Gingerbread Cookie Tree

You know Christmas is coming when you start planning gingerbread structures, I will be making a house of course but first I thought I'd try something different - a cookie tree!

I've seen a lot of these over the last couple of years and have been dying to make one so was super excited to see a set in The Works for only £2.99, a set made up of a set of star cutters, hole cutter and two different height stands depending on how tall you want it.

Using the recipe below we made up about 4-8 of each size of star to get it as tall as possible, cutting a hole in each one before baking. Once baked I set them aside for icing, I made up a huge batch of green royal icing for piping and filled a huge icing bag up.

I iced each star with green, stacking more on top and it soon filled up the biggest stand. I kept aside a star for the top and painted it with gold edible paint and dusted it in cake glitter. For tree decorations I added sugar snowflakes, purple coated chocolates, mini candy canes and even more red and gold glitter...you can never really have enough anyway!

I have to say I was surprisingly pleased with how it turned out as I wasn't really sure what I was going to be doing with in on the decoration side, I seem to do my best stuff when winging it. We had a little bake off at work for Christmas and it fitted very nicely into the festive theme...keep posted for the gingerbread house I'm decorating tomorrow!

Gingerbread Recipe:


250g butter
125 golden syrup
150ml double cream
250g icing sugar
400g plain flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground gloves
1/2 tsp pepper

You need to add more spices to taste.

Heat butter, golden syrup, double cream and icing sugar in a saucepan. Leave the mixture to cool and stir in the rest of the ingredients. Knead the dough well and roll out, cut out star shaped pieces, make the holes and bake on 175 degrees (165 fan) for 10-12 min. Pin It Now!

Purple Ombre Cake

So today my mum's work hosted a Coffee Morning in support of Macmillan Cancer Support, and I was asked if I would donate a cake to their bake off, the answer was of course yes! I do love a cheeky charity bake off.

After I'd been named and shamed in their company email saying I could outbake them all (which I'm not sure were my words!) I knew the pressure was then on to make something special, and I had just the cake. I've been wanting to make an ombre cake for a while now, and while I hadn't practiced it before I figured I'd just wing it, my usual approach!

So, my decision was made, and the colour? Purple. I decided to make 4 layers from plan to bright purple, each layer was made up of a 5 egg mix.

250g butter
250g sugar
5 eggs
250 flour
2 tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla sugar

First I creamed the butter and sugar and added half of the flour, baking powder, 2 of the eggs and mixed and then added the remainder of the ingredients, mixed and baked for about 40-60 minutes with two tins (yes my actual cake tins, I'll always bake in them!) in the oven at the same time. I made the first layer with no colour and the second I added just a drop of Sugarflaire colouring paste Grape Violet to make it only slightly lilac.

The next batch I doubled the colour and kind of went to town on the last batch, I always worry coloured sponge will look a little dull and wasn't sure how it'd turn out...well...you can see for yourself! Once cool I leveled the cakes to create for equal flat layers.

 

Next I had to ice it with buttercream, I made a ridiculous amount! To the point where I had to consult Twitter to see if I could freeze it - yes I could - phew! First I applied a crumb coat of a very pale lilac and then made a mammoth batch to split into three. The first batch I kept pale like the crumb boat and the next two I tried to be braver with to really make them bright and vibrant, the colour can go really strong so don't be afraid to use it!

I decided to make three rows of roses with buttercream, the darker at the bottom and lightest at the top and the base of the top filled with roses. For the roses I used the Wilton 1M nozzle, as normal - it is my favourite as you know. It's important to keep all of the columns of roses in a line for a neat look...it has to be neat! To fill all of the little gaps I just piped stars into them, and t hey all happened to be in the same lines so it all matched too.

 

  

In hindsight I should have bought a bigger cake board, I did it all a bit last minute so I had to get it from Tesco and it just about fit! I'm normally very critical of my cakes but I have to say I was really proud of this one! I was dying to see what it looked like inside but had to wait until my mum could send me a photo after it had been cut.

sorry I know there's a lot of of pictures to go through!

The coffee morning was a great success and they raised over £140 which is brilliant. I came runner up, considering I don't actually work at that company I thought that was pretty good going, and I got to make a proper show stopper cake which I haven't done in ages.

 

Anyway, for those too scared try an ombre cake...be not afraid! Bake, bake it now!

Nom! Pin It Now!

I Hate Mondays Cake Pops!

Last week was a horrible week at work it was so busy we all felt physically drained by the end. So a few of us thought we'd cheer everyone else up by making cakes for Monday, have a little bake off. 
I had planned to make some cake pops and a batch of snickerdoodles, but as soon as I put a picture of my cake pops up online I soon realised that I didn't have enough...so I put the snickerdoodles back on my 'to bake list' and made another batch of cake pops instead.

Monday's are always manic at work and while cake was a great idea, I think everyone went slightly mental on the sugar so it may have to be toned down next time! In the end we had my cake pops, shortbread, a pink ombre cake which was brilliant and also a shop bought cake which didn't make it 5 minutes after tasting for us to realise we were being tricked! There's still loads left....so another hyperactive day tomorrow perhaps?

 

Now for my cake pops I went for a variety, there are loads of different designs I have been wanting to try so this was a great excuse. All of the cake pops are dipped in white chocolate, in my first batch I made the standard hundreds and thousands dipped ones, then I got more adventurous with the pink leopard ones that I've been wanting to try forever and finished off with little pink owls with pink wings and yellow feet which are just too cute.

For the leopard ones I used a brush to dab on some pink petal dust and gave them a rough outline with black food colouring paste, the trick is to not outline them completely so they look more realistic. I really do love these and am tempted to invest in some other colours for more looks.
As for the owls, I coloured the chocolate pink and when they were cool I piped some pink royal icing on for ears, and writing icing to make the eyes and beak. In hindsight I wish I'd make the ears out of the cake and then dipped them in chocolate.

For the second batch I made hearts, cherry blossom and Hello Kitty cake pops. The hearts I actually used a heart cutter to make them and after dipping them in chocolate, absolutely covered them in blue sprinkles and hundreds and thousands. The cherry blossoms ones caught my eye a while ago and I'm really happy I finally got around to trying them out. They looked really oriental and exotic I love the fine piping detail. Now I have to say the Hello Kitty ones might actually be my favourite, I just hope my niece never finds out I made them and she didn't get one! This time I did make the ears from the cake before dipping them. The decoration was quite simply but effective too with black eyes and whiskers, a little yellow nose and a cute red bow, done! I'm sure my niece will be seeing some of these for her birthday they were so fun to make :).

I think I'm becoming mildly obsessed with cake pops now...anyone know any good books?

Nom! x Pin It Now!