Baking Adventures (8 Viewers)

I've had a lovely time meeting the new bunch of ladies on Linda's Bread Making and Cake Making course. Linda has drafted me in to show the ladies my level fill and cover demonstration that will allow them to stack cakes and also to show them some Easter Cupcake designs. On the first evening, we did a level fill and cover, and I showed the ladies how to level the cake using a cake leveller. They were happy to know this as many of them weren't actually sure how to use them. I explained the uses of them and a few helpful hints that would make covering their cakes much easier. One of the ladies asked me to show her how to do some Garrett frills as she was making a 30th cake for her friend and had seen a design in her book. Collette...

Valentine's Cupcakes - Student Creations (10/02/14) Well, love was most certainly in the air on our Valentine's workshop, once we had got over Sue travelling forty miles in the wrong direction and turning up late bless her! Her sat nav had her going round in circles and put her back on the motorway. :huh: I had just rolled a ball of fondant and started my dem when I got the call she was outside and ready for me to greet her. So after a few deep breaths a nice cup of tea and letting out her stresses, we finally got down to a wonderful lesson. :D After showing the ladies the designs I informed them that they would have to paint the gold designs onto the icing freehand which they looked slightly perturbed by, I told them that they...

Creative Cakes and Bakes Program – Standish (Jan – Feb 14) We have just finished the first of our four week baking programs at our new location of Standish Community High School and we’ve had some great fun along the way. We haven’t had that many dramas apart from a mix up with the ovens, over baking my Victoria Sandwich on week one whilst getting used to a new oven and then final week finishing off with perfect current scone mix ready to place in the oven and then adding too much milk to my cherry scone mix making it a tad too sticky. Needless to say I was able to demonstrate that one; it can very easily happen, and two; what you do to remedy the situation. Once baked they tasted delicious anyway so win win all round. During the...

Strawberry cheesecake Christmas Day strawberry cheesecake for Jessica and her boyfriend, Sam, who don't like Christmas pud!

Cake Baking and Decorating Adventures - these are some of the fun stories and pictures from our lessons. I have created this section to display the wonderful creations that the students have made and I also do write-ups on the adventures we have along the way! :D Clare: Clare's Beautiful Bow design, during the course she has created many cakes including a lovely one for her Gran. She has learned many new skills so much so that she even made a beautiful 2 tier cake on her own for her sisters birthday. I saw the pics and she did a fabulous job. Janet: Janet's Fabulous Floristry design, she is very creative and colourful in her design choices and her cakes always make me smile. Halloween:- Angie:- These were a few ideas I...

Our last teaching evening for the end of term was not as hectic as I had imagined it to be and was rather leisurely if I'm honest. When I arrived Linda was already seated and happily pasting royal icing around her Christmas cakes, I think she had about five of them in total. She also had lots of plastic decorations, candles, ribbons, pins etc. and was telling us about the penguin rubbers she was using as decorations for the cake. "Not bad from the pound shop are they, they look good," she says! Cath and Sue were also there too, and happily got to work designing. Not long after I arrived, Jean arrived then quickly followed by Cheryl, Michelle and Jill. Shirley was unable to make it as she was busy prepping for her new house and Sharon...

Creative Christmas Cupcakes - Student Creations Ah yes, I have not one but two write-ups to do for this section due to the way the weeks have fallen. Firstly we had our final ever Cupcake Workshop at the Craftworks (as we're moving venue next year). We have had a great year, and Lizzie has been fabulous, but unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Lizzie has a new venture starting next year and is on the move, and so am I. We are excited about our new chapters and of course, will stay in touch....she can't hide from me anyway even if she wants to as I see her on the school run! LOL! ;) As for the workshop, it was all about the festivities this time as it was the Creative Christmas Cupcake workshop! :D I'd actually...

Comfort food at it's best - a lovely apple, blackberry and raspberry crumble I made on Saturday and served with custard. The crumble had oats added which made it nice and crunchy and the blackberries were hand-picked late September and then frozen. Pure indulgence :)

Well, today has been eventful, to say the least, we've had more kitchen dilemmas than you can shake a stick at and dealt with everything from floods to burnt biscuits. Lol! There was plenty of laughter and Christmas cheer which more than made up for it! :D It was also lovely catching up with a few old friends and meeting new ones too. We made an array of homemade goodies including mince pies; these were sold to raise money for 'Help for Heroes'. Thank you to everyone who bought them, and those that came back to buy seconds! I met a lovely young man whilst we were selling mince pies. He told me he also loves making mince pies. I've told him if he practices with his new cutters he can be my assistant next year. I look forward to that...

Hope you don't mind me sneaking in a savoury dish among all the lovely cakes, puddings and desserts. This is an adaptation of Delia's Tomato and Goat's Cheese Galette. I say adaptation because I didn't have any goat's cheese and nor did I have enough tomatoes!! I used grated cheddar and gruyere instead, and added thinly sliced red onion to make up for not having enough toms. After a disastrous start with quantities (I was trying to halve the recipe but forgot to do this with the flour), I did a Gordon Ramsay and threw the dough in the bin and started again. It was well worth the effort. Presentation isn't quite Masterchef standard but they were soooo tasty and a definite thumbs up at home.

Yeah! Pastry week this week, my absolute favourite! Last night's lesson was great fun, and we made lots of savoury and sweet goodies! Linda did her demo on hot water crust pastry, and I did a mini demo on the cheese whirls and jam turnovers. Sue brought in her alternative cheese filling which we've now dubbed the 'Selia' recipe that's because it's part Sue and part Delia hence Selia! I must admit I was salivating at last night's lesson as I love love love pastry, plus I was starving because I was late out and didn't manage to grab any tea before the lesson started so the smells of the food we're sending me over the edge! Cath was back this week and made sausage rolls and Eccles cakes; the sausage rolls were shall we say a touch crisp...

As it's Bonfire Night this week, we decided it would be a good idea to theme this weeks lesson on it so we decided that Treacle Toffee and Bonfire Cupcakes would be just the treats we needed to serve up to satisfy everyone's palate. :D We were slightly down on numbers this week, and we missed the banter from Sue and Cath as they sit right on our table, it did seem a little quiet without them; however, we still managed to have fun with the rest of the ladies and of course a few mishaps along the way. ;) I arrived about fifteen minutes before the lesson started and thought that I had arrived on a wrong day. :unsure: I think everyone was a little later due to the horrendous weather and build-up of traffic, the rain is a nightmare and is...

Piano cake for my cousin completed. Thanks for your help Angie. It all worked out quite well although there's too much decoration for the size of cake. I really enjoyed the challenge though!