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. 

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.

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. 

http://judyoz.com/ccp0-prodshow/divine-cupcakes-tamara-jane-new-cookbook.html