Chocolate Hazelnut Crêpe Cake

You think it sounds wrong, but its not. This cake is so right. My sister lives off of nutella crêpes every time we go to on holiday, I thought it would be fitting to make her one for her birthday this year. I layered each crêpe with three fillings- a dark chocolate ganache, a hazelnut milk chocolate cream and sprinkling of chopped hazelnuts.

This was amazing with chopped strawberries piled on top and vanilla ice cream or fresh double cream poured over. Needless to say, it didn't last long in my house full of chocolate lovers.

Pretty Nutty Cake

Maple and pecan is my favourite flavour combo like, ever. I've never had it in a cake before, so when I wanted to try out my new colour pastes and piping nozzles and found maple syrup and pecans in my cupboard, I thought i'd give it a go! The vanilla and maple syrup in the icing give it an amazing flavour, too.

This cake would look just as good without all the fancy icing, maybe just covered in buttercream with a handful of pecans in the middle. I made this a while back so the icing isn't great- but the taste was! I promise!

Cake Ingredients
755g caster sugar
150g brown sugar
225g softened butter
4 eggs
225g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
1-2 tbs maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla
200g pecan nuts, chopped

Maple Buttercream Ingredients
140g soft butter
280g sifted icing sugar
1-2tbs maple syrup (depending on consistency required)
1/2tsp vanilla

Method
(preheat oven to 180 Celsius, line a deep sandwich tin)

1. Cream together butter and sugar
2. Whisk in eggs one by one, then vanilla 1tbs maple syrup
3. Gradually sift in flour and baking powder
4. Add second tbs of maple syrup if needed for consistency
5. Stir in pecan nuts
6. Pour into baking tin and bake for 18-20 minutes or until pick comes out clean
7. Leave to cool in tin for 10 minutes
8. Meanwhile, blend together all buttercream ingredients
9. Remove cake from tin and leave to fully cool
10. Ice cake with buttercream and serve with cups of tea!

Enjoy! :) x

Rainbow cake #2

So, after the 'success' of my first rainbow cake, my best friends niece chose to have one for her birthday, too, and as it was a joint party- the calling was for two!

Although I would never make 2-6-level cakes in one day again, the girls were over the moon which made up for my rather stressful day! And the cakes were infinitely better than my first attempt!

The thing I struggled with is the colouring: growing up, we had those liquid food colours that would dye anything any colour with just a few drops (think cakes, icing, clothes, fingers...) however, now- probably because of all this e number fuss- these have been discontinued and replaced with gel food colouring- which takes about half a tube to colour one cake, and begins to change the flavour!

So what I have found are these colour pastes from the wonderful Cake Craft World. They're a little more expensive, but you only need the tiniest amount so they last for ages- plus, they give a really nice rich colour rather than the slightly fake colours from the dyes.


Each layer of cake is just less than half of a victoria sponge mix, but I trimmed all of the edges off after baking to help them to sit flatter. I also use baking butter for the cakes, but real butter for the buttercream. I used 3 of each colour sugar paste to cover the cakes, which left me with plenty for decorations and a bit left over.

Rainbow Cake.. my way!

I saw this cake on the internet and knew I wanted to attempt it for my best friend, who luckily has a rather large family! I love how people think its just a lovely looking white cake, then they slice into it and their faces light up!
However, the blog I found it didn't have a recipe, just the instructions to use 'White cake mix' and 'grape soda'. So I decided to use a plain and simple victoria sponge mix, and treble it...
My thinking was; one lot of the recipe makes two sponges, so i need three lots to get six sponges- no thought was there for A) the height of the cake and B) how was it not going to slide!
If you are making this cake , following my recipe, it will hopefully turn out smaller than mine and look a little more professional.. that said, my cake was huge and got mistaken for a wedding cake!


Utensil-wise, obviously a 6 layer cake seems daunting! I went out and brought 3 sets of Sainsburys Basics Cake Tins (cost around £2.50 for 2). They are slightly smaller than the average cake tin, which is a good thing for this cake! And ensured that they are all the same size. I also brought a set of 6 pint glasses (also very cheap) to ensure the cakes are the same size and to save on washing up!


Cake Ingredients (x3 for rainbow cake)
225g caster sugar
225g softened butter
4 eggs
225g self-raising flour
1-2 tbs milk
Your 6 gel food colourings (I couldn't find purple or orange, so mixed the other colours)


Method
(preheat the oven to 190 degree's Celsius, grease your 6 tins)

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth
2. Beat in the eggs
3. Sift the flour in whilst mixing
4. Add the milk as needed to make a good consistency
5. Divide the mixture into the 6 pint glasses, add the colours 1tsp at a time to achieve a nice bright colour
6. Put in the oven to bake for 18-20 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. If, like me, you have a smallish oven, you may only be able to fit 2 or 4 cakes in at a time. If this is the case, put the bottom colours of the cake in first, so that they can begin to cool as the others cook!
7. The cakes may well be slightly brown on the top and sides but when the cake is iced, you will only see the colours in the middle, anyway!
8. When the cakes are cooled, brush off the crumbs, trim the edges with scissors and begin to ice! I found it easiest to hold the sponge underneath with one hand, whilst icing the sides with the other hand, then placing it down and doing the top (repeat!)
9. Try and give a thick layer of buttercream, but both the buttercream and cakes need to be completely cooled, or else they will melt and slide (speaking from experience!)

tip: put a blob of buttercream on your cake board so the first layer sticks

Enjoy! x

Mario Galaxy Luigi Birthday Cake

This cake I made as a 4th birthday present to my best friends nephew. I wont post the recipe, as it really was just a double layer chocolate cake which I found in a recipe book at home. The icing took me a long time but I did it over a few days; sitting with a laptop for the pictures of mario galaxy and all my icing colours! I was so pleased with it for my first 'professional' looking cake, and he loved it!

Round the outside and lots of goomba's coins, rockets etc etc and the stars are held up by wire from an art shop!

I get all of my baking supplies from Cake Craft World- its pretty good :)

Carrot Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

I would never eat carrot cake when I was little because I hated the idea of a vegetable cake, but then I discovered the amazingness that is cream cheese frosting and decided to try one out- its good! I made them in cupcake form first, but it seems to work better as a proper cake. The thing which makes this carrot cake better than other recipe's you might find is that as soon as you take it out of the oven, you prick the top all over and feed the cake with lemon juice mixed with a little icing sugar. This gives it a sort of second topping, under the frosting which seems to work really well! Also, this is the only cake I ever use oil rather than butter, but I guess thats another factor which makes carrot cake a 'healthy cake'.


Ingredients
240g grated carrot
80g desiccated coconut
80g toasted walnuts (chopped coarsely)
240g self-raising flour
1/4tsp cinnamon
1/4tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
180ml sunflower oil
200g castor sugar 
+ Juice of half a lemon mixed with icing sugar


For the Cream Cheese Frosting
60g butter (soft)
120g light cream cheese
60g icing sugar
1tsp grated lemon rind


Method
(preheat oven to 170°C)
1. Sift the flour with baking powder and soda into a large mixing bowl with the caster sugar
2. In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs and add the vanilla essence
3. Beat the egg mix into the flour and stir in the coconut and carrots, followed by cooking oil and walnuts
4. Pour mixture into a greased bake tin and bake in the middle shelf for 45 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean
5. When you take the cake out of the oven, leave it to stand for 30 seconds before pricking the top all over with a knife and pouring over the lemon juice mix, making sure it all gets soaked in
6. Leave to fully cool


Frosting
1. Beat cream cheese and butter on a low speed setting until well blended
2. Gradually add the sifted icing sugar and blend until smooth
3. Finally, add the lemon rind


You can ice the cake however you like and put on decorations as you wish, I think it looks lovely with a pile of frosting on top, an inch away from the edges, then sprinkling crushed walnuts over the top.


Enjoy! x