The sun has got his hat on...

I'm loving the weather we are having at the moment. It just makes everything so much better!!! We have had 4 bbq's already in the past 2 weeks!

This week i had a lovely lady called Sharon come to a cupcake lesson with me. We had a great time chatting away but she created some fab cupcakes that she is now going to go away and practice making more with her little girl!

It's been pretty quiet on the cake front the past couple of weeks. The last big lot I did was for a wedding in Corby. Lovely wedding and lovely couple. A couple of pics below but apologies for the quality as they were taken with my phone. One thing i'm saving for is a proper camera as the pictures I take of my cakes are really pretty bad!

For my birthday I got the big cupcake cake pan from my best friend so I must make one of these soon the 1st chance I get. The I think i'll add them to the site for people to purchase if they want. Big giant cupcake!! Can't be a bad thing!

I'm thinking about some new designs to do to celebrate the better weather. So i'll keep you posted. But lots of brights!

The recipe i want to share for this post is the cake I made Phil for his birthday. It's not fancy looking but it tastes like a birthday cake should. Let me know if any of you try it. I found this recipe on Nigella's Website

INGREDIENTS
200g plain flour
3 tablespoons Bird’s custard powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
4 eggs
225g soft butter
200g caster sugar
2–3 tablespoons milk

FOR THE BUTTERCREAM FILLING
125g icing sugar
4 teaspoons Bird’s custard powder
75g soft unsalted butter
11/2 teaspoons boiling water

FOR THE CHOCOLATE ICING
60ml water
2 tablespoons golden syrup
125g caster sugar (or use 50g if using milk chocolate)
175g dark chocolate
1 pot hundreds and thousands

Serving Size : Makes up to 12 slices

METHOD

1.Make sure everything you need is at room temperature before you start. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C, and butter and line two 20cm sandwich tins.

2.Put all of the above ingredients except the milk, into a food processor. Process to a smooth batter, and then add the milk a tablespoon at a time to make a soft dropping consistency. Divide between the two cake tins and bake for 20 minutes. The cakes will have risen and feel spookily puffy; this is because of the cornflour in the custard powder.

3.Let the tins sit on a cooling rack for 5 minutes and then turn them out on to the rack, peeling away the paper.

4.FOR THE BUTTERCREAM ICING - Process the icing sugar and custard powder to get rid of any lumps, and then add the butter, processing again to make the buttercream come together. Feed the boiling water down the funnel with the motor running to make the filling easier to spread. Then sandwich the cooled sponges together with the custardy buttercream.

5.FOR THE CHOCOLATE ICING - Combine the water, syrup and sugar in a saucepan, stirring to dissolve over a low heat.

6.Let it come to the boil and then take it off the heat.

7. Break up the chocolate into small pieces if you are not using chocolate buttons (as I do for cooking, but good quality not confectionary standard), and then add to the pan, swirling it around to cover in the hot liquid. Leave to melt for a few minutes, and then whisk the icing to make it smooth and shiny. Pour over the buttercream filled cake, letting it drip down the sides, and then sprinkle generously with the hundreds and thousands before the icing sets.

Have a fab weekend everyone.

Jess xoxo