FUN WITH BAKING

Im obsessed at the moment with baking.. I mean apart from my usual array of cupcakes in the past week I've whipped up a victoria sponge (3 times!) a steak and cheese pie with some delicious flakey pastry, sticky cinnamon buns and a fresh white loaf.

Nick came back from a trip to Peggy Porschen with a wonderful baking book full of not only recipes but really great step by step tips on building presentation cakes, handling different types of icing, fondant, royal, marzipan etc and making decorations, as well as some amazing gel colours and cake smoothers. I got a little over exicted, where do I start!!!

Well firstly its Nicks birthday so I thought I better make him a cake. Its going to be a two tiered chocolate sponge cake, I used the Green and Blacks dark cherry chocolate in it which we got at the G&Bs event last night (more on that later) and I'm covering it with blackberry cassis flavoured buttercream. Now do I cover this in fondant and some of the sugar paste decorations I've been playing with? Problem with me is I just want to eat it now... the patience required to make these decorations is hard when I could just eat it all up in about 2 seconds.

Im in two mind to cover it with fondant icing because first I'm not a massive fan and secondly I'd rather just have the butter cream. BUT it is a good way to practice using fondant on a round cake as previously I've only used it on a rectangular cake and also I can use my lovely new icing smoothers Nick got me.

Today I found my most perfect new favourite shop in the world. Party Party!! on Ridley Road in Dalston. I was in bakers heaven. Every colour, flavour, gel, gum, icing, cookie cutter, modelling tools, rolling pins, cake stands, moulds, flowers, decorations you can imagine or ever want right here only a short ride from my house.. Hooray!!   Hence the sugar paste decorations I've been making for Nicks cake...

Bascically all this excitement stemed from watching the Great British Bake Off recently and getting really in to trying to get a 'good bake' comment from Mary or Paul. In my head I'm not there yet...
Anyway now Im doublely happy because on Monday 31st October the finalists of the 2011 Great British Bake Off are holding a bake sale at the Islington Central Library between 10am and 2pm to money for Sports Relief. I’m going down to get some tips, I hope Mary’s there!

 

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