Josh's 7th Birthday - Minion Edition

NEWS FLASH! A couple of weeks ago my little brother turned seven...I can't believe it! Which also means I started uni seven years ago, he was born a week before I started uni, ugh. But the big story here is that this is the first cake he didn't insist on having Super Mario on. He didn't have it last year, but he did beg last minute for - but not this year.

We both love Despicable Me, who doesn't? Minions of course rate quite highly so I couldn't have been more excited when he wanted a minion cake, yay! My dad made all of our cakes when we were little so he wanted to join in and help decorate it. My favourite was the Mr. Blobby Cake, I will tell you more about that cake later.

The cake itself it a vanilla sponge sandwiched with jam and smothered in buttercream. For the decoration I covered the cake in sky blue fondant, with white cartoon-like clouds, grey tarmac (from a level in the Minion Rush game he's completely obsessed with) and of course a fondant minion! For the minion, we used a stencil, I say we, but this is the part I my dad did. We're both fans of the stencil technique but as we forgot to print any out we made makeshift ones from tracing an image in my iPad, and it worked pretty well actually.

So my dad cut out and assembled the minion, who is called Carl (true story), and I piped the black royal icing outline.This was actually a lot easier than I expected, thank God for 2D images! By this point I had already iced the cake and we started laying on the fondant minion and getting him (sorry, Carl) in the right place. I thought he looked really cute his dungarees and huge eye. The piping part was quite simple actually the only artistic was I did was to give him hair. I always buy ready made black royal icing to pipe as it's such a hassle to make and takes quite a bit of black colouring.

So after the minion was piped and ready to go I added the white fondant clouds and my little brother wanted to put the candles on himself, he did a pretty good job too may I add. So, the cake was finally ready. He loves the whole deal of singing happy birthday, blowing out the candles and everyone clapping.

The piece he wanted, is the piece all children want - the eye! And I made sure he got it too. BECAUSE - when I was little, 7 infact! I had a Mr. Blobby cake...no one judge me, I loved him and I will always love him. Anyway, all I wanted was the eyes, I don't know why - I just did. And this was of course the only piece sent away to someone, and I have never forgiven him and keep telling my dad he owes me another Mr. Blobby cake so I can eat the eyes. So it was very important that my little brother was not also scarred by a memory like this (I'm trying to guilt trip my dad here, if you can't tell...I want the eyes next year....) so this is exactly what he got...even though the piece as huuuuuuuuge!

Everyone enjoyed the cake and he loved it which is all that matters in the end anyway isn't it. I loved my week down in the south with him doing lots of fun stuff in the last part of his summer holiday. Here's a few pictures from the week too.

I clearly make him pose for too many pictures with me... but we spent some days at the beach with my older brother building epic sandcastles and burying each other, spent his birthday at Legoland which was AMAZING, baked biscuits, went to Fort Nelson, drove around with the roof down like pimps and generally had a lovely time doing lots of silly stuff, same again next year!

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I Heart Cake!

This month I was asked to join in a fun baking challenge, I have vowed to do more of these so I was extremely happy to receive a pretty cake mould* in the post to use for the challenge.

So, the challenge! To use the I Heart Cake Baking Mould to make any cake of our choice and the winner of the best one wins £100 of kitchen goodies! Everyone loves kitchen goodies, so it's always worth a go. Now I'm not saying my entry is my greatest work, but I made a Victoria Sandwich, which I've never done before....right stops your gasps, I know! They've also ended up being covered in fondant so I've never had a chance to do it the classic way.

The thing about this mould I loved was that the cake slices come out as hearts, which is a really sweet idea, pardon the pun. But for occasions like Valentine's, anniversaries and even weddings, I think this would be a really cute idea.

So as I said I chose to make a Victoria Sandwich, I used a classic recipe from the dairy cookbook which I got from my mum after using hers so much it's nearly fallen apart, true story. I got my design inspiration from Jo at The Secluded Tea Party, I love how she fills her cakes with buttercream and wanted to do something along the same lines.

Now mine got nowhere near as high as hers, I guess I should have made it thicker but then I can be such a pain to pipe. I halved the cake and filled one side with swirls of vanilla buttercream and the other I covered with strawberry jam with the idea that it would drip down the swirls, which, if I'd had enough height - could have happened.

I covered (drenched) the top with sifted icing sugar, which is slightly heavier in one side as you can see...but I didn't want to overdo the decoration and keep it classic looking. Here you can see I've cut a very cute heart slice, it's really affective and I can't say I didn't love the whole gimmick of the heart slice, who wouldn't?

The mould itself was really strong, baked extremely well, I always worry about silicone which I know it ridiculous but it didn't stick, gave an even bake and just popped straight out right at the end. Couldn't ask for more out of a mould really, it will definitely take residence in my baking room and be used again. It's a pretty looking mould anyway so could be used for other designs, and more than cake such as jelly or maybe even flapjacks or something with a rice crispy base, would do you think?

The mould itself can be bought from Find Me A Gift for £14.99. Here's a bit of technical info from the site:

• Clever cake mould which produces 6 generous sized heart shaped portions!
• Made of food safe non stick silicone
• Measures approx 25 cm x 25 cm x 6 cm
• Use for cakes, jellies and other desserts
• Oven safe to 220c (do not warm mould empty)
• Freezer safe to -40c
• Microwave and Dishwasher safe
• Does not come with cake mix - sorry! ( I love this one)

I would definitely recommend it, and has changed my mind about baking with silicone, I use it for my giant cupcakes or for chocolates etc but this is the first one for cake, I may well be converted. Pin It Now!

Use Your Loaf - Cheat

So I've always known I'm no good at baking bread. It's not me being negative, it's a fact - I just can't do it! I can't even say I love the process like so many do, it's pretty foreign to me. Give me a mixing bowl and tell me to make a croquembouche or some cheeky meringues and I'm away...but bread? *shudder*. 

From the moment where I sat in front of Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood, through to the audition stage of The Great British Bake Off, with Paul's piercing (and yes girls, stunning) blue eyes staring at me, where he tore my foccacia in half and ripped out a lump of dough (and my heart) and disappointingly said 'It's raw.' I knew I'd never be able to produce good bread. Sweet yeast dough doesn't faze me at all so I'm not sure exactly 'what' it is, but it all goes wrong, so terribly, 

terribly wrong.

So it was almost like the universe picked up on this, and tempted me to the dark side...I was sent a bread maker to test. Now I know in the serious baking world the word 'breadmaker' can have you looked upon as if you just said 'Voldermort' in front of a Harry Potter fangirl. There's a lot of stigma with appliances like these that help you cheat, but you know what? My baking morals are loose, I can, and was, tempted to do just that, cheat.

Now there I was, sitting in front of this 'machine', totally confused about what to do. I'd never had or used one before so I wasn't really sure if it was something I could master. The bread maker in question was the Panasonic SD2500 Breadmaker*, white and gleaming and I was shocked to find it did more than just bake. I realise to those of you that have used one before it must seem naive to not know that, but I honestly didn't. Not only does it bake bread but it also makes, jam, compote, cakes and even makes dough ready for rolling. You can even make gluten free breads which I think will be a major bonus for a lot of families.

Now for some technical stuff:

Programmes:

• 25 programmes including: white bread, french bread, whole-wheat, quick bread, sweet bread, speciality, pizza base, rolls, brioche, dough and bake.
• Maximum bread size 2.65lb / 1.2kg.
• 3 adjustable crust settings.
• 3 loaf sizes
• 115 mins fast bake time.
• 13 hour delay timer for overnight baking.
• Also suitable for making jam and cakes.

Features:

• Cool touch.
• Add ingredients signal.
• Keep warm function.

Right now you know all that, let's get down to the testing. I thought it'd be a cop out to just make a load and write about that. So I decided to make two loaves, some strawberry jam and some croissant dough.  I decided on a granary loaf and a classic white loaf as those are the ones we would tend to eat the most so it made sense to try those. For the granary I selected the 'whole-wheat' programme, I literally had no idea what I was doing at this point so I relied completely on the instructions. I placed in the yeast, dry ingredients and then the wet, selected the programme, crust setting and set it off! It does take a few hours, about 5 for this one. But when you think it does all of the proofing etc for you, it's not that bad at all - and that' what I really struggle with, there's nowhere warm enough in my house to get something to rise properly so this solves that straight away. When I say it's quiet, it really IS quiet, to the point where we had to go out and check it was actually working as we couldn't hear it.

It was working, and a few hours later out popped a beautiful smelling loaf of bread! They do say to take it out straight away so we did, I guess this is so it doesn't stick making you to get the spatula out. While it obviously doesn't make a long loaf, it does come out fairly tall. We're only two people so it's enough to last us a good few days, and who doesn't enjoy fresh bread at the weekend? Marvel at it's beauty! (apart from my dodgy slices)

Next I went for the white loaf, this one I set up exactly the same but set it on a timer for the morning. The only thing is that you have to be awake for when you want it or you risk leaving it in the breadmaker. So don't put it on when you've come back from the pub or you'll probably forget about it for a few days! Nothing looks better than a crisp white loaf on a saturday morning, I need to seriously work on my carving skills...no judging please! I also cut it when it was too hot as I just couldn't wait.

As you know I make a lot of cake...I also buy a lot of jam. I have always wanted to make it but don't have all the gear. So I though OK, I have the machine, let's give it a go. I decided on strawberry jam as that's what I use the most. Armed with two big tubs of strawberries and a deathly amount of sugar I set to work, there's wasn't really much else to it but layering fruit and sugar in the machine. 

It did say you needed to add sugar and pectin separately but I couldn't find any but I did find this sugar which had blended both. This recipe only took about 2.5 hours and at the end I had a perfect tub of jam! Which, when warm from the machine smelt AMAZING.

But without wanting to go to A & E for licking the spoon I thought better of it and poured it in the jar to cool instead. It now lives in my fridge and reserved for special weekend treats.

Next I really want to try out the dough aspect, and croissants in particular, everyone's favourite right? What's not to like? The only difference with this dough is that it needed an egg, apart from that it was all set up the same, leave it to do it's stuff for a couple of hours and boom! 

Out pops some perfect looking dough. This one did require some work after, it needed to be rolled and folded with butter like puff pastry and chilled in the fridge. This did take some time, but it does give those haters back their real baking feel. And it was nice to do half the work, it may make the dough but it can't roll it out and shape it for you, 

I love doing those bits. So after rolling it, filling it and folding it with butter about six times and chilling it in the fridge twice it was ready to roll out. I rolled it out into one massive square and cut it into smaller squares, which I then sliced into two triangles. Each triangle then got rolled out until they were long and thin, taking the wide end I rolled it up to the thin end, leaving the end underneath and shaping it into the classic crescent shape. I got about 15 out of these, enough to take into work...I may also have 'tested' a couple fresh from the oven...maybe.

Oh.....oh my.

I have to say, this product genuinely surprised me, and I didn't think it would. I may not be Paul Hollywood, but I can still make a good loaf, I may not make it every week but I will definitely use it, and I love the fact I can whip up jam in an afternoon which will be great for the big family breakfasts. It definitely gets a thumbs up from me,

 I'm a cheater, and proud. 

But come one! Who cares? Look at those!!

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