Saturday, March 17, 2012

St Patricks Guiness Cake



Happy St Patricks day!
All I knew in preparation for this cake was that I wanted to make it as Irish as possible. I scoured my books and a Guinness Cake was quite common with really good feedback so I had a go, using the Hummingbird Bakery recipe.
The sponge ended up being surprisingly light and moist, with a light cream cheese frosting it tasted delicious.
Highly recommended. 

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Love Lemon Sponge



This is a 3 layer vanilla sponge. The first is lemon curd and the second is lemon buttercream. I think that two layers of lemon curd would have been a little sickly. Then I coated it in rolled icing and added a huge rolled icing ribbon that I had shaped and allowed time to set before piping onto it in red. 

English Rose



I wanted to do something really fiddly so I made a bunch of rolled icing roses and I finally got to use an old French lace ribbon that I bought quite a while back but I didn't have a cake simple and delicate enough to suit it.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

White chocolate and Apricot Cookies



Midnight and in desperate need of cookies! Using up some leftover dried apricots and Valrhona white chocolate, I added these to the basic cookie recipe I posted last month. 

Fruit and Nut Cupcakes



The recipe for these came from Fairy Cakes Hamlyn and since they are filled with dried fruit a mix of nuts they resemble a light christmas cake so I coated them in a thin coat of rolled royal icing. 
Great way to used up all of the candied and dried fruit from christmas time!

Coffee and Pecan Cupcakes



I got the recipe for these cupcakes from Divine Cupcakes by Tamara Jane. I thought her recipe for caramel icing might be too rich paired with this sponge so I topped them off with a coffee buttercream icing instead.