Oh my...

Don't even look at the date of my last post.
No!
Don't!
...darn.
But I'm back! Woo! I have a gorgeous new netbook who I can bang around with me it's that dinky and I'm gonna sort out proper internet for myself in the next week.
Bam.
Back on track.
Even though I have not been blogging, I have been baking. I'm going to put up some pics of the yummyness that has kept me going in the past few months. I've been getting some amazing new cookbooks, namely The Hummingbird baking books, The Urban Cookbook and one of the Avoca books, Tea Time.
Cupcakes, as always, have been really popular for gifts and recently I made the vanilla Hummingbird ones as well as the marshmallow ones, for Luke's Mom and sister. For his sister Rachael, I also made her one of those giant cupcake cakes. It was a tad stressful to make (I'm not sure if I'm a fan of this silicone baking equipment phase), but it tasted really good, so that's all that matters really, I guess!:D







The marshmallow cupcakes were mad to make, the absolute stickyness of the melted marshmallows was a little tricky at times, you had to add it to the cupcakes straight away, when the goo was still really hot and not a moment after, otherwise it just stuck to the spoon and your fingers.
Another yummy cake that I've made were Strawberry Jelly Squares. You just made the cake, added the fresh cream, cut it into squares and dipped into sort of solidified jello and then dipped/ rolled it in coconut. Mmm...



The delishishness of a lemon drizzle cake can never be beaten, so I made one way back when I was still living with Cat for her dad who may have a sweet tooth to rival mine. I don't think there was any left when Cat got home that evening...
Apologies for the grainy phone photo...


Then of course many cards have been made since I last posted, with birthdays and Christmas, so I'll stick them up now before I toddle off to bed. It's getting late and I've driving practice in the morning with Luke's mom Helen, so I must be chipper and aware!









Well, that's all for now folks! I'm definitely back on form now, I'm going to post loads, I have loads of new books to keep me going for aaaaaages, and many fun things coming up, so la dee dah, I should definitely be posting way more regularly now.
Night night!
L x

Devil's Food Cake! Ooooh!

A few posts ago I made Angel Food Cake for my Mom, and today I whipped out the cookbook again to make its counterpart for me! It really is just a chocolate cake with a few extra additions, such as my new friend food dye! It has a little bit of red dye in it which I know is in a red velvet cake that I really want to make soon!









It called for whipped cream, but my little country shop only had fresh cream, so I had to make do with that! I also added a little bit of strawberry jam between the layers and some chopped nuts to the top. Yum! Mary G called over to have some with tea and she enjoyed a big wedge and brought some home too:)

The birthday present I've been working on can finally be posted after the weekend as I'll have given it to a lovely friend at long last!
I've been scouring crafty blogs for ideas for my sewing box bits and listening to Tired Pony. It's quite a wonderful way to spend your time.
I've spotted a pair of beautiful key earrings on Etsy that I want, so I might purchase them tomorrow! I believe you should always get yourself little treats;)

Devil's Food Cake!
180g butter
385g caster sugar
3 eggs
225g self-raising flour
75g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
70g cocoa powder
3 teaspoons instant coffee granules
125ml water
125ml milk
1/2 tsp red food coloring
300ml whipping cream, whipped

rich chocolate frosting
60g dark eating chocolate. chopped
60g butter, chopped

-Pre-heat the oven to 170C. Grease and line bases of two 20cm round cake tins.
-Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy; beat in eggs, one at a time.
-Fold in sifted flours, soda and cocoa powder with combined ocffee, the water, milk and coloring, in two batches.
-Pour mixture into tins; bake for 40 minutes. Stand for 5 minutes before turning cakes onto wire racks to cool.
-Make the frosting!
-Sandwich the cold cakes with whipped cream, then top with frosting:)

For the frosting:
Combine the chocolate and butter in a small heatproof bowl over a small saucepan of simmering water, stir until smooth, then remove from the heat.
Cool at room temperature, stirring occasionally, until frosting is spreadable.

Enjoy!x

Feathery Fudge Cake

Did some baking there at the weekend!
Why I am stating that like it's an unusual event, I don't know. Go with it.
I didn't follow the recipe (more like I just didn't read it properly than me free styling it) accordingly, so it's not quite 'fudge'. I only added about half of the melted chocolate to the cake mix than I was suppossed to. I did add mixed nuts to the mix though which was pretty nice and went down well with the family. I tried to make that vanilla buttercream that I put on last week's bundt cake, but that was a failure to say the least. So I resorted to the tried and tested plain buttercream (no fanciness there, tempting failure) so I sandwiched it all together with it and placed some on top with chocolate sprinkles.
The recipe is quite simple and straight forward (when I read it properly) so I'll post it up here when I get back home as it's in one of Mom's old cookbooks. The cake was really soft and light, so it's quite easy to eat a sizeable wedge of it and not realise until it's too late... Love to you all! :)

Cake party pics from Lisa!

The beautiful Lisa Keegan took photos the other day at the cake party in college, so I'm going to post them up! It was her birthday recently, the same for Sophie, so I made them larger chocolate chip cupcakes that you can see here. I am in love with Lisa's camera! Swoon.

Cake party a la EMCS

Since we're in our last week of classes in IADT, I decided I'd bake for my superb class to express my love of them. So Sunday I spent hours just baking. Baking away, having a ball and watching Monster House for my Gothic and Horror essay. I multi-task. So I made a new cake in a bundt tin my Mom has (again with the great supply of baking equipment...), cookies and cupcakes. For the cakes I used the recipe for the best cupcakes in the world- some were plain, others chocolate with chocolate chips. There were about 40 cupcakes, the cake and a batch of cookies. (I'm wondering can I buy cake boxes online, because all I can usually find that fit the cakes are shoeboxes!)
Needless to say, we had our fill of cake by the end of the day!

For the cake I tried a new vanilla buttercream and if Griffin's face is anything to go by, it was pretty good:) I added raspberries to the middle and top and sprinkled melted chocolate over it. It made a change from my usual 'there must be a high level of chocolate'. Okay, there was chocolate drizzled over it, but that doesn't count... Siobhan brought in buns her lovely mother Joan made which were rather divine and had a surprise jam centre. We had a lovely time tea-ing it up with many cakes to munch on.
By golly, I'm going to miss you guys x
(I wish the photos would upload in the order I want them in...but no.)

Mini-Cakes. Oh the yummyness...

One day in digs, Fiona gave me a cupcake her girls had baked and said that I had to taste them, that they were divine. I was wondering exactly how good a cupcake could really be, but then I tasted and knew! So last night I used the recipe for the best cupcakes in the world and made mini-cakes with it. My mom has a strangely large collection of baking equipment for someone who doesn't do an awful lot of it past New York Cheesecakes. Maybe she foresaw the craic Siob and I would get up to.
So anyway, I took out these teeny round tins and one shaped like a teddy bear that I remember featuring on my brother's 2nd birthday cake (which Mom did make) and made cakes! Oh so many mini-cakes! I initially planned to put buttercream on them and decorate them elaborately, but because Siob made cupcakes during the week, there was no icing sugar left in the house...So instead I filled the centres of them with jam, them poured chocolate over them and then some had sprinkles or nuts. You can't see them jam in them, so Conor got a nice surprise when he bit into one. Others we then decorated in the style of Victorian sponges.
They. Taste. Beautiful.

Jumper Cake for Oisin!

I meant to post this on Monday, but time has flown and I've been manically trying to keep on top of things! But anyhoodle!
You read right, I made a jumper cake a la Mrs. Doyle. To an extent. Cos you can't really bake a jumper in a cake, but you can add a jumper to a cake which is what I did for lovely Oisin. I'm not going to take all the credit for it- I told him I would bake him something for his birthday, a cake perhaps, and Cat leaned over to me with a mischievious grin and said "Put a jumper in it."
So this saw me plan how I would fit a jumper in cake. Off I toddled to Tesco and bought a baby jumper which would fold nicely into the cake. I made up the chocolate cake (same recipe as that monster chocolate cake from the summer), put buttercream on one layer, folded the jumper onto the other and sandwiched it all together. My family were bemused by this. Not only did it look odd, but rather gross.
A dodgily (I do English, we're allowed to make up words...sort of) covered cardboard box and a cupcake card later and I was off to college with texts of threats telling Oisin he better be in or the cake was gonna get it.
Monday after class he opened it and to his surprise, there was a jumper in his cake.


I don't know how many people would love a jumper cake, but it was a safe bet with Oisin. Then we all ate pieces of the cake in the canteen, being mindful of possible fleecy flecks. Well, I hope you get a kick out of this! Kirk's birthday is next and she wants something Lady Gaga-esque incorporated. Stay tuned!:D

Yet another cake...

Soon I'm going to make something much more exciting, I promise! But for now here is another cake I made today!:) It's an orange sponge which, like many of my cakes are doing recently, caved in on the top, so when I was drizzling chocolate over it, I flipped it over...:D I placed a few mandarin segments on top too. Again, I was a little short in supplies, so it is by no means fancy, but it was pretty nice, just sweet enough, so I'm happy enough with it. Nom!:)

Birthday cake fail!

Some cakes don't always go to plan and last January (which means another is due soon...*gulp*) I made my sister's birthday cake. To try and prevent heartache, I greased and floured the tins beforehand, but no, it was not meant to be. When I popped out the cakes (while still warm. Do not do this!), one broke in to 3 pieces. Knowing my super baker aunts were coming over and my Nana, I was putting myself under pressure to make a cool cake, so when it broke, I broke! However, after I calmed down a bit, I decorated it to the max and made sure my mom cut it so that the guests didn't get the broken side and were unaware:) Even if it is desperately wonky looking...

Note to all: use baking parchment for cakes. Best invention ever and guarantees a no tears baking experience!

Lemon Easter Nest Cake

Last Easter we were going to my aunt's for dinner (really means: a day of none stop eating her amazing food) and Mom said I'd bake something, so I made an Easter-style lemon sponge cake. I didn't want to make a big 2 tier cake incase it went to waste, so I just left it as a single tier with lemon butter cream icing, Flake bits around the edges and Cadbury Easter Eggs on top, making it look somewhat like a nest I think:) I hope you like it!:)

Chocolate cake for you, chocolate cake for me

We all love chocolate. I am slightly shocked (and appalled) when someone says they're not a fan of it. Weirdos. So before a trip to my friend Jo's during the summer, I tried out Jamie Oliver's chocolate party cake from his cookbook The Return of The Naked Chef and it is bang on. I found Rachel Allen's one turned out a bit dry for my liking and I think the noticable difference is how the cocoa for Jamie's is mixed in with 4 tablespoons of boiling water and so is a paste when added to the flour mixture and not just a powder.

Strawberries just had to go in to the cake, and I went a bit wild with them, slicing them and placing them between the 2 sponges with the chocolate butter cream icing and a drizzling of melted chocolate (note- the cake is not for the faint hearted!) as well as on top of the cake.

I then melted chocolate and poured it over the top; viola- a dreamy chocolate cake that will take about 4 people the guts of 2 lazy days to eat. It's far from perfect looking, but I didn't mind once I tasted it. All it would then fit in cos it was so tall was a big shoe box. I eventually got it to Jo's after delicately moving it accordingly with road turns on the bus for three hours:)

Must be served with pots and pots of loose tea:)