Happy birthday to me!

Sorry about the delay in updating but I've been super busy having just made the meteoric move to London (!) and it's been my birthday so I've been celebrating. So far I love London, there is so much to explore that I'll never be bored and I haven't even been inside any of the attractions on my list yet, like the Tate, the Victoria and Albert and the hundreds of hidden gems and off the beaten track spaces yet to be discovered! eeeeek!

So, my birthday was on Monday and we baked this Key Lime Cake because I wanted something a bit different than the usual birthday cake that was still a simple, yummy cake. It was really good, especially when left overnight in a tupperware. It was lovely and moist with a bitter-sweet taste due to the lime drizzle over the top. Yum!

For now, here's a photo. I'll put up the recipe later. I start work next week so things may get more hectic but I'll do my best to keep baking and cookie capering!

Happy Birthday, Gran!

Happy Birthday, Sam!

Yesteday was Sam's birthday so Chris and I got out our mixing bowl and cake tins and a bunch of other cooking equipment and ingredients and got to baking a birthday cake. We went with the same Victoria sponge as we used for our Norway Day cake, but tried out a new buttercream vanilla icing. As it was Sam's cake we also decorated it with the Stoke City badge using writing icing. It was a bit tricky but I think it looks good enough and no one had any trouble working out what it was. I think it had an amateurish charm to it and it tasted super yummy! It got sliced up during his party and lots of people commented on how much they liked it, so I'd say it was a hit!

The recipe is this cake as before.

The decoration was Dr Oetker writing icing, which you can buy in any supermarket.

This is how to make the icing:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups (around 350g) icing sugar
4 tablespoons evaporated milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Cream the butter. Add the icing sugar, evaporated milk and vanilla and mix until smooth. Smooth over the cake and leave for around five or ten minutes before decorating with the writing icing. Then put it in the fridge for at least 20 minutes before gobbling it all up!

birthday cake cheats

Back in September it all began when Chris and I decided to make a cake for Andy's birthday. Firstly we trawled through cook books and websites in search of an easy birthday cake recipe. Armed with a simple sponge recipe we hit Sainsbury's to gather the ingredients and left soon after with....a packet mix and some premade buttercream chocolate icing. Somehow, in the process of browsing through the assortment of flour, eggs, sugar, vanilla essence etc we became convinced that there was too much risk involved in trying to bake our first cake from scratch as a birthday gift. There would be nothing worse than presenting the birthday boy with a mound of burned sponge covered in a runny chocolate puddle. Instead, we opted to cheat and made a super easy chocolate covered sponge with chocolate buttons that went down a treat.
What did we learn?

1. You can give someone a cheat birthday cake and still provide them with a happy feeling of getting a homemade cake.
2. You feel kind of immoral for not having crafted something you can truly be proud of.
3. Baking a cheat cake, seeing the glee that can come with baking, and feeling bad that you didn't create it yoursef completely encouraged us to start from scratch next time.

Here is a photo of the yumminess with the birthday boy: