Yellow rose birthday cake

It's been a busy week in the Brighton Bakery house and I've finally had a chance to catch up with my blog posts :o)

You may already have noticed the fruits of my labour this morning - the new and improved design to this blog.  I'm the first to admit that I'm no whiz when it comes to these things (I'd rather be baking and eating cake than trying to figure out how to use html code or use photoshop with anything other than trial and error guesswork) but I'm pleased that it now ties in with our new Brighton Bakery website branding.  Please drop me a comment and let me know what you think :o)

And speaking of the new website, I'm delighted to say that it's already had a positive impact on our business.  We were invited by Theatre Royal to present our cakes for consideration for their new Parlour Cafe and have already received another cake commission just a few days after the site was launched.

The cake was a standard 10" square cake with some handmade sugar roses and a piped message.  I'd just taken down the order when the customer told me, "it's a shame that the birthday girl is diabetic so won't really be able to have any".  That defeats the whole point of a birthday cake!  Now I can't make any claims about cakes being diabetic-friendly, but I recommended our speciality Orange and Lemon cake which uses carrot, courgette and ground almonds in the recipe.  It is a really moist and delicious cake, but has less than half the fat and sugar of a regular lemon madeira cake.  It also has the bonus of being gluten free which is great if any of the party guests have wheat intolerances.

When I delivered the cake, the client was really pleased.  I hope that her mum Jacqueline enjoyed it too - especially as she would actually be able to eat a slice!

Chocolate Campfire Cupcakes - Happy Birthday Mark x

Mark is a friend of Melissa's from work and a follower of the Brighton Baker blog from the very start.  I'm told that he often asks Melissa when he's going to get a mention and I was half tempted just to stick his name randomly at the end of a completely unrelated blogpost just to appease him.

But Mark - as it's your birthday - our gift to you is a post dedicated entirely in your honour.  Last night I cooked up a batch of birthday cupcakes that Melissa should be delivering to you as I type.

Knowing that Mark has a sweet tooth and loves chocolate cake, we found a recipe in the lovely Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days recipe book that looked spot on.  The recipe is actually called S'moreanne Cupcakes, but if you live in the UK like me then this name might not mean much to you either.  Apparently a s'more is an American campfire treat: marshmallow and chocolate sandwiched between crackers and toasted.  Sounds like my kinda treat - think I'll be trying that one next time we do a barbecue on the beach.  But S'moreanne sounded a bit girly and obscure so I have renamed these little beauties Chocolate Campfire Cupcakes.  And look how pretty:

These cakes begin with a chocolate cupcake baked with a topping of crushed biscuits and grated dark chocolate, then they're finished off with an Italian meringue frosting, a sprinkling more of crushed biscuits and a square of chocolate.

The chocolate cupcakes were a cinch to make, but I've not made Italian meringue since pastry school and I was a bit nervous as to how it would turn out.  It involves boiling sugar and water to exactly 121°C and pouring it in a steady thin stream into half whipped egg whites.  I'm not sure if I got it totally spot on but it turned out pretty well and I love how you can create little peaks in the icing which look a bit like the flames of a campfire once you flash it under a hot grill. 

If I made these again I think I would change the crushed biscuits for honeycomb which would give these cakes an extra dimension in terms of texture and sweetness.  Also as honeycomb is also known as cinder toffee it would go even better with my new name of Chocolate Campfire Cupcakes.

So Mark, you've finally got a mention on the blog.  Hope you like it, and the cakes too :o) x  

Chocolate Cigarello Fudge Cake - Happy Birthday Dad x

At the start of this year I made a resolution that instead of buying birthday presents for my friends and family I would make them cakes instead - it would give me a chance to practice different cakes for my portfolio and also I would be able to give people something handmade with a personal touch, something I always appreciate in a present.

It was my dad's birthday yesterdat and Melissa and I were hosting his birthday party for 10 of our family at our new house.  It went without saying that I was going to bake Dad a cake for the party and I wanted to bake something that looked and tasted really impressive so that everyone could see that I had the skills to make our new bakery business a success. 

I had already asked my dad his favourite cake flavour but didn't realise his request would be so specific - he wanted a plain victoria sponge cake, with buttercream filling and fudge icing.  I've done a plain sponge with buttercream loads of times before so wasn't worried about that, but my big worry was how I was going to make this cake look elegant and special - fudge icing isn't known for being forgiving when it comes to looking good. 

I had my thinking cap on about this one for about 2 weeks until I walked past the window of Patisserie Valerie in Soho and was inspired by one of their amazing gateaux which was decorated using chocolate cigarellos round the outside of the cake.  This was just the thing I needed to elevate the design of Dad's birthday cake.  To fit with the fudge icing I decided to add some chocolate ganache piped writing and chocolate covered strawberries to the top to complete the cake.

After some searching I found a fudge icing recipe on the Waitrose website (I doubled the quantity in this recipe) and Melissa discovered a great cake supplies wholesaler Cavalier of Brighton just up the road in Rottingdean for the chocolate cigarellos.

As sponge cake doesn't keep very well I had to make everything on the morning of the party and as usual we were up against it getting everything done before everyone arrived.  It's never a good idea to try and rush icing a cake and I was cursing my dad trying to get the fudge icing smooth with 5 minutes before everyone was due to arrive.  Then the chocolate cigarellos didn't want to stick to the icing so thinking on my feet I added some ribbon to hold them together and it actually finishes the cake off really nicely.  Luckily everyone was running late so I had a few minutes to quickly grab a picture of the the cake before anyone arrived:

I know my piping technique needs a bit more practice but overall I was really pleased with how it looked.  If I'm completely honest it was a bit sweet for my taste, but it was exactly what my dad had asked for and he loved it.

And there's no rest for the wicked as it's Melissa's dad's birthday tomorrow so I'd better get the apron back on to bake him a cake too!

A whole new world - Brighton's Sugarcraft Exhibition

Last Saturday it just so happened that round the corner from our house, Brighton Racecourse was hosting a sugarcraft exhibition.  I had seen the event advertised in Peacehaven's lovely cake supplies shop Chatawak a couple of weeks ago and decided that it was an opportunity I shouldn't pass up. 
We had some friends coming round for lunch (Melissa reassured me that she wasn't missing out on coming along with me) so I made sure I was there when it opened up at 10am.  I had forgotten how unforgiving Brighton hills are on the walk up, and hoped that this was going to be worth the £5 ticket fee and my now perspiring brow.   Well if the queue at the gate was anything to go by then this was a bigger deal than I had originally thought:

I listened to other people in the queue lining up the demontrations they were going to - "Oh I've done Ruby Buffong's sweet peas before" was my favourite one - they were all so clued up on all the techniques and who the speakers were I felt like a real novice, and ever so slightly scared.  It was like I was about to enter the bizarre underground world of the cult of cake decoraters...

I'm not sure what I expected from the exhibition - maybe a few cakes on display, local shops and cake decorators with stalls showing their creations, maybe some samples to try, some things to buy.  Well cute little old ladies serving lemon drizzle with a cup of tea this was not.  There were industrial amounts of sugarpaste icing on for sale in flavours ranging from vanilla to marshmallow to chocolate and in every colour of the rainbow.  There were pots of coloured powders that stretched across tables several metres long and a metre deep in every kind of sparkle and lustre and hue that you could ever want or need.  There were cutters and tools, wires and flower stamens, icing pattenmakers, ribbons, cakeboards, decorating books, modelling designs - it was really overwhelming. 

And that's not even mentioning the displays.  Well I don't even think they were cakes, let alone was any of it designed to be eaten.  There were 20 or so displays measuring about 2 metres wide by 1 metre deep and 1 metre tall all with the theme of childrens books.  Here are a couple of them:

My favourite one was of two scenes from Brambley Hedge but unfortunately my photo of that one didn't come out.  I spoke to one of the ladies that made it - they made 120 mice figures of which they used 92 - a team of 22 had been working since January to make the display.  Madness.

Earlier this week I had felt pretty chuffed with myself for a wedding cake I had decorated that had some frangipani flowers that I had made from sugarpaste (photos to follow soon).  I felt like I may as well have made them out of playdough when I saw things like this:

I did pick up a couple of tips while I was there - using cocktail sticks and pipe cleaners to stabilise sugarpaste figures; how to shape a lily and colour it so that it looks natural using powder colours and a paintbrush; and realising that loads of people cheat and use moulds to create decorations for their cakes.  I might well invest in some - people will think my skills are so impressive :o) 

I'm really pleased I went, and maybe next time I will pay the extra to go to one of the demonstrations because sometimes it's not that easy trying to learn from a book.  I also picked up one of the powders which I will try for the first time this week to colour icing (I've only ever used coulouring pastes before), some pretty polkadot ribbon and a fine paintbrush which will be good for detailed work, plus I've got heaps of postcards with good websites to try for decorating supplies.

On my way back home I called Melissa to tell her how it went.  She asked if maybe I would like to enter the competition or have a stall when it comes back next time.  I had to laugh :o)



Easter bake off - Emily vs Melissa

A belated Happy Easter to everyone!  I hope you suitably overindulged like we did and are ready for another long weekend courtesy of the royal family in a few days' time.

This Easter, instead of giving each other chocolate eggs, Melissa suggested we should bake each other some Easter inspired treats.  I jumped at the idea - not only would we save money, but receiving a homemade gift means so much more than a shop bought egg that anyone can give.  We had a week to plan our presents and budget of £4 each and the challenge was set.

I scoured all my recipe books and what felt like half the internet trying to search for something creative and Easter related, but with the glorious weather outside the last thing I wanted to bake was a big rich simnel cake.  I spent 5 days humming and ha-ing, then I remembered the gorgeous Biscuiteers Book of Iced Biscuits that I was given as a Christmas present by my aunt and uncle and was inspired to make some Easter biscuits.  When Melissa saw me making the biscuit dough and spotted the 'plain biscuit recipe' over my shoulder she cried out - "Is that all you're making for the bake off?  Plain biscuits??"  I sheepishly replied, "I'm putting vanilla in them," which she scoffed at, as she thought her creation was going to take much more effort and it didn't seem like I was trying very hard.

Oh how the tables turned the next day.

More than 3 hours of icing and dozens of piping cornets later, my Easter biscuits were ready:

I knew the biscuits would take a while but I really had no idea what I was in for with that amount of icing and all those colours.  I'll remember to take a very deep breath before climbing that mountain again. 

And in the green corner, Melissa baked up a cracker of an Easter chocolate tart from our trusty Rachel Allen Bake book which was absolutely divine (and this comes from a girl that doesn't even really like chocolate):

And hats off to her for managing to make it in a deep cake tin because we left our fluted flan tin round at her sisters.

PS Although we were both completely full from all the Easter treats, Melissa did have to eat her words afterwards about me not trying hard enough....