A Foray into the World of Cake Pops...

Don't you think the Cake Pop is something that seems a bit Willy Wonka inspired ?  The thought of eating cake... on a stick!   OK - I'll be honest here I am approaching the much lauded Cake Pop with as much trepidation as the Whoopie Pie (and remember how much I loved those...NOT).

I have only been prompted to finally make them as I received a baking pan set designed for Cake Pops for Mothers Day.  In addition, I had asked my Son to try one of these recently at a cafe to see what he thought.  I didn't have one as it wasn't gluten free.  Imagine what a difficult request that was for him to fulfil.  One of the very few times I didn't need to ask him three times to do something...hahaha.  Well he LOVED it and has been begging me to make them ever since.

I have whipped a really basic chocolate cake recipe together and thrown these little gems into the oven.  Now theres a couple of different ways to bake these little babies.  You can bake them in moulds as I am doing today or you can make your cake then crumble t up once baked and cooled mix with some buttercream frosting then hand roll them into balls.  Either way we ultimately arrive at a ball shaped piece of cake.  The latter method however will result in a sweeter Pop as you're getting a mouthful of cake and frosting altogether then coated in chocolate.

My Pops will be cake only coated in chocolate so a little lighter.  I am also making mine Gluten Free.  See - anything can be made GF - no need to miss out on anything.  Thank goodness I have made them chocolate so I shan't be tempted to polish them all off.

Basic Chocolate Cake recipe
Ingredients
1 Cup Self Raising GF Flour
1 tsp GF Baking Powder
1 Cup Caster or White Sugar
2 Eggs
3 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
3 Tbsp or 60g Unsalted Butter
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
1/3 Cup Milk

1. Preheat oven to 160 Celsius and lightly grease and line your cake tin or spray your CakePop molds.
2. In a large bowl place all ingredients together making sure butter is slightly softened.
3. Using an electric mixer use it to combine all ingredients together until well mixed.
4. Pour into your cake tin or into your CakePop molds.
5. Bake for approx 30 minutes - check for done'ness by inserting a wooden skewer.  If it comes out clean you're good to go.

I used this recipe to make the cake pops pictured.  VERDICT :  Can't lie - they look really pretty.  Impressive even for what they are.  Fiddly ?  Without a doubt.  Able to make money from them ?  Weeeeeeelllll....possibly depends on how they want them decorated.  They are deceptively time consuming - I think I made Spongebob in the same amount of time it took me to make 15 cake pops so go figure.   They are however nice to be able to offer something a little bit different and I think u could have real fun with them for parties or christmas etc.

If you give them a go - good on you.

Enjoy!
Lx

GF Chocolate Mud Cake

The most commonly requested cake I get asked for is Chocolate Mud Cake.  This suits me fine as I really don't like chocolate very much and so am able to easily work with it without feeling the need to 'taste' all the time...hahaha

Its also a great cake that suits being frozen and thawed or even just sitting for a few days.  The dense texture of the cake improves with time making it 'muddier'.  This is a cake that is actually best NOT eaten on the day you bake it but at the earliest the next day.  If you eat it on the day of baking it will be lighter and crumblier.

I use a variation on the Planet Cake recipe and of course its Gluten Free.  This recipe makes a BIG cake so is suitable for a sheet cake tin or two average cake tins if you want to layer this cake.  If you just want to make a dozen cupcakes half the recipe will do the job brilliantly.

Ingredients
220g Unsalted Butter
220g GF Dark Cooking Chocolate broken into squares
1 teaspoon of Instant Coffee Granules (this can be left out but a little adds extra depth of flavour)
125g GF Self Raising Flour
125g GF Plain Flour
50g Cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda (Baking Soda)
480g Caster Sugar (ordinary sugar works fine too)
4 Eggs
7 teaspoons Vegetable oil (I use Macadmia Oil)
160 ml Water
100ml milk

1. Set your oven to approx 160C.  You may need to reduce the heat a little more than that - just watch it.
2. Grease and line your baking tin and set aside.
3. In a microwave proof bowl or saucepan combine cubed butter, chocolate squares, coffee and water and gently warm through until melted.  If in Micro on 60% power for about 2-3 minutes keep watching it.
4. In another bigger bowl combine your dry ingredients Flours, Cocoa and Bicarbonate of Soda (I never sift my GF flours as I find it makes no difference, however sift your cocoa powder as this often has little lumps in it.)
5. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in your milk, oil and eggs and stir until eggs are sufficiently broken up, then add the melted chocolate mixture and stir until well combined.  You only need a good spatula or wooden spoon for this not a mixer.
6. Pour the mixture into your tin / tins or cupcake wrappers and bake for approx 1 hour.  Test with a wooden skewer.  This cake goes from a sticky skewer to baked quite quickly so after an hour for a large cake or half an hour for cupcakes stay close and check on it.
7. Do not remove cake from tin straight away or it will crumble.  Its needs to cool in the tin before removal or it will fall apart - same with the cupcakes.
8. This cake will freeze really well for up to two months - just defrost thoroughly at room temp over night then decorate.

Feel free to play about with this cake and the recipe.  I have successfully added additional chocolate chips or chunks to the cake batter to create little blobs of chocolate gooeyness in the finished product - you could add whatever you want just at the final stir through before putting in the cake tin.   Perhaps a little peanut butter swirl or some little blobs in there might be unreal....

Enjoy !
Lx

Fondant Covered Gluten Free Sugar Biscuits

I have finally gotten around to making some beautiful basic sugar cookies - GF of course and then covering them in tinted rolled fondant.  I've really enjoyed playing about with some shapes and my new paisley rolling mat which gives the wonderful pattern.

These are ever so simple to make,  crispy and not too sweet so the fondant is the perfect complement and adds just enough sweetness to make a beautiful and not too overpowering cookie.

This recipe makes about 24 large cookie shapes

Ingredients
110g Unsalted Butter
200g Caster Sugar
1 Free Range Egg
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
310g Plain Gluten Free Flour
1/2 teaspoon GF Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda (Bicarbonate Soda)
Pinch of Salt
30ml Milk

1. Turn your oven onto 180C or 160 if Fan Forced.
2. In a mixing bowl cream your room temp butter and sugar with an electric mixer or in a food processor until light and fluffy.
3. Add your egg and Vanilla Extract and keep beating until combined.
4. Unless your flour is lumpy, I never sieve GF flours as they are hopeless at going through the sieve.  So in a separate bowl combine your dry ingredients (Flour, Baking Powder, Baking soda and salt).
5. Now alternate adding the flour and a little milk into the mixture until it pulls together to make a firm'ish cookie dough.
6. Tip out of the bowl and bring it together using your hands then wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for about 10-15 min to firm it up and make it easier to work with.
7. Once chilled roll out your dough and cut your desired shapes and place on a piece of baking paper on a baking tray.  These will take 8-10 minutes to bake.  Leave them in until they start to colour just lightly.  If you remove too soon they will not crisp up.
8. Wait until the cooked cookies are completely cold before attempting to ice them.
9. Roll out your fondant icing and using the same cookie cutters cut the topping for each cookie and place on top and decorate any way you like.

These should store well for a few days in an airtight container.

Enjoy 

Lx

Life's So Sweet at Fifteen

A somewhat last minute cake this week but still an absolute pleasure to create.

A phone call from my boss late on Tuesday afternoon - 'would you be able to make a cake for this weekend for my daughter's birthday ?'  After a bit of a chat and bouncing around ideas - I said yes.  The result above, is a lighter chocolate cake (not mud this time but still (!) chocolate...).

The cake has almost a lighter chocolate sponge texture to it.  I baked two separate cakes which were trimmed and sandwiched together with.....Nutella...ooooooohhh.  Yes - I did check for any nut allergies first.  I thought with the request for a lighter styled cake that the addition of a little hazelnut accent might be just scrummy.  I was right.

I then made a chocolate buttercream to which I added the rest of the Nutella and sealed the cake.  It worked well but the very oily nature of the Nutella was interesting to work with...all I can say is thank goodness the temperature has dropped or the cake would be leaking all over the kitchen floor.

The original request had been for a shoe.  Ive tried a shoe cake before and was less than impressed with my efforts.  I was hedging towards a handbag when I realised that with the lighter cake structure, it may not stand up to the carving and work that a mud cake can withstand.  Nope - I needed the cake, to be the cake, and so I was gonna need something for the top.

Ok back to the shoe idea then.  I thought I would give it a crack making it out of fondant and if it was a disaster I would revert to handbag idea.  I have learnt so much making this darned shoe.
1.  High heeled shoes take a long time to harden in position and need a lot of support in the arch.  Mine cracked in a couple of places.
2. Think very carefully ahead of time what you will use to support the shoe sole and front/top of shoe with as it may indent on the fondant underneath as it dries.  make sure it won't stick either...
3. I ended up having to make a brace for the under arch of the shoe to support it but this also ended up slightly cracked while lifting onto cake necessitating a small unobtrusive wedge at cake level to support the arch.
4.  To add strength I did insert a bamboo skewer through the heel of the shoe into the cake.

The cake itself covered in Nutella Buttercream then Pale Pink Fondant.  The shoe entirely edible from hardened modelled fondant.

I hope Ashleigh likes the cake and I hope it tastes as yummy as I think it will be.

Lxx

Fabulous and Flirty at Fifty !

It was my absolute pleasure to make this cake for a wonderful girl I work with.

I had no clue where to start other than she was turning fifty (and a very very youthful 50 she will be at that !) I was originally thinking of something along the lines of a wrapped giftbox style cake and as I was googling images I came across the playboy bunny and thought what an awesome addition it would make and perfect for the flirty fun loving Rach.

Here goes...It is - you guessed it, a dark chocolate mudcake (what is it with these chocolate lovers ?) cut in half and sandwiched with a dark chocolate buttercream icing.

The same buttercream was then used to seal and provide the smooth base for the cake fondant to be laid upon.  Its strange actually as I had nearly always used a ganache layer previously as it certainly always looked like this was the way to achieve a really smooth finish to the fondant layer...however I have to say that now after completing 3 cakes using buttercream under the fondant, that I actually prefer the finish the buttercream layer gives when the fondant is laid on top.

The buttercream layer appears to be far more forgiving to any slight imperfections once the fondant is on the top, unlike the ganache which always seems to leave me wondering how I ended up with mysterious bumps.

The primary colour was a soft pastel pink which was used to cover the entire cake with enough left over to finish the base of the cake in the fondant "buttons"  I actually like this finish much better than the round "balls" I see a lot of people using.

I had invested a couple of months ago in a packet of Black Coloured Pettinice Fondant Icing.  It has been well worth it and has lasted me through many accent pieces and I still have enough left over for at least one more cake.  Of course you can colour your own fondant black but it uses up so much of the gel colourant and takes quite a bit of time to work it through.  The depth of the Pettinice Black is definitely worth keeping a packet handy.

This is also the first cake in which I have handmade a bow and twirls from Fondant.  The bow proved to be relatively straightforward and the twirls I wound around two handles that had been greased and removed when they had set.

I am thrilled with how it has turned out and hope the birthday girl loves it tomorrow.

Happy Birthday beautiful Rachel,

Lxx

Happy 18th and the Cartoon Cupcake

I haven't disappeared.

Quite a bit going on over the past couple of weeks.  It has been time to launch the new Les Mills releases of BodyPump and RPM at the gym so have been working flat out learning all the new choreography and getting that out there.

Somewhere in the midst of that I created this 18th Birthday Cake.  It was a Dark Chocolate Mud Cake (thank goodness so many request that as I just hate chocolate cake myself) but she wanted a giant cupcake as well.

Given that the party was for about 30+ guests a giant cupcake wasn't going to be big enough for the event so I made a large circular cake for the base and used the giant cupcake as a centerpiece on the top.  All the decoration was in tinted rolled fondant.

I didn't use a mold for the cupcake but instead just sculpted it freehand.  Both the cake and the cupcake were sealed using a dark chocolate ganache before the fondant was applied.

The board was covered in rolled fondant also.

The vivid colours and design were meant to evoke an almost 'cartoon' feel to the cake.  The cake board was edged in black ribbon.  This is definitely a cake which looked better in reality than in pictures.  Sometimes its difficult to capture a cake well on film.

Lx

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

This weeks cake was a 1st Birthday cake that also fell on St Patrick's Day - hence the request for something soft and sweet combined with a little bit of the Blarney in the form of our lovely little Leprechaun.

The cake was a GF white chocolate mud cake covered in a white chocolate ganache then covered with tinted blue fondant.

Large white fluffy clouds were piped from royal icing and also used to secure the rainbow which was made separately from rolled fondant and dried to become rigid.  I had originally made another rainbow that was made from ribbons of colour but it proved to fragile to withstand being raised and held in the rainbow so I had to revert to the less crisp rolled 'ropes' of fondant to provide more structure to the arch.

The Leprechaun himself was made entirely from tinted fondant with the arms and legs secured with royal icing the day before delivery.

The one thing I am most disappointed with in this cake was the lettering in the name.  I did a test run on the piping of the name and thought all was good to go, but the heat conspired against me and we got a bit of seepage making it less crisp than it started out.

I hope the party was a success and this is only the first of many many wonderful birthdays to come for this beautiful little girl.

Lxx