#tbt: Bean's Beach Fun Birthday Cake

Throw back Thursday: taking a look at stuff I've made in the past.

I made my sandpit loving boy and beach cake for his 2nd birthday. 
The sand is made out of digestive biscuits, the shells are white chocolate set in shell shaped moulds and the tools are marzipan I believe.
Awww, can you tell the number two has been used before? Bless the second born, for they shall have hand-me-downs ;)

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#tbt: Hobbit Hole (Bag End) Cake

Throw back Thursday: taking a look at stuff I've made in the past.

Exactly six years ago (it was actually his birthday yesterday), I made my fellow Hobbit loving Dad a Bag End cake. It didn't quite turn out the way I wanted but I was pleased regardless. Mum put some amazing sparkler candles on it and told us all it was Gandalf's fireworks <3

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#tbt: Bean's Digger Cake

Throw back Thursday: taking a look at stuff I've made in the past.

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#tbt: Mr Strawberry's Pizza Cake

Throw back Thursday: taking a look at stuff I've made in the past.

 I can never get the red sauce quite right, but for a first attempt, this was amazing.

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Tempting Tuesday: Minecraft Cake Cake

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

Ed turned 9 on Sunday asked for a Minecraft cake. There was a moment where I nearly launched the whole freakin thing when trying to put the icing on the top and it fell apart, but I'm glad I persevered. He was so thrilled! And it was very tasty.

It is vanilla sponge, whipped cream filling, chocolate butter icing with white regal icing cut to shape on the top with red regal icing squares just like on Minecraft.

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#tbt: Mum's Bumble Bee Cake

Throw back Thursday: taking a look at stuff I've made in the past.

Another of Mum's birthday cakes, her favourite bumble bees in her favourite marzipan and dark chocolate.

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#tbt: Ed's 3rd Birthday Cake

Throw back Thursday: taking a look at stuff I've made in the past.

You've probably guessed, but Ed had a pirate birthday.
The metal work is just marzipan. Looking at it now, I should have either coloured it or painted it, but hey ho, it was tasty and he loved it. That is all that matters after all.

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Tempting Tuesday: Banana Cake

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

This recipe is incredibly easy and marvellous when you've got some bananas going brown in the fruit bowl, especially as you can be pretty certain you've already got the other ingredients in the cupboard. It's lighter than I expected and so fluffy. I bet it would be yummy with custard too (it was all gone before I had a chance to try).

Ingredients:

3 small bananas

1 tsp lemon juice

100g butter

100g sugar

2 eggs

225g self raising flour

 Method:

Preheat oven to 200°C.

Mash bananas with lemon juice.

Blend butter and sugar.

Add eggs, then bananas.

Sift in flour and mix well.

Turn into a greased tin and bake for about 40 minutes.

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#tbt: Ed's Half Birthday Cake

Throw back Thursday: taking a look at stuff I've made in the past.

Ah, the joys of being first born. You get half birthday cakes when you're six months old.

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Tempting Tuesday: Orange Butterfly Cakes

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

I think I found this recipe in an Asda magazine one Easter. Never tried it until now.

As it stands, it only makes enough for 8 nicely sized cupcakes, which is not enough for my house. I'll be doubling everything next time.

Ingredients:

125g butter

125g sugar

2 eggs

Zest of 1 orange

125g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

Curd filling:

Zest & juice of 1 orange

40g sugar

2 eggs

50g butter

 Method:

Heat all curd filling ingredients together in a pan very gently and stir until thick. Just like with lemon curd, do not stop stirring.

Leave to cool.

Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C  fan).

Blend butter, sugar, eggs and zest together.

Then sift in flour and baking powder and mix well.

Bake in cupcake cases for about 20 minutes.

Once cool, cut out the tops, add curd filling and gently place the ‘butterfly’ tops on.

I totally baked mine too hot. The tops burnt before the insides were done. And the curd filling recipe originally had the juice of half a lemon, leaving it super runny, which meant that it didn't sit nicely on the tops.
Also, I decorated mine with candied orange peel, but if you want to do that, for goodness sake just freakin' buy some. I've spent days on a whole batch of the stuff and it's still rather inedible. No idea why.

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#tbt: Mum's Rose Birthday Cake

Throw back Thursday: taking a look at stuff I've made in the past.

Another marzipan creation (because we love it), this one was for my Mum's birthday and was my firts attempt at freehand lacework (if that's the right name) with dribbley chocolate.

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#tbt: Ed's First Birthday Cake

Throw back Thursday: taking a look at stuff I've made in the past.

The picture quality is terrible, but it's all I have.
This was Ed's first birthday cake. The stars are made from marzipan dipped in white chocolate and by golly, I did not make enough of them...

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#tbt: Wedding Cake

Throw back Thursday: taking a look at stuff I've made in the past.

I have finally found (by accident, after months of searching) the file hiding photos of all the cakes I've made in the past. So, inevitably the next few months will be dedicated to them.
I'll start with our wedding cake.
I remember the last few days before the wedding were specifically for making and decorating cupcakes, everything else had to be done by then so I had time.
In the hoo haa of the day, we completely forgot to cut the top cake, so no one got any of it, which turned out to be unfortunate (for our beloved guests) because when we did finally crack into it, it turned out to be the most deliciously moist, chocolatey cake ever. Ah, shame.

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#tbt: Carrot Cake (sort of)

Throw back Thursday: taking a look at stuff I've made in the past.

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Tempting Tuesday: Pizza Cake

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

 

Bean turned 7 on Sunday, so we had a pizza party on Saturday.

Hence the pizza themed cake. When I told him I was making a pizza cake he was horrified, especially when he found the cheese grater in the wash.

My obvious issue with this was that I couldn't get the 'pasatta' butter icing to go tomato red, despite using an entire bottle of food colouring.

I poured it on a large single layer of basic sponge cake.

Grated marzipan and a sprinkling of sweets, and ta-daaaa pizza cake.