Experimenting

Recently I had a few spare eggs and cream cheese icing so thought I would make a sponge cake and have some fun piping. The sponge turned out nice and tall for a change and I was able to put together a nice two layer cake.

For the person I had in mind for the cake, I knew they are a fan of Rosella Jam so I used this to fill the cake. Then proceeded to play with my piping skills. I haven't had much practice with the bag and nozzle so this was only a bit of fun. But the end result still looked ok.

I then used the Rosella jam on top for a bit of colour.

The end result was nice, but I still need a bit of practice on my sponge making as it wasn't as fluffy as I would have liked. If any one has any tips, I'd love to hear them.

Easter Order

Over Easter I was asked to make something a bit different. I was asked if I did biscuits and slices. I love to cook any thing so I said I would give them a go. I was asked to produce a few batches of cookies and a couple of slices. I could choose what I thought would be good. The only condition was that only one slice could have coconut in it.

So I set off in search of some recipes and tried to find some that would slice up and store well. Because I wanted to jazz up the end product I wanted to put every thing in nice jars. As most people know the majority of slices are soft or sticky or contact coconut. So I settle on Choc Muesli Slice (the one with coconut), Toscanner Slice, Caramel and Peanut Creams and Apricot Bubble Biscuits.

I find that biscuits and slices are easy to do but the hard part is getting the cooking just right. Too long and they go too crunchy and too little cooking and they are too soft. I like a good median with them not too hard and not too soft.
Next time I will cook the Apricot Bubble Biscuits on a lower heat as they browned a little too much to my liking. I will also cook the toffee for the Toscanner Slice a little longer to give it that little more crunch. I think the Toscanner slice would also benefit from a little lemon rind in the middle layer.

The recipes for all of these can be found at www.taste.com.au I love this website it utilises so many great magazines and you can have your saved cookbooks and recipes. Most recipes also have feedback from users that are most helpful.

Babtism Cupcakes

I was recently contacted by a lovely lady who was after some cupcakes for your little girl’s baptism. For a change the order was for vanilla cupcakes, which a great chance to play around with a few new recipes I wanted to try.

Once again the best recipe came from the ‘Devine Cupcakes’ by Tamara Jane. The cupcakes turned out light and flavoursome. This recipe also had the cupcake rise to perfect height when the cups were ¾ filled.

This time I experimented with white chocolate ganache to top the cupcakes as I thought this would have a better flavour with a little vanilla. I used vanilla paste as I didn’t want excess liquid to spoil the ganache. I used Whittaker’s White chocolate, which was lovely; however I must have done some thing wrong this time around as the ganache just seemed to separate, I need to work on this I think.

The order was for yellow and pink with flowers and butterflies. Luckily this time around I had my butterfly cutters on hand and was able to use them. I premade the butterflies a few days before the cupcakes to ensure they had plenty of time to harden and set. However again I had some trouble with them setting. The weather was still a bit humid and hot plus I only had cake art fondant in stock so I think the inferior product and the weather made my little butterflies a little flimsy.

But I think with all things considered they turned out lovely. I am getting faster at putting them together. The secret is having everything ready for assembly then it’s just a matter of bang bang and you’re done. Hope you like the pics