Baking Adventures (2 Viewers)

Here is the Piñata Cake I mentioned. This was an experiment to see how much of the sweets in the centre actually drop out of the cake when I sliced it. Stage 1: This is the Piñata Cake that has been filled in the centre with chocolate beans as they are small enough to drop out easy when the cake is sliced, plus you get more in the centre of the cake due to the size of them. Stage 2: This is what people expect to happen when you slice into the cake, which looks great; however, that is not what happened at all; this is what actually happened...... Stage 3: I think in order to get the Stage 2 sweetie slide effect you need to bore out a lot more cake in the middle which then runs the risk of collapse as you are essentially removing...

This was the chocolate cake I made on Sunday morning to take to my Mum and Dad's; my Dad loves cake, so he was rather pleased when he saw this. :D We enjoyed a slice for Bill too; it was very light, moist and chocolatey! :p Bill if you didn't live that far I would have happily made you one! :D

Well hello and welcome back to our classroom write up and oh what fun we had this evening! Tonight was all about monkeying around, and we most certainly did that, I arrived early to set up the room and found that Alister the on-site manager was still there, I hadn't seen him in a while, so it was nice to see a friendly face. I am also going to meet Jackie and Jen from SLS tonight who are coming over to the lesson to find out what we do and take a few pictures of our lovely creations. :D I started to set up the room when Linda and Elizabeth arrived and offered to help, thank you, ladies. I received a call and had to walk down and meet Sue and Lydia as she had forgotten whereabouts on the school we were and Abi was running a little late...

Hi Ang, just wanted to share the bday cake I made for my bf last month! So proud and couldn't have done it without u xxxx

HMB Guest Teaching: Worsley College - Level Fill and Cover Shirt Cake Design In tonight's lesson, I will be showing the students how to level, fill and cover their pre-made Madeira cakes and then teach them how to finalise the cake with a Shirt design. It is my evening to teach the students, and I love this one in particular as it helps the students realise that they are capable of so much. I know they are a little apprehensive, so I have decided that we will all go through the first stages together, and then when it comes to the covering, I can assist them individually as this is when they will need to concentrate a little more. I have advised them that I have made a batch of edible shirt buttons just in case we run out of time...

This is a picture of the Devil's Food Cake that I made at college last night. I must say it was delicious!

This is especially for our next generation of budding bakers! :D Kids love to bake and it's very educational for them too, they learn how to interact with others, develop social skills and learn how to count the fun way! Post your Children's wonderful creations in this section! Emma: Hannah: These beautiful designs were made by niece Emma and my daughter Hannah on our baking and decorating afternoon. Emma placed an 'X' on the first cupcake (on the pic on the left) to represent the X Factor and Han decided to put ears on her second cupcake (on the right pic) to represent Mickey Mouse. Kids have such imagination, creativity and love to express themselves, all in all, a great afternoon. :)

Han and I were trying out my new Flowerpot moulds over the weekend and looking at different ways to top them. We decided on dyed buttercream and edible flowers, however, Han wanted to make a little baby with bunny ears to go with the cakes. Here are the finished articles! This was the final result once I let her loose with the piping bag and decorations.

On tonight's lesson, we have been teaching both baking and decorating techniques. Firstly the lovely Linda has been showing the ladies how to make a Russian Sandwich which is a different take on the classic Victoria Sandwich, instead of buttercream in the centre you use custard and also have a glacé icing finish on the top; you can then use toasted coconut around the edges so that the cake does in fact resemble a Russian hat. Linda actually went one stage further and made hers into a coffee vanilla flavoured sandwich, Ewww I say because I don't like coffee, but she swears by it. Because some of the ladies weren't that keen on coconut, they opted to use chocolate sprinkles instead. Linda added some extra white buttons for additional...

Russian cake adaptation. It's supposed to have toasted grated coconut as a decoration on top but we prefer chocolate sprinkles instead!

Cherry and Almond Traybake was delicious. It was square originally but only remembered to take a photo after half had been eaten A few more cherries wouldn't have gone amiss though. I've made a note to add more next time

We had a bit of a mix bag of people on this workshop which was great fun; unfortunately, some of my regular ladies couldn't make due to prior commitments although I had prior students and some new recruits, so it shook things up a bit as everybody was at different levels. It was lovely to see Gail, and Linda (one of my Salford students there) her lovely friend Anne and her daughter Elizabeth. Abi was also another newcomer who had never done any cupcake decorating beforehand. We settled into the lesson once everyone had arrived and managed to work out where we were. Elizabeth was a great help with final preparations for setting up the room. As always, I ran through the stages of how the lesson works and then proceeded with the first of...

Springtime Bakes - Standish - (Mar - Apr) So we were back baking again last night with our new batch of ladies after the half term break. In tonight's lesson we had Renata and her daughter Shona and then we had Fran too. We were lucky to have Fran to be honest as she was banging on the reception door trying to get let in, it was only because somebody was leaving did she manage to gain entry at all.:) After the initial introductions and form filling we finally cracked on with the baking side of things. This week we were making marbled sponge with a chocolate topping of your choice. I always choose Terry's chocolate orange as I find it compliments the cake and is a delicious treat with a cup of tea. :p I proceeded with the dem and...