Making a 3 dimensional cake – Wellies for a keen gardener

This is a birthday cake I made recently for a lady who loves gardening. I was told she practically lived in her Wellies and that’s how my customer came up with the idea for this cake.

Birthday cake for a gardening enthusiast

The customer had requested some flowers to be stuck on top so I made this assortment from gumpaste.

The most important thing was to get the shape and dimensions correct. So I set about measuring up my son’s wellies and traced the outlines on some paper. The details were then transferred on to a clean sheet of card paper and that’s how I got these cut-outs.

The cut-outs were used to cut the base and the leg of the wellies from two 7 inch square cakes. A slightly thicker one was used for the base as this had to support the weight of the legs. The smaller bits (legs and wedges were cut from the other one. In all, I had 3 layers for the legs + 1 layer for the base.
A dowel was used in each leg to support the structure as the cake had to travel about 5 miles.

The cake requested was a chocolate fudge cake – the sticky soft icing can sometimes pose a problem when covering as it does not set well like buttercream or ganache. It took a good 2-3 hours in the fridge before it was set enough to be covered with rolled icing.

The rolled icing was applied in 3 parts to prevent it from tearing in the wrong places.
One part was used to cover the toes and another two to cover each leg. The joint between the two boots was achieved using the rolling ball modelling tool.

Strips of the same icing, embossed with flower shapes were stuck on for better effect. I didn’t stick on the flowers until delivery time the next morning. The cake was left alone overnight without them. Although I spent a sleepless night over this, it proved to be a good test of its stability. Really pleased to say that the cake stayed intact through its short ride and proved to be a hit with the birthday girl!!

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Cookies for the Christmas fair

Each year, during the week before the school Christmas fair, my little one comes home with an empty paper plate for filling up with home bakes. I usually send back cakes or cupcakes. This year, I decided to try something I had never baked before – sugar cookies (recipe courtesy: www.joyofbaking.com). Went for green and red colours for that festive feel!


The recipe for royal icing used to coat the cookies:
60g egg white
300g icing sugar
lemon juice for diluting

Method:
Whisk the egg whites and icing sugar till they are mixed well and you can see stiff peaks.
Adjust consistency using lemon juice.

To coat the cookies:
Pipe an outline using royal icing of a more stiff consistency (loose enough to flow out of the piping bag but stiff enough to hold its shape on the cookie).

Fill in with very runny icing. (Note: Place the filled out cookies on a plate & tap it well to ensure the icing spreads evenly).

A final piped design on the cookie completes the festive look!

TIP: To get the perfect green colour, add a bit of navy blue + a tiny touch of yellow alongwith the base green paste colour!

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A heart shaped cake without a heart shaped pan

Hardly any shops seem to stock heart shaped cake pans throughout the year. As it turns out, they are only available around Valentine’s day.
If you haven’t bought one around this time of the year, you may find this little trick I learned on eHow.com pretty useful.

Here’s a more concise version of the article:
– Bake a round cake of a suitable size
– Use the base of the round cake tin to cut out a circle on a piece of card paper.
– Fold the circle into half
– Draw half a heart shape one semi-circle and cut out along these lines (DON’T: Make the heart too slim as this means you would end up with lesser cake)
– Unfold and you will get a perfectly even heart shape
– Use this as a stencil to cut out a heart shape from your sponge
– Use a carving knife to give smoother edges
– Layer and frost the cake as normal

This is what I managed to achieve:

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Steamed modak with passion fruit sauce

Another one for the Indian desserts project…

Steamed rice flour dimsums with a sweet coconut and jaggery filling.

Served with a dried pineapple slice, passion fruit and raspberry coulis.

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A Rangoli you can truly savour!

Diwali to me is all about lights and vibrant colours. It always brings to me sweet memories of hours spent making colourful rangolis outside the house and then lighting it up with diyas. This is the one thing that I miss the most about Diwali, thanks to the rain and cold weather here at this time of the year. So this year, I decided to overcome the odds and make a Rangoli that you can keep indoors and even eat.

Presenting, my Rangoli cake….

Rangoli cake

This chocolate cake is covered in chocolate sugarpaste. I made the rangoli pattern by tracing out the motifs and using these to create sugarpaste cut-outs.
Even the diyas are edible (if marzipan excites your tastebuds!)

Diya made of marzipan

It will be on display at tonight’s Diwali party and consumed later by attendees.

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Black forest cupcakes

These cupcakes are a mini version of the once popular Black Forest gateau.

Cupcakes:
3 medium eggs
Yolk of 3 eggs
130g sugar
100g plain flour
30g cocoa powder

I made the batter using the genoise method. The above quantity makes 12 large or 18 medium sized cupcakes.

Cherry compote:
Half a tin of black cherries or 50g griotte cherries
1 tsp of cornflour
2-3 tbsp of syrup from cherries

1. Mix the syrup and cornflour to a thin paste and bring to a boil.
2. Add cherries and stir for 5 minutes, until they are coated with the starchy mixture.
3. Pour on to a plate to cool down.

Whipped cream:
300ml whipping cream
30g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Once the cupcakes have cooled, mix all ingredients in a bowl placed over ice & whip to firm peak.

If you like them a bit boozy, you could brush the cupcakes with kirsch flavoured soaking syrup.

Spread some cherry compote in the middle of the cupcake. Pipe a swirl of whipped cream over it, sprinkle dark chocolate shavings, and place a cherry on top.

Tastes best when all the layers are eaten in one BIG biteful!

Note: They need to be stored in the fridge & won’t last more than two days thanks to the whipped cream.

 

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Madeleines

These light and fluffy scallop-shaped cakes are perfect as an anytime snack!

Ingredients:
1 large egg
50g caster sugar
7g Demerara sugar
10g honey
a pinch of salt
3/4th tsp baking powder
60g plain flour
60g melted butter
zest of 1 lemon

NOTE: It is very important to prepare the Madeleine tin properly or else you won’t be able to get them out in one piece.

For this you will need:
2-3 tbsp melted butter
plain flour

Here’s how to do this:
Brush some melted butter liberally onto each scallop mould of the tin.
Leave the tin in the fridge or a cold room for 15-20 minutes or till you can see that the butter has set.
Then brush some more butter into each mould.
Sprinkle some flour till the moulds are coated well and you can’t see the butter on them.
Turn the tin upside down and bang out the excess flour.

Make the Madeleine batter:
– Whisk eggs and caster sugar in a bowl.
– Add demerara sugar, honey and lemon zest and blend nicely.
– Sift the flour, salt and baking powder 2-3 times.
– Blend it into the egg mixture a little at a time, to avoid lumps.
– Cling film the bowl and leave the mixture to chill for 15-20 minutes.
– Add melted butter to the batter and mix it in.
– Place back in the fridge for another 15 minutes.
– Add the mixture to a piping bag

Pipe the mixture in an oval shape in the middle of each mould.
Bake at 180° C for 12-15 minutes.
Turn on to the wire rack.

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Apple and cinnamon rabdi

A rich and creamy Indian dessert, made fresh and fruity by a single Bramley apple!

I’m serving mine with an apple crisp and a couple of caramel decorations

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Pineapple and semolina halva

… served with rum and raisin cream.

A tangy and sweet halva with smooth rum and raisin cream. Perfect after fiery hot South Indian food!

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Indian desserts re-imagined

If I were to review all the Indian restaurants in the UK, I would have one common complaint – a lack of  choice and imagination in the desserts menu. Of all the delicious sweets from every region of the country, you can only find the typical Gulab Jamun, Kulfi, Rice Kheer with the occasional Carrot Halva and Rasmalai!

Traditionally, desserts were served along with the main course which meant they could be lost in the multitude of savoury dishes, their sweetness masked by the spicy bite you could have after. With people now preferring to eat their meals as separate courses, the Indian dessert often comes across as over-poweringly sweet. So maybe, it is time to start thinking about them as part of a plate of dessert, where the other elements on the plate help balance the flavours and make it more interesting to the diner.

Over the next few days, I am going to attempt to do just that – re-create some traditional sweets and plate them up in a whole new way.

I start today with the simple Pineapple sheera.

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