WELCOME HOME OLIVIA.

My big sister has been in Guyana (South America) for the past 4 weeks arrived home today! While in Guyana she helped to develop Girl Guiding, and I'm very proud of her for travelling away and doing something for such a good cause!  So far, she's introduced me to some Guayanese music (not to my taste!) and some Guyanese rum (much more to my taste!)

As a surprise welcome home present, I decided to try my hand at fondant icing and make her a celebration cake.  In true Hardacre style, I went all out with a two tier, iced cake, complete with fondant figurines.

It may not be the prettiest cake ever, but with it being my first fondant iced cake I was pretty happy with the result!

The cake itself was a simple victoria sponge cake with jam in between the layers.

You will need (for 2x 8" cakes and 2x 6" cakes):

8 medium eggs

1lb (453.6g) flour

1lb (453.6g) caster sugar

1lb (453.6g) margerine or soft butter

Raspberry (or whatever you like) jam

Fondant icing

Method:

Mix all the ingredients in a (very!) large bowl.

Pour the mixture into the greased cake tins, I did one of each size, cooked it and then did the next two.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until golden and springy.

Leave each layer to cool.

Put one of the 8" cakes onto a cake tray and cover in jam.  Place the second 8" cake on top, and again, cover (lightly) in jam.

Repeat with the 6" cakes.

For the icing, roll out your desired colour of icing, on a table/surface dusted liberally with icing sugar, until it is quite thin.

Using the rolling pin, carefully lay it over the cake and smooth down.

Repeat this with the smaller cakes, then place them on top of the bigger cakes.

Now its totally up to you on how you decorate! I found a good website on how to make fondant figurines that takes you step by step: http://caketrails-nz.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/simple-fondant-figure-tutorial.html

 Its actually a very easy cake to make as a celebration cake as you can personalise and decorate it however you like! 

Happy baking,

SIMPLE ICED CUPCAKES

Soo I'm a totally proud little sister this week, as yesterday my big sister Olivia graduated from university with an honours degree in Arabic! 

As a lovely little (well little in age, not in height!) sister, I decided to bake her something of her choice.  One of her favourite things in the world is glacé icing, and she asked me to bake her some simple vanilla cupcakes, covered in icing.

These simple cakes are just vanilla sponge mix covered with glacé icing, and literally couldn't be easier or quicker, making them perfect for a birthday party or an unexpected coffee guest!  I think with all the fancy cakes available now, it's easy to forget just how good a simple sponge cake is. 

Having been baking sponge cakes my whole life, I don't use a recipe anymore, for each egg I simply use 2oz (sorry, I work in oz! Thats roughly 56.7g) of everything else.

First of all, get your ingredients:

3 eggs

6oz (170g) flour (sifted)

6oz (170g) caster sugar

6oz (170g) butter or margerine 

Splash of milk

Icing sugar

Water

This makes roughly 18 fairy cakes. (If you want more cake, increase the quantities!)

Next:

Line a fairy cake tray with fairy cake cases (medium size ones).

To make the cake mix, (I use Mary Berry's all in one method) add the flour, sugar, butter, milk and eggs into a bowl and mix until smooth.

Spoon into the lined cake tin, filling to roughly 3/4 up the side of the case.

Put into the oven at 190C/fan 170C/gas 5, for roughly 20 minutes or until pale gold and springy to the touch.

 Put onto a wire rack to cool. 

To make the icing, simply mix the icing sugar with a little water until you have the desired amount and consistency.

Dollop onto the cakes and allow to run. 

 It's also compulsory to eat the leftover icing with a spoon, which is definitely my favourite bit!

Happy baking, 

COFFEE TIME CUPCAKES.

Coffee cake may actually be my favourite cake in the world, and I don't even regret saying that (sorry chocolate cake!)  They almost feel healthy to eat. These easy fairy cakes taste incredible and are perfect for morning coffee! (..or afternoon coffee.. or evening coffee.. or just all the time..)

They are super moist, and full of flavour without being overpowering (for people who say they can't eat coffee cake because they don't like coffee, these have more of a warming hint of latte rather than full blown espresso!) and they only take about 30 minutes from start to finish.

They use normal cupcake ingredients, with an added tablespoon of coffee:

Cupcakes

4oz (100g) butter
4oz (100g) caster sugar
4oz (100g) self raising flour
2 medium eggs 

 1 tablespoon cold, strong black coffee
1 tsp vanilla extract

Coffee Buttercream

5oz (125g) unsalted butter
10oz (250g) icing sugar
1-2 tablespoons cold, strong black coffee (depending on how strong you like it)

Next, mix up all your ingredients:

In a large bowl, mix together the butter, sugar, flour and eggs, until all combined.

Add the coffee and stir well.

Place the mixture into a cupcake tray lined with paper cases, fill them about 3/4 to the top.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until slightly brown and springy to the touch.

While the cakes are cooling on a wire rack, make the coffee buttercream, mix the butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy, then add 1-2 tablespoons of coffee, depending on how strong you like it, or what texture you want the cream.

Once the cakes are cool, slice a circle out of them and slice it in half, put a teaspoon of cream into the middle then put the halved tops in like fairy wings.

If you fancy more of a mocha cupcake, add in a small tablespoon of cocoa powder dissolved in water into the cake mix! Here's the printout.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do!

Happy baking,

THE GREAT CUPCAKE BAKE.

(Okay so they're technically muffins, not cupcakes.) 

This was a bit of an unexpected bake; the muffins are for a Christening party for my boyfriend's youngest (well not quite anymore, but I'll get to that!) nephew. Originally Jack's mum was going to make them, but in an unexpected turn of events, a new baby nephew was born in the early hours of this morning (lots of sisters, lots of babies!) and I got asked to bake as a favour. 

It was actually a straightforward bake, just lots of tray juggling! So here I am, 36 muffins later...!

In case you fancy trying out any of the recipes (my favourite are the orange ones), here they are. 

 

Now to finally begin the prep for tomorrow, choosing the right coloured nail varnish is very important!

Happy baking, 

HOT CROSS BUNNY.

 Happy Easter! (Okay so I know Easter is over now, but I was totally caught up in the excitement! This year was my first Easter with my lovely boyfriend and his family.)  Like the wonderful person he is, Jack offered me up to make desserts for the family meal, despite enjoying my baking, I have never had to cater for such a big group of people! 

Let's just say that this wasn't my most stress free bake ever, running out ingredients halfway through a bake, with 2 hours to go was not ideal to day the least! I was very grateful for Jack's patience with me as I shouted at him through clouds of icing sugar.

The recipe for my celebration cake was actually super easy, so if you fancy it, here it is!

Finding it difficult to find the time to bake at the moment (thanks to horrid amounts of revision), but 2 months and my exams are over and I leave school forever, pretty exciting eeeek! 14 years of my life at school and its nearly over, pretty sure that calls for a celebration cake...!

Happy baking,

SPRING CUPCAKES.

The past few days have been really sunny, and it put me in the mood for some spring baking. For me, lemon is the perfect spring flavour, light and fresh, so I decided to create something around that (though it may just be my love of lemon curd that convinced me!) 

These cupcakes were super easy to make and decorate, I was going for simple, yet effective (basically my life motto.) Hidden inside is a fresh lemon-y surprise, just to give that added spring hit (so okay it's not really a great surprise, but it excited me!) 

Here is the recipe that I used, in case you feel just as inspired by spring as I did! To print and keep, simply save the picture, open and print!

So they turned out looking awesome, and in case you're not jealous enough, they taste amazing too! A definite must for any spring afternoon tea.

I hope you feel just as inspired by this weather as I do, what's your favourite spring bake?

Happy Spring,