Baking Adventures (3 Viewers)

As you can see we had a really spooktastic lesson and created lots of Halloween goodies. Sue made a beautiful ginger cake instead of the biscuits, and the rest of us made skeleton, and mummy gingerbread alongside Halloween themed cupcakes. There were no dramas this week, and we had lots of creative fun in the lesson. Linda brought her puppy dog cutter so she could make puppy gingerbread and once baked (I, of course, had to do an immediate taste test because I was drooling over the smell of the gingerbreads :D) she then dipped the ears of the puppies into melted white and milk chocolate for added flavours. I brought my Halloween cutters for the ladies so we could make tombstones, houses, men, bats and other Halloween shapes, I did a...

Really enjoyed last night's class again. Thought you'd like to see my attempts at finishing the Halloween cupcakes at home. The funny looking black shape is supposed to be a black cat!!! I know ....... but had to have a go, lol. The sticky ginger cake is delicious, so moist and tasty. Sorry you can't taste it through the computer ;)

Wednesday's lesson was great fun and full of drama, :D this week was a Choccy special with Choux Pastry, and Chocolate Log on the menu and everyone was back this week, so we had lots going on. I got lots of presents too, so I have lots of mentions and 'thank you's' for my wonderful goodies. ;) Firstly I have to thank Cheryl for my lovely bottle of wine which was her 'thank you' to me for Poppy's cake. Apparently, Poppy loved it and had a thoroughly enjoyable birthday party which I'm very happy about. :dinesh: Then I have to thank Cath for my scalpel (I was really excited by this) I love tools, and Cath always brings in her precision surgeon scalpel (it's not but that's what it looks like lol) every week and I'm always eyeing it up and...

Halloween Cupcakes - Student Creations We had a thoroughly enjoyable Halloween Workshop on Monday as always; however, I'm going to wait until I have finished tomorrow's Choux and Chocolate Log lesson before the write-ups are posted. Saves me doing two sittings...I don't have enough time for that! LOL! :D ..... Ok, I lied I am going to post the write up now while it's all floating around my head... Firstly I'd like to say a quick hello to Fozia who is our newest Workshop attendee, and of course, I have to mention our die-hard fans, Gail, Louise, Sue and Doreen (aka Cake Boss). Doreen had informed us that she had been watching Buddy for 9 hours straight...so no pressure on me then! LOL! She just can't get enough of him. I was also...

made this today with lois for Dannys birthday. .. no idea how to make this pic larger:rolleyes:

So this weeks lesson was all about Sticky Toffee Pudding and a Cake Demonstration, what we got in fact was a totally different story! Linda decided in her wisdom to get ahead of herself and set off for College early and by doing so decided to detour to Country Baskets along the way. What she didn't bank on was locking her keys in the vehicle along with the lessons Sticky Toffee Pudding ingredients!....(Drama One). :eek: When she phoned me, I was en-route to college being chauffeur driven by my Dad (there was a reason for this, but that's a whole other story). As she phoned me to tell me the news, I agreed to send my Dad to assist her and I would begin the evening's lesson. Basically, we would reverse the lesson; I would do my Cake...

Baby Shower Cupcakes - Student Creations So after the summer break, we were back to business this week with the Baby Shower Cupcake workshop. :D We had all things baby and managed to create some lovely model toppers for the cupcakes which ranged from baby bumps, bottles, to sleeping babyfaces. It was great fun creating the baby bumps which came in all shapes and sizes. They ranged from halfway pregnant to practically giving birth. ;) We had great fun, and it's now apparent that Doreen has definitely stepped up the pace, she is hot on the heels of Buddy and fast turning into her very own Cake Boss. We had a wonderful relaxed evening, a few brews and lovely cupcakes at the end of it. Here are the pics:- Angie: Gail: These are...

So last night's lesson was full of fun, creativity and a lot of laughs and we also had the pleasure of Shirley's company, who is a returning learner from last year. ;) Not only did some of the ladies bake their own range of mouth-watering cakes but we also managed to see a Christmas cake demo done by the lovely Linda, cake covering & design and have a sit-down modelling session too. Due to the requests, I had received the previous week; I decided that we should create some Christening and Christmas themed models. I had also been working behind the scenes on the construction plan for the piano that Sue is looking at making. This is going to be a work in progress until we determine which ingredients work best, but for now, we have a...

Sea Creature Cupcakes - Student Creations We had our Sea Creature workshop this week in this excessive heat :hot: I love the heat, but icing doesn't luckily we didn't melt, well not far off anyway and although they were fewer numbers this time due to others commitments we still had a great time. So with the fan blowing full blast and the willingness to learn, we cracked on with the sea creatures workshop. :D I started off by demonstrating how to make the crab, octopus and then the shell designs, I was then instructed by the ladies to get on with the brew making duties, so they could stay hydrated whilst being creative. Lol!;) After brewing up, I then continued with the lesson and showed the ladies how to recreate the shark fin...

At the weekend Hannah and I did some baking experiments :D this week we decided to add crushed sweets and chocolate beans to our baking ingredients to see how they would turn out. Hannah prepared the cupcake mix using butter, sugar, eggs and flour, and then we started to blend Fruity Polos in the mini mixer. The polos did stick together very quickly and had to be scraped out of the mixer before being placed on a plate. We then crushed the chocolate beans in the mixer; however, we only managed to scrape some of the shell off, and they didn't split how I thought they would. Once the sweets were pre-blended, Hannah split the cupcake mix into the cupcake cases, and then we sprinkled the crushed polos and chocolate beans into...

Animal Modelling Cupcakes - Student Creations Another great night last night at the Animal Modelling Cupcake Workshop, much fun as usual and lots of learning going on! :D Everyone arrived on time; although Sue couldn't sit still and was doing a circuit of the car park for 20 minutes prior to the lesson trying to increase her step intake (she's on a pedometer challenge and was even pacing the floor seconds before we started) then we had Louise being Mother Hen telling me to take a breath because I'd also been on a non-stop mission all day! (Thanks, honey.) So, after a quick breather and initial introductory, we finally got the lesson underway. ;) I was originally going to dem the pig first, but that was delayed because I had to...

Apologies for the delay in the write up on our Chocolate cake evening but with half term and a million tasks to do I've been slightly waylaid, however, we're back to business and raring to go. :D Well, our chocolate evening was a great night, and the ladies were amazing! Even though the ladies are given the same brief, they all have their own ideas and interpretations of it and no matter how similar people are you will always find that generally everybody will do their cake differently and well they didn't disappoint. So armed with ganache, every variation of chocolate you can think and a mass of ideas they produced a wonderful twist on my Chocolate Heaven Cake:- The thing about teaching is that even I get to learn stuff and last...

I've done a baking experiment today! :D I have made a cake in a cup! Effectively a CUP cake but on a much larger scale. ;) I found the concept quite intriguing, so I thought I would give it a go. :D Now it did say to mix the ingredients in a cup first, but I actually put all the ingredients in a jug and then transferred the mix to the Cup. It has to be a microwavable mug, although, I just used one from my cupboard and hoped it didn't break! :eek: I also placed the cup on a plate so that when it raised over the sides, the mix wouldn't be welded to the microwave plate. Here are my results! I cut the overflowing cake bits off the top to make it look a bit better! To be honest, I did add far too many choc chips to it; however, the...