulled out all my ingredients to find I had no more brown sugar. So, with treacle-comb unsuccessful and no brown sugar for a caramel cake, I decided to go onto plan B... a white and dark chocolate layer cake.
I don't know how my caramel cake would have turned out, I'll probably tell you next brithday, but I can tell you the white and dark chocolate cake was delicious, and even more special with the white chocolate buttercream! ENJOY!
I belive it's important to bring something to share when going visiting. It might not be shared while you're over, but the gesture is there and it makes you feel like a good guest. When I don't have time to bake, I always stop by a bakery. More often than not though, I'm disappointed with what I buy. The taste is either boring or it isn't fresh enough. So, I generally try to make something myself, which gives me the feeling that my gift is more genuine.
Today I am meeting my Manager's baby for the first time. We through her a Baby Shower recently and I got to bake super sweet and decadent treats. However, now I need to take breatfeeding and windy babies into consideration and I've scaled my baking back. Today I've made her White Chocolate and Coconut Muffins. Coming into Autumn with the air cool and crisp, the lovely warmness of these fresh muffins with a light sweetness to them is not just comforting, but feels perfect for a first baby meeting.
