What is a cake worth to you?

 

Just recently I have had several conversations about the cost of  my cakes. Now this isn't a rant about the price of cakes or how much work I put into my cakes but more my observations on my experience as a cake decorator.

The first conversation occurred a few weeks ago with one of my favourite people in the world, my dear friend Gem,  we were discussing some up coming cake commisions and quotes I had been asked for. The conversation went something along these lines (I am paraphrasing a bit here!):
 Me: "I have just had a meeting about an exciting cake order, three tiers, lots of modelling, it's going to be amazing."
Gem: "Wow sounds amazing, lots of work for you though, how much will you charge for that?"
Me "It is a lot of work but it will be a good cake to do, I won't take on anything else that week so that I can give it my full attention. I haven't worked out the full price but I think around £200.
Gem: "£200 for a cake wow, that's a lot of money for a cake"
That sentence right there made me kind of stop and think "whoa, what do you mean £200 for a cake?" This £200 cake will be 24hrs of my time without the material costs taken off! Once the indignation died down and I thought some more I started to think "If Gem, who knows how much time I spend on my creations can think this, what hope do bespoke cake makers have in persuading their customers that £200 is a fair price for a large occasion cake." (I should add here that after chatting to Gem she now understands £200 for a large occasion cake!)


On the internet you will find lots of blog posts and articles by cake decorators about how much it costs to make a bespoke cake, and complaints about customers not valuing a bespoke cake. Lots and lots of cartoons and pictures about "cheap cake not being good cake and good cake not being cheap". I am not doing that and I won't break my costs down for you on my blog because it's boring and every cake maker will charge for different things according to their own costings. I feel am good value for money and my customers are always happy with the cost of their cake.  If I quote and they are not happy, I will always discuss different size or decoration options to reduce the cost to make it more suitable to their budget. I spend many hours creating the vision of the customer and although I will never get rich from this business I do love doing this job and I hope one day it will give me a sustainable business which will pay me a living wage. Which brings me to the second conversation about cake pricing and value. I haven't had many people ask for a quote and then not place an order so I suppose I have been very lucky in my first year of business.

Last weekend I recieved a picture of a 2 tier cake along with a message saying how much would you charge to make this cake? The cake in question had a detailed model on top along with lots of other decoration. I quoted £95 for this and the reply to this was "thanks but someone else will do it for £25".  I politely replied that that was a bargain and I couldn't even get all the ingredients for that price! Now I mentioned this on a online forum for cake bakers and lots of comments came flooding in ranging from "that's ridiculous" and "you are better off with out commisions like that" to "I wouldn't buy or eat a cake that cost that little".

This last statement got me thinking again, mainly about quality goods. The old adage "if it seems to good to be true it usually is"  rings more than true here.  With cake this may mean a cake decorator without food hygiene training, an uninsured cake decorator or battery hen's eggs, synthetic flavouring and cheap margarine (instead of pure unsalted butter) or even packet mix cake (shuddering as I type)! And perhaps those things don't bother some people, but I will only make cake that I will eat so for me that means locally produced free range eggs, unsalted butter, organic milk, Madagascan vanilla extract, quality 70% cocoa chocolate etcetera etcetera.

I know it sounds a bit foodie and maybe a bit snobbish but taste a cake made with synthetic vanilla flavour and then try the Madagscan vanilla extract and you will never want to taste synthetic vanilla again. Yes Madagscan vanilla costs 5 times that of the synthetic stuff, but to me it's worth every penny. Maybe that's what makes me different to those other cake makers who can make a 2 tier masterpiece for £25.  I truely love cake and will only eat the best and therefore only produce the best for you to eat too.  So far my ideals are being rewarded with repeat business and a growing reputation as a good place to get a quality cake!

Now, on the subject of  Madagascan vanilla, last week I found a new vanilla cupcake recipe from a fab website Bakehappy, which from now on will become my vanilla cupcake of choice. A lovely moist 'vanillery' cupcake, with a slight tang from the addition of natural yogurt and really quick and easy to make. I will share this lovely recipe with you all as I have been pretty poor at recipes for you all recently!

Perfectly Moist Vanilla Cupcakes

16 cupcakes

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking power
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
seeds from 1 vanilla pod (optional)
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup  naturalyogurt
2 tsp vanilla extract  (I use the Nielsen-Massey vanilla bean paste with has the seeds in so stops you having to faff with deseeding the vanilla pod!)

Vanilla buttercream frosting:
2 cups icing sugar
1 cup unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
seeds from 1 vanilla pod (optional) see note above

 1. Pre-heat oven to 175c.
 2. Sift together all the dry ingredients, flour, baking powder, bicarbonate soda and salt.
 3. Cream together butter, sugar and seeds from the vanilla pod until light and fluffy. Then add in the eggs one at a time.
 4. Mix together the yogurt, milk and vanilla extract, the wet ingredients.
 5. Add in one third of the dry ingredients and then add in one half of the wet ingredients.
 6. Repeat step 5 untill all our combined. Just barely mix, until you cannot see streaks of flour in the batter.
 7. Line cupcake pans with cupcake liners, the batter will make 16 cupcakes. Fill muffin sized cupcake liners with 1/4 cup batter.
 8. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until golder brown. Let the cupcakes cool to room temperature.
 9. To make the frosting, mix together butter. vanilla seeds from the pod and vanilla extract. Sift the powdered sugar and add to the butter mixture slowly. Mix until smooth. Pipe frosting into the cupcakes

2013 a whirlwind of cakes

As the year comes to a close I, like many, am feeling reflective and just a little bit guilty for not keeping up with my blog as much as I would have liked. 2013 has been a watershed year for me. I have managed to get a handle on the ME that struck me down in 2012 and I am learning to live a new life, very different from my pre-ME life, but very rewarding and challenging non the less. I have taken the plunge and started my cake making and decorating business and I hit and survived the big 4 0. (Someone pointed out to me recently that i need to update my bio on the blog as I'm not a 30 something anymore but I'm still a bit in denial. Caroline, I admit it!)
This is my year in a whistle stop tour:

January
When I returned to work in January I didn't think I would manage anything apart from work and rest but very slowly (too slowly at times) I started to find the energy to make cakes and of course continue my new passion for cake decoration. With the wedding that started my passion for decorating coming ever closer my sugarpaste rose practicing became slightly frantic until I mastered the art with the help of some great tutorials. You can find my favourite one here sugar paste rose tutorial part 1. The sense of achievement I felt when I had made that final rose for the cutting cake was utterly amazing and concreted my desire to do more of this and hopefully build a business.

February
With the wedding cake finished and the confetti brushed away my mind turned to Back Of Beyond Baking cakes and cupcakes. Thanks to some great friends and family ordering cakes and spreading the word it didn't take long for the orders to start rolling in. My first paid cakes went out in February, the first of which was my 'beauty' girly cake for a 20th birthday. My nerves were in overdrive when I delivered that cake but the feed back was so wonderful I was hooked and with the photos of that cake I had my first 'non friend' order!

March

March Brought snow and ice to the Back of Beyond and my first cake-tastrophe. (I still don't know what went wrong with that cake). As the snow was falling and Master Vander-Cave's dreams of a  birthday weekend at Alton Towers was postponed, I was up at midnight finishing a second cake for a pony ride party after the first cake collapsed in the middle and I had to bake another cake. The pony ride didn't materialise either. They ended up having a sledging party!  We had a great weekend sledging and Master V-C did get his trip to Alton T,owers all be it  2 weeks late.

April

My first Clandestine Cake Club meet up occured in April. The theme of the meet was continental cakes and after much scouring of the internet I decided upon a bienestich cake (a bee sting cake) which is a honey and almond cake with a creme patisserie filling. Unfortunately my creme pat didn't set properly! I should know better and should have done a trial run, and by the time I got to the venue my cake had lost a fair bit of its filling and needed to be eaten with a spoon. All the other club members were very generous and made kind comments about my slightly unattractive offering. Some shared stories of their previous offerings that had had similar issues and most agreed for transportation one should consider a drier cake! The CCC is a fab idea and I urge anyone with a passion for cake to join up and find their local group. I had a great time trying lots of different cake and chatting to fellow baking enthusiasts.

May

In may I finally hit the big 4-0 and I must say it was a lot less scary than I thought it would be. Possibly because I filled my birthday with a luxury stay at the Hotel Terravina, a fabulous boutique hotel in the New Forest (you can see pictures of it  here ). Dinner in their 'Michelin star worthy' restaurant, a lunch out with friends and a trip to Harry Potter studio tour. I had also hoped to get my ride in a hot air balloon but like Master V-C the weather thwarted us and it was 3 weeks later that I finally got my wish and had a beautiful early morning balloon flight over rural Herefordshire. I made my own Birthday cake as I wanted to try out the box of cigarillo chocolates I had bought. "My life is like a box of chocolate" cake was a sucess and everybody who came to my birthday lunch thoroughly enjoyed it.


June
This month saw me having a stall at a local craft fair selling my cupcakes and cake pops. It was nervewracking to make so many cupcakes and then put them out on a stall and say come and buy me.(I still think no one will like my cakes!)  Thankfully, although it was a quiet event accourding to the other stall holders, I sold out of cupcakes and lots of people took a business card. I was on a serious high by the end of that day!



July
July bought the hotest week of the year along with my busiest week to date and some serious cake challenges. Whilst the country sweltered, the two Vander-Cave males were occupied with cricket and Andy Murray fought his way through to the wimbledon finals, I fought with wilting fondant and curdling buttercream to make one of the most special cakes of the year, my close friends 40th birthday cake and my first handbag cake. The cake turned out suprisingly well all things considered. On the day of Soph's birthday we gathered at a country house for afternoon tea and it was a truely memorable day, tears and laughter and a spontaneous rendition of "for she's a jolly good fellow" and much cheering when the news came through that Murray had done it. We finally had a british winner of Wimbledon. And to top it off Master V-C's cricket team won the county cup. A truely wonderful month.

August
 

At last our summer hols to spain and a well earned break from cake. I missed eating cake almost as much as I missed making them and I did find myself checking the business email when free wifi allowed and even booking another craft fair. This one in the run up to Christmas. Almost as soon as we touched down in blighty I was back in the kitchen, this time creating my first birdcage wedding cake and 45 vintage tea party cupcakes with minature cups and saucers. The bride and groom were thrilled with their cake and another first ticked off for Back Of Beyond Baking.

September
As the schools went back and the weather started to get cooler my cake orders got quieter. This initially caused me to feel anxious but then I knuckled down to sorting out my accounts and a bit of me-time, including a proper day off hitting the shops, enjoying a relaxing coffee and a read of something other than a recipe book! This quiet spell didn't last long (a week I think!)  before I had to turn my mind to Christmas cakes!

October

As any one who makes Christmas cakes and puddings knows you have to be prepared to get thinking about it sooner rather than later and this year this was never truer. I put out adverts via my Facebook page and the village noticeboard and eventually closed my book at 15 christmas cakes as well as various christmas puds and yule logs!  The cakes took me 4 days to make, 15kg of dried fruits  and 40 eggs, an hour to feed each time they needed feeding and they drank 2 litres of brandy between them! It was a mammoth task but well worth the happy customers when December 25th finally came around. The end of October brought annual village halloween pumpkin competition. Both Mr V-C and Master V-C entered pumpkins, while I was busy making halloween cupcakes for the village halloween baby who's now 3 years old. I'm pleased to announce that Mr V-C had a winning pumpkin with his amazing Sauron's eye.

November
As the nights drew in my energy levels dipped a bit but I managed to pace myself well and find the energy for all the tasks required and some time for more clandestine cake fun. This time the theme was british classics and as someone else nabbed the Victoria sandwich cake for their offering I produced my mum's classic the boiled fruit cake. Have a look here for this recipe for  boiled fruit cake.  The cake went down well and although the Victoria sandwich cake maker pulled out, we still had an excellent selection of cakey treats and some lovely company to share the cakes with. I am definitely looking forward to more CCC meet ups in 2014. Towards the end of the month master V-C and I went to Birmingham to Cake International. A veritable feast of cakes were on show, with cake competitions for every imaginable catergory, including best carved cake which boasted a life size Captain Jack Sparrow and a 4ft tall TARDIS, and best wedding cake which had some cakes that one couldn't even begin to imagine how they were created. Their beauty was quite breathtaking and master V-C took a gazillion photos of the various cakes.  In fact it was difficult to drag him away.

December
This month, as it should be, was all about Christmas. On the first day of the month I took my cakes and cupcakes to  a Handmade in Herefordshire Christmas craft fair. Again I was told it was a quiet event but I still sold 90% of my cupcakes and a few of the individual mini Christmas cakes. Thankfully an advert on my facebook page took care of the remaining cakes and puddings! I then spent much of the remaining month icing Christmas cakes and creating Christmas themed cupcakes. Whilst I was kept busy with this Master Vander-Cave was busy rehearsing for the village panto. His part had grown this year from magic carpet in Aladdin to Will Scarlet in Robin hood and the Babes in the woods. He had quite a few lines to learn which he did without needing much support and then remembered them all once onstage with around 100 people watching. His comic timing and delivery were spot on and again we felt very proud of our boy.
By the time Christmas arrived I was glad to see the back of the last Christmas cakes. The Vander-Cave cake was a very simply iced affair and to be honest it was lucky it got iced at all! Christmas this year was a quiet one with just the three of us in our barn but then followed up with a chaotic day with the wider family back in the big city. And now all there is left for me to say is Happy New Year and may 2014 bring all you wish for. x

A Chocoholic's dream come true

 

 

As most of my regular readers will know, we here in the Back Of Beyond are chocoholic through and through, so when we were given the chance to visit Cadbury's World courtesy of Superbreak we jumped at the chance! I had visited many years ago with Master Vander-Cave when he was a pre schooler so my memories were pretty hazy.  The one thing I remembered was the melted chocolate taster which I enjoyed reaquainting myself with.

 

Joining  us on our trip was Gem from Life with Katie and her family. We agreed to meet at Cadbury World for a leisurely lunch before exploring the museum and play area before of prebooked tour time.  Gem and co were driving up from the city, which on a normal day would have taken them two and a half hours, whilst we were coming from the Back Of Beyond which took us an hour. We did take an hour to get there whilst Gem took nearly 5 hours! Road closures and RTA's took their toll and they eventually arrived 5 minutes after our prebooked time. During our wait for the rest of our party the staff at Cadbury world were fabulous. They directed us to what we could do even without all our tickets (Gem had them with her!) and once our friends arrived they got us straight to the front of the queue for the next tour. Anyway back to our waiting time. Our first stop was the Cadburys cafe where we had freshly prepared baguette  with our choice of filling and a Cadburys hot chocolate. The service was quick and the food and drink enjoyable with good portion sizes for a reasonable price. With our tummies full (well our lunch tummies, not our chocolate tummies!) we headed to the Bourneville experience. This is a museum about John Cadbury and his work in providing excellent housing and working conditions for his workers and development of the Bourneville village. Also in this museum is a sweet shop frontage with a display of chocolate bars through the ages and reminded us of some of our long forgotten childhood favourite sweets. Master Vander-Cave's favourite exhibit was the design a chocolate box interactive display. Once designed one's advert is then displayed in the above mentioned sweet shop window!

 

Our next stop was the Cadbury's shop as Master V-C didn't want to see Santa in his grotto (he's way too cool for that these days!). I did pop my head into the grotto which looked amazing and the queue's were short and well managed. Once inside the shop I really did turn into a kid in a sweet shop and came out with way too much "bargain " chocolate.

 

And finally we got to the main event the Cadbury tour which we all thoroughly enjoyed. Anything that starts with being handed two bars of chocolate has to be good in my book! I won't spoil it all by going into to detail but one thing I will say was the melted warm chocolate covering my selected treat of jellybabies was well worth the wait and the look on Gem's son Pip's face was fantastic when he got his first ever taste of melted chocolate! (but there were subsequent tears when it was all gone). Oh, and make sure you see the purple planet which kind of messes with your mind!

 

After a long day of chocolatey fun we all headed back to our barn for dinner and a bit of grown up time with Gem and TMC. I had planned to make a chocolate pudding enhanced with Nutella on Saturday evening but we mutually decided we were all chocolated out (not a phrase you will here often here!) so it became pudding for all after sunday lunch. These chocolate pots from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries are coeliac friendly as they contain no flour and are quick to make. A perfect pud for Gem and me! Young Pip was most enamoured with further chocolately goodness as he doesn't get chocolate very often and was not keen to share with his daddy! I wish I could show you a photo of his face, it really was a picture!

 

Hot Chocolate pudding

 

200g dark, fine quality chocolate (I use 70% cocoa solids)

100g caster sugar
3 eggs
60g butter
2 lightly heaped tablespoons chocolate hazelnut spread (Nutella or similar)

 

Set the oven at 200 degrees C or gas 6. Butter 4 small ramekins or oven-proof cups.

 

Break the chocolate into rough pieces and put it in a bowl suspended over gently simmering water. Melt without stirring.

 

Separate the eggs then beat the sugar with the egg yolks until thick & creamy. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until airy and stiff.

 

Stir the butter into the chocolate and leave to melt, then gently stir in the hazelnut spread.

 

Fold the chocolate mixture into the yolks and sugar, then carefully fold in the beaten egg whites with a metal spoon. Take care not to overmix. Make certain there are no floating bits of egg white.

 

Scoop into the four dishes and place on a baking sheet.

 

Bake for 12-15 minutes, till risen. The tops should be cracked and the centres still wobbly. Should you open one too early, it can go back in the oven.

 

Serve with double cream in a jug and be ready to pour extra cream in once you've started eating!

 

 

 



Cake and Caching

Last weekend we left the Back Of Beyond and went to visit our friends in South Gloucestershire for the day. We get together 3 or 4 times a year taking it in turns to host and enjoy each others culinary skills. As Mr SG used to be a chef he often does most of the cooking at our weekend get togethers. This time Mrs SG made pudding, which she admitted she hadn't practiced before so we were her guinea pigs, and very lucky guinea pigs indeed! Her white chocolate and raspberry bread and butter pudding was fantastic, topped off with a trickle of double cream, and I was in food heaven. So much so that I had to get a picture and the recipe so I could share it here!

After the delicious lunch we decided to do a bit of Geo-caching which the SG family had introduced us to earlier in the year. Our initial reaction to Geocaching was lukewarm, but after a few goes during the long summer holidays (when we were looking for cheap activities to entertain Master Vander-Cave and some friend) we caught the bug and is very much on our to do list for free time fun. Geo-caching is like a treasure hunt using GPS and the internet. A "cache" is hidden, something small and innocuous looking, along with a log book(for people to sign to say they found the cache) and sometimes little treasures to collect or leave,then the cacher put clues and co-ordinates to where it is hidden on Geocaching.com . When you find it, you log it on the website. Mr SG has become a Geocaching Jedi over the last year, finding a cache most days, and has even hidden a few himself.  He had selected three caches to find, all within a short walk of each other. We managed to find all three fairly easily (although one did require a 4pt bottle of water to access it), have a lovely walk and explore an area we wouldn't have visited if it hadn't been for the Geocaching.  I have to say I find it fascinating that this activity is going on all around the world and mostly you wouldn't think that someone might have hidden things, in a global treasure hunt, on your street or local park and that other's will be looking for these silly inconsequential objects just for the fun of finding them. And actually it is a real sense of achievement when you have searched for ages and finally find something that is almost hidden under your nose! So thank you SG family for introducing us to Geocaching and for such a lovely day. Hope to see you again soon!


White chocolate & raspberry bread and butter pudding
12 slices white bread, crusts removed
50 g butter, softened
250 g fresh or frozen raspberries
200g white chocolate, chopped, or white chocolate chips
4 eggs
450 ml double cream
225 ml milk
125 g caster sugar
1 tbsp granulated sugar, for sprinkling
cream or vanilla ice cream, to serve


Butter the bread and arrange four slices, buttered side down, in a single layer in a 20x25cm ovenproof dish. Scatter over half the raspberries and white chocolate, then cover with four more slices of bread, buttered side down again. Add the remaining raspberries and chocolate, followed by a final layer of bread, placed buttered side down.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs with the cream, milk, caster sugar and a pinch of salt, pour this mixture over the bread. Cover the dish with cling film and leave to stand for an hour, or in the fridge overnight – this will allow the bread to soak up the egg and cream mixture.

When you’re ready to bake the pudding, preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Sprinkle the granulated sugar over the pudding, and then prepare a bain-marie. Place the pudding dish in a large, deep-sided roasting tin and pour in enough boiling water to come about halfway up the sides of the pudding dish. This regulates the heat in the oven and ensures the eggs don’t scramble.

Carefully transfer the dish and bain-marie to the oven and bake for about 1 hour or until the pudding is crisp and golden on top and just set in the centre – a skewer inserted into the middle will come out clean.


Remove from the oven, allow to cool slightly, and serve warm with cream or vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

Summertime fun

 

As usual I will need to start this post with an apology for my tardiness in keeping up with this blog.  A special apology goes to Nanna who has been missing my blogging particularly. Sorry Nanna! I am regularly updating my cake photos but beyond that life and two jobs has given me precious little time off! Having said that we did get our annual trip to sunnier climes where I did little more than work hard at getting a tan. ( I worked very hard at this, lying still for hours under a blue sky and a sea breeze!). Sadly the lack of WiFi stopped me blogging so I had no choice but to relax.
Anyway I am back and finally have a few moments to update you all on my latest cakey escapades!
The summer seems to have flown by with lots of cake challenges for me to get my teeth into.  The greatest of which was the bird cage cake, with 40 cupcakes, all decorated with teapots and tea cups. As my first paid wedding cake I felt extra pressure to get it right! Thankfully, with lots of time and effort (and a few expletives) it was alright on the day and the feed back from the bride was very complimentary (pictures of these cakes are on the cake creation picture page.) Now finally cake orders have settled down (for the next couple of weeks) so I have been able to try out a new recipe. I have had the Hummingbird Home Sweet Home book for 6mths now and have managed to try out 3 recipes from it! (I know it's not good enough!) I think part of the problem has been a lack of cake testers and the recipes I've wanted to try have been ones I know Mr Vander-Cave wouldn't like, and Master Vander- Cave and I can only eat so much cake without starting to look like Violet Beauregard after eating the chewing gum! Anyway I digress.  Last weekend it was the 3rd Christine Wilde Foundation charity cricket day which we fielded a team for, comprising of my two Vander-Cave boys Gem from life with Katie's husband, my niece's new fiancé Geordie and his bff Pricey and a couple of old friends. Considering this team had never played before they did well to reach the semi finals but the day wasn't really about winning, it was about having fun and raising money for a wonderful charity. My contribution to the day (other than donating to the bar's profits) was  a lemon and raspberry cake for the cricketers tea, well most of it for the cricketers as I had to test it obviously! This recipe is a three layer cake with a lemon cream cheese frosting, which I think may be my favourite frosting ever. I have since used the leftover frosting on some vanilla cupcakes.  Divine!

 

Lemon and Raspberry Cake

Ingredients:

For the sponge:

110g unsalted butter, softened

380g caster sugar

320g plain flour

4tsp baking powder

320ml buttermilk

Zest of 2 lemons

3 large eggs

80g raspberry jam

For the frosting:

900g icing sugar

Zest of 1.5 lemons

150g unsalted butter, softened

375g full-fat cream cheese

Grated zest of 1/2 lemon

A few raspberries

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and line the cake tins with greaseproof paper.
2. With a hand-held electric whisk, mix the butter, sugar, flour and baking powder together until it forms a sand-like consistency.
3. In a large jug, mix together the buttermilk, lemon zest and eggs.
4. With the whisk on medium speed, gradually pour half the liquid into the crumb mixture.
5. Mix thoroughly until the batter is thick and smooth. Once the lumps have gone, add the rest of the liquid.
6. Mix until combined.
7. Divide the batter between the 3 tins and bake for 20-30 minutes until golden brown and an inserted skewer comes out clean.
8. Meanwhile, make the frosting by gradually mixing the icing sugar, lemon zest and butter together on a low speed with the electric whisk until combined and there are no large lumps of butter.
9. Add a little cream cheese to loosen up the mixture and beat until smooth.
10. Add the rest of the cream cheese and beat the frosting until it is light and fluffy.
11. Once the sponges are cool, assemble the cake by placing one layer on a large plate.
12. Spread with a layer of raspberry jam and top with 3-4tbsp of frosting, smoothing out with a palette knife.
13. Sandwich the second layer on top and frost the sides and top of the cake so no sponge is showing.
14. Decorate with a few raspberries, some lemon zest and a sprinkling of icing sugar.

Enjoy!

Everybody else's cake

My trial giant cupcake

Since starting the Back Of Beyond baking business in February I have hardly had a cake free week. I'm not complaining, far from it, but the cake tin in the Back Of Beyond barn only ever gets over bakes or trimmings these days. I feel a bit guilty as Master Vander-Cave is a big cake fan and so far he hasn't complained about the lack of family favourites but I think I will have to rectify the situation soon. Otherwise I can see myself having a mutiny on my hands! The other aspect of baking that is suffering is the experimentation and exploring other recipe books. I find I am experimenting with fondant techniques rather than the cakes underneath. The creative urges are being sated by this but unless you are a fellow fondant fiddler, probably very boring to hear about.

In the last three months I have only experimented with two new recipes, both of which are chocolate, and both of which were for other people. The first cake was an order for a giant chocolate cupcake requested by one of my best customers. Prior to this order I had only tried out my giant cupcake tin once and only as a vanilla sponge. Thankfully the trusty Google search came up trumps with a lovely moist chocolate cake by the very talented Victoria at Victorious cupcakes. I wasn't quite brave enough to make the cake for the order without a trial which is silly because Victoria does know her stuff. I baked a trial cake for one of my gorgeous girlfriends and her equally gorgeous babies who came to visit us in the back of beyond. It was a resounding success with all saying how scrummy and light it was.  My customer was just as happy with her giant cupcake and another success for Back of Beyond Baking.

Victorious giant chocolate cupcake

500g plain flour

300g golden caster sugar

125g Light muscovado sugar

60g cocoa powder

2.5 teaspoons of baking powder

1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon of salt

4 eggs

Small tub of sour cream (150ml)

1.5 Tablespoon of vanilla extract

220g of unsalted butter, melted and cooled

150ml of corn oil 

375ml of chilled water

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Grease your tin/mould. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt. 

In another bowl or wide-necked measuring jug whisk together the eggs, sour cream and vanilla until blended. Using a freestanding or handheld electric mixer, beat together the melted butter and corn oil until just blended (you'll need another large bowl for this if using the hand whisk; the freestanding mixer comes with its own bowl), then beat in the water. 

Add the dry ingredients all at once and mix together on a slow speed. Add the egg mixture, and mix again until everything is blended and then pour into the prepared tin/mould. Bake the cakes for about an hour, or until a cake-tester comes out clean.

Cool the cakes in their tins on a wire rack for 15 minutes, and then turn the cakes out onto the rack to cool completely.

Too busy to blog!

This really is a flying visit to my little blogosphere to say a thousand apologies for not keeping up with my blog but I seem to have become a victim of my own success!
Since setting up Back Of Beyond Baking 'the business' and returning to my day job, I seem to have very little time to write about the cakes I make. I am not experimenting with new recipes because I am busy making the standard sponge cakes either for celebration cakes or themed cupcakes! The great news for me is that my decorating skills are being regularly tested and expanding and if I do say so myself; improving quite quickly! I have had only two weeks where I have had no cake orders and most weeks I have had multiple cakes to make. Out on the farm, lambing has been and gone, the hedgerows are finally showing signs of life and spring is most definitely sprung, and to be honest I have missed it all in a whirl of fondant, ribbons and lots and lots of cake!
During the course of my absence from this corner of the back of beyond I have made my first rainbow cake for Master Vander-Cave's Birthday, along with ombre icing in shades of blue (his request), made my first motorbike out of fondant and gum paste and used rice krispie treats (or RKT as they are known in cake decorating circles!) for modelling under fondant. So lots of firsts. There was one other cake related first, which I will dedicate a whole blog post to soon. I attended my first Clandestine Cake Club meeting and met lots of lovely bakers, got to try some gorgeous cakes and take some cake away with me! That was a real highlight for me and something I will definitely be making time for in the future!
In the mean time I will keep all my cake creations updated on the Cake creation page