My first attempt at Macaroons

So after my trip to Laduree, I really wanted to try and make some of my own macaroons. When I was browsing the bakery books in WHSmith I spotted a book of 30 macaroon recipes for only £4 so I though I would give them a try.

On Saturday night my boyfriend was out with the lads so I invited my friend Emma over to try them out. We looked through the book and decided to make strawberry flavoured ones.

The recipe looked very simple for something that many people said was something very difficult to make. Just a mixture of egg whites, ground almonds, caster sugar and icing sugar. I followed the directions and piped out the mixture as instructed on baking sheets. Then I left the mixture for 30 minutes to create a hard crust on top. Then I baked them on a low heat for 15 minutes.

I could believe it when they came out! They even had the skirt around the bottom just like the ones from Laduree!

When they had cooled Emma and I covered one half with vanilla butter cream and the other with strawberry jam. And this is what they looked like........

They were amazing! Soft and chewy with a hard outer casing. They were not as light and delicate as the ones I had purchased in Covent Garden but they were tasty all the same.

So the next day I decided try try and make some more. I decided on Orange as I had the colouring and flavours for this as I am running short on others. They second batch turned out better than the first. These were smaller and lighter than the previous and I filled them with vanilla and chocolate butter cream.

I would defintley recommend that you all give these a try...............they are one of the tastiest desserts I have had in a while. Try then and see what you think!

My First Macaroons from Laduree

Recently I visited London with my friend Emma and decided to visit the bakery's and sample their products. One shop my friend Emma took me to was a shop in Covent Garden called Laduree. They specialise in Macaroons and to that day I had only heard but never tried them.

I had heard that they were very tasty but also very expensive. When I entered the shop is was so small and quite. Very vintage which I loved.

I looked around and saw a vast range of colours! It was so beautiful I just had to buy some. I even brought them in a beautiful presentation box.

It took so long to try and choose the flavours as there was so much to choose from. I decided on apple, blackcurrant, peach, lemon, pistachio and strawberry.

The flavours were out of this world! The two outer cases were firm bit slightly chewy with a soft and fluffy centre. I couldn't believe that I hadn't ever tried these before. The individual flavours were perfect and precise. My favourite was apple and I wish I had a store closer to me as I would be a regular customer.

Now I am going to try and make my own.........

Hummingbird Red Velvet Cupcake

I recently visited London on a weekend trip with my friend and decided to visit the local cupcake bakery's to see how the professionals made their cakes. I will be writing blogs on the cakes I have tried and let you know what I though of them.

Here is the first.....................

The most famous bakery that I wanted to visit was the Hummingbird bakery. I heard that they had recently opened a store at Spitalfields and was going to be nearby so I decided to try and find it. To be honest I did not expect it to be away from the main high street and found it quite difficult to find. In the end I found it with the help of my friend Emma.

The front of the building looked amazing. Bright and colourful that really attracted you in. When I entered the store the staff were very friendly and informative about the cakes so it was easy to know what each of them were.

There was lots to choose from and they all were beautifully decorated. I decided that I wanted to try the Red Velvet Cupcake. I had seen so many pictures of this type of cake and always wanted to know what the big attraction was having never tasted it for myself. Well I must say it was well worth the wait.....

The vanilla sponge was moist and flavourful, with a rich red colour that was bright throughout the whole cupcake. The Cream Cheese frosting was to die for. Creamy and light but not greasy. Many cakes I have tried gave a sickly feeling from their icing but I could have eaten much more. It wasn't too sweet but still left you feeling like you had eaten a dessert. The decoration was simple but effective, a deep red crumble that complimented the colour of the sponge beautifully.

The prices of their cupcakes was very reasonable. Ranging from £2 to over £3 to take away, the price was in the middle of the range I had seen over this weekend. For the quality of the cake, I believe this was worth every penny.

The Hummingbird bakery is quickly growing fast withing the cupcake world and I believe it is one of the most popular. Having now tasted their cakes I can see why. An amazing cupcake that left you wanted to return to the store again and again.

Mummy's Birthday Cake!

When it was time for me to make a cake for my mums birthday, I was not able to decide what to make.

I couldn't decide on the theme or the colours that my mum would love to see. I happened to be browsing on a website and saw some beautiful flower cakes. I then decided that flowers would be great to try and arrange for my mum. I though back on the different flowers that I know that she likes and then remembered one flower in particular.

My grandads favourite flower was the sunflower and I thought that this would be a lovely way to decorate the cake.

I entered the details on google and it showed lovely sunflower cakes which helped me come up with a design, now all I had to do was figure out the best materials to use.

I contacted a shop in Westborne who was able advise me that petal paste was the best thing to use to create the flowers. I managed to also find sunflower cutters to make it a little easier on me. The cakes was going to consist of 2 layers with vanilla sponge and strawberry jam.

I took a day off work to create this cake as I knew it was going to take a long time. I started work at 9am and think I finished at 5pm. Unfortunately this was due to the lower cake not rising enough so i started that part again.

After a lot stress and hard work I finally finished and this is what I created.

And the flowers came out great...........

I think I need a little more practice but was really please with my second attempt at my 2 tier cake.

Mummy, I hope you enjoyed it xxx

Darrens Birthday Cake!

As far back as I can remember my brother has loved and supported Tottenham Hotspur football club. So when my mum asked me to make a cake for his birthday I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Usually I specialise in cupcakes but I decided to try a big cake for the first time. For a few weeks I have been looking through magazines of amazing 2 tier cakes and decided that this is something I should have a go at.

I visited my favourite cake supplier who talked me through step by step of what I will need to create this masterpiece! So I was all set to start cooking.

Baking the cakes was the easy part. I placed each cake on their own board and used jam and vanilla buttercream as the filling. I then covered the top tier in white fondant icing. I created the Tottenham Hotspur logo out of blue fondant icing and stuck it to the top tier using edible glue.

This was then placed on the bottom cake after I had inserted the dowels. I then used the grass nozzle I had purchased previously and started creating the grass to create a football pitch. It seemed to go on forever as my hand started to cramp!. After 15 minutes of constant piping, I was finally finished.

To complete the cake I purchased some edible footballs to put on the grass and placed a football themed ribbon around the top tier.

After 5 hours of hard work, I was finally finished.

..........and this is what I created!

Happy Birthday Darren!

Fathers Day Cupcakes!

My Mother asked me to make her some cupcakes for our fathers day dinner and I knew what to make straight away.
My Dads passion is his original Lambretta scooter. He loves to ride out with all his friends, go to scooter parties and do a little charity work too. So I decided to try and make the design all about this.
I started by making a template of a scooter by using a picture I found on the Internet. I then cut out the base in white fondant icing. I added different coloured fondant to parts of the scooter to make it more 3D. It was very difficult as I was working on such a small scale. This was very much a case of trial and error to see if the shape I had cut out fit the space it was intended for. The end result was this.

To give it a bit more character, I used icing pens to show the handle bars, wheels and body work. At the end of it, I don't think it's bad for my first attempt. I also tried it out with a different colour fondant for the body work to keep the girls in my family happy.

I also decided to create the Lambretta logo for some of the cupcakes as making 12 scooters on my first try was a challenge I was not ready for just yet. I made a large circle out of blue fondant icing, then a smaller from white and eventually, using a red icing pen drew on the smallest inner circle. I left these overnight so that they were solid to place on the cupcakes.

I decided to leave the cupcake mixture as plain vanilla, as my Dad is very fussy. But, I was keen to have different flavours of butter cream icing so I decided to go with raspberry and peppermint in corresponding colours. I also made a few with vanilla icing to keep Dad happy. (They are for him after all!)


So here is the finished product and I hope he enjoys them.
 

Happy Fathers Day Daddy! x