Today i made a big fondant fancy.

On Sunday it was my pal Amy's birthday and last week at work i said I'd make her a cake for work this week. I wanted to try and make a big fondant fancy so she requested a pink one.

Challenge accepted :-)

I figured out i was going to use my mum's old massive tin, and initially was going to make a few cakes and layer them. However. I soon realised that was going to take hours so decided just to make one big cake and cut it and layer the bits.
So in with the pink food colouring (slightly too much, i know no limits!!!) And cake was made.

Except it wasn't. Because my lovely boyfriend, who was making his tea at the same time,  switched the oven off when he was finished frying his damn sausages.

Livid.

I didn't notice until i went to check the cake and by then the oven was bloody cold.

The house was not a pleasant place to be tonight.

But he went out, and i shoved the oven back on. Angrily. But 30 mins later it was ready.

Good job or i would have had the police called on me!!!!

Anyway. While the cake was cooking i made some pink butter icing and chucked some in a bowl wrapped in cling film for the wee bump at the top of the fancy. I popped it in the fridge and waited for everything to get cold!

So. The layering. I cut the cake into 4 (i used a tape measure and everything) and made 3 tiers with the icing and then tried to ice the sides to make the other icing stick.

Ooh i forgot to say about the other icing! I got a block of white fondant from the coop and put even more pink colouring in. I kneaded it until the colour was even and rolled it out-with great difficulty i may add- and left it til i was ready.

Soooo, the cake was layered, icing was on and the wee bump was in the top.

Fondant icing is not simple to use.

After a lot of patting and patching the cake was covered :-) finally, i had some iof that writing chocolate that i wanted to use to make the stripy bits on top.

This didn't really go to plan either, if I'm honest.

I had to melt the stuff under hot water, which i did. Then had to cut the nib off, which i did. Then i tried to use it, which i didn't. I dont know how it's meant to work, so there was blobs of chocolate all over the shop.

Eventually it sort of worked, and i had stripes of a sort!

And then it was finished :-) i sent Am a 2 second snapchat of the cake to give her a glimpse but she's not replied yet so i have no idea what she thinks! ! I'll find out tomorrow when we get tasting it!

That's all for now!

(I've handily included a packet of chewing gum fir size reference lol. I couldn't find anything else!!!)

This weekend i made loads of cakes

Now. About a month ago my pal Gemma asked me to make some cakes for her wedding celebration in August. I jumped at the chance! I immediately started thinking about what kind i could make and how I'd go about doing it with timings etc.

So, as always, i left it til the night before and done all the shopping and baking. 5 hours i was at it. I knew I'd have no room in my freezer to prebake all the cakes so i thought bugger it! Night before it is!

My plan was chocolate (using the dr oetker recipe on the website); choc chip and lemon (using normal 6/6/6/3 recipes); carrot and finally red velvet. 3 out of the 5 iwas happy with, but ive never attempted red velvet or carrot before. I ended up using Nigellas red velvet recipe (buttermilk substitue = milk and lemon juice!! Who knew?!) and some Google carrot cake recipe that looked the simplest (but with normal SR flour rather than wholemeal because i wasn't bloody spending £2 on a bag of flour!!!)

Raging success!! I've never been so proud! I ended up making 69 altogether  (i was originally planned to make 30 bit that went straight out the window when i got excited!!)

And... im pleased to say that there weren't too many left when we tumbled out the party at 1am this morning :-)

Totally chuffed!

So today i woke up feeling fresher than i expected and decided i wanted to bake more. The girls at work will hate me, i think I'm a feeder.

I had stuff left over so another red velvet was to be made (well, technically fuscia velvet because the Nigella recipe used a whole bloody pot of colouring paste, and it was either fuscia or sky blue). 

I made a whole cake this time rather than cupcakes so want really sure of the timings. I think it ended up a wee bit dry but its bloody lovely!

As an aside, i bought spices from the website curryfrenzy this week and decided i would make a naga curry for tea.

I'm not sure if my bum will tolerate the aftermath tomorrow...

Til next time :-)

Chocolate and lemon

I broke my whisk :(

~Iced

~

Iced

  

Todays Fuscia Velvet

A slice of fuscia velvet :)

Wedding red velvet cupckae

Doesn't it look pretty!!!

This week i learned how to make pastry.

This week I decided it was time to learn how to make pastry.  So I started with a quiche lorraine.

Flour, butter and a bit of water!  Who knew!?

Now, I was informed that I had to rest it for 30 minutes before rolling it out, so i done this and it was awfully dry.  However, my roasting hands soon melted the butter a bit and it was eventually able to go into the tin.

Lined and lined and lined and lined...

Then for the filling.  I wasn't sure I liked Quiche Lorraine, but how can you go wrong with bacon and onion?!?!

Getting my bacon on.

It smelled bloody amazing.

Pre-liquid.

I then mixed some eggs to milk with salt and pepper, and thought "there's no way all that's going to fit in there!!!"

Got it in t'oven.

But by jove it fitted!!  Game one!!

It was a bit messy.

After about 30 minutes, I took it out.  And it was awesome looking.  A bit messy looking, but awesome looking all the same!!

But then it became beautiful :)

So now I know how to make pastry.  I also made a treacle tart (breadcrumbs in a pudding, who'd have thunk it!) and took it into work - it got gobbled up with some skooshy cream and I felt really proud of myself!!

My next entry will likely be brownies, that I intend to try and make on Monday night to take to work on Tuesday.  Let's see how that goes...

This weekend i discovered cauliflower rice.

Last week I rejoined slimming world because i really want to lose the beef. I had my first with in yesterday  and went and bloody lost 9lb! 9 bloody pounds! Now i know I've got a lot to lose but that was just unbelievable for me! I thought the scales might be broken but no one else seemed to be surprised with their results so i was dancing about like a dafty! It took me about 4 weeks to get rid of 9lb last year!

It'll never be that amount in one week again, but its a brilliant motivation! 

Anyway, Jill-the girl i buddy along with- kept on about cauliflower rice (basically grated cauli used in place of cooled cooked rice) so i thought I'd give it a shot. 

Oh my word.

Its a revelation!

Since yesterday I've used an entire cauliflower and, considering i bought it at about 1pm yesterday and I'm typing this at 1130, thats pretty impressive i reckon! 

I had a bogle online to find slimming world recipes and then just decided to fire in a shit load of stuff i had in the house instead. I grated my cauli florets and patted them dry, then got spring onion/garlic/chilli powder/soy sauce and Fridays left over chicken and bunged it in a frying pan. I added an egg to make it nicer.

Bloody awesome!!

So this morning i done the same but with prawns instead of chicken. Again, absolutely gorgeous.

I can't believe it's taken me this long to try it but ill absolutely be making it part of my diet from now!

Try it! 

Chicken one.  I forgot to take a photo until I was almost finished, but you get the idea!

The prawn one.

Today i never had any pineapple...

I wanted to attempt a pineapple upside down cake but didn't have the tinned pineapple in the cupboard that i thought i had.  Instead i used timned peaches and hoped for the best.

It was either that or grapefruit segments, but i feel that would probably have turned out worse than it actually did!

I found a Nigella recipe that looked fairly simple, and followed it. 100g Plain flour, 100g sugar, 1/4tspbicarb, 1tsp baking powder, 100g stork and 2 eggs.  Whizz it up, add 3 tbsp of fruitjuice and pour it over a layer of fruit on the bottom of a pan. So i did.

I was a bit worried it would be soggy due to the fruit bit looking at it in the baking tray after 30 mins it looked promising.

But i forgot how hard it could be to get upside down cake out a tin.

Well. 

It's out.

It's not pretty, but it's out!

The proof will be in the tasting so ill see how that goes later!

Also on the baking agenda today is scones because one of my colleagues is leaving for 6 months and we're having a nice wee lunch for her on Tuesday :-)

See you later!!

Today i attempted to make sushi

Many moons ago i used to make sushi on a regular basis, and i loved it. I usually used red pepper and ham to fill them, and i never quite got the recipe right  (despite following the recipe on the back of the yukata (?) packet)!!

A few weeks ago i decided I'd try again, so bought the nori and rice vinegar and its been sitting in my cupboard ever since. Today I'm on annual leave for the day so i thought, bugger it - it's time!

Them i realised i didn't really have anything to fill it.

I followed the instructions to make the rice - 1.5 cups  (i have cup measures, get me ) of rice with 200ml water, bring to boil them simmer on a low heat for 15-20 mins.

Except that the rice was already sticking to the bottom after 10 mins. I didn't really know what to do so i just kinda stirred it round and added a bit more water, put the lid back on and popped it back on the heat - and hoped for the best.  After another 5 mins I'd had enough so took it off and added in my mix of vinegar, salt and sugar.

Now, i looked everywhere for the exact quantities of these that i needed bit i couldn't find them. I went for 3tbsp vinegar, 1 tbsp sugar and 1tsp salt and stirred.  It dissolved eventually so i chucked it over the rice and stirred some more.  The rice then went into a plate to try to cool down. That takes a while, and i ran out of patience, so i just started to build it. Fuck it.

So!! I got a sheet on nori, and a handful of rice and spread it over the seaweed.  But what to fill it with?  I eventually found a rogue slice of leftover ham in the fridge, and a jar of hot and spicy beetroot and sliced it all up. Yum! They worked well, but by the time i got to the 4th nori sheet i decided to try something different.  I found a wee tin of soy/ginger tuna in the cupboard so banged it on the rice. It rolled up quite well :-)

And the result? The rice is crunchy, it's a wee bit too salty and a bit warm still, but strangely edible!  Not bad for the first attempt in about 10 years :-)

Happy new year!

Today i am full of the cold and bloody miserable. I wasnt out partying last night and i was asleep by 130am (which is better than my boyfriend who was asleep by 1!). 

That Still Game programme was good though.

Yesterday i made a ham joint thing with honey and mustard. Apparently it tastes brilliant but i won't know until my cold buggers off. I was a bit nervous about making it  (bloody £10- worth of meat!) But i boiled it then drained, then boiled for 2 hours with bay leaves,peppercorns and honey in the water. After, i roasted it at 200 for 45 mins coated in 3tbsp each of honey and wholegrain mustard.

I really can't wait to eat it!

Meant to be going to my fellas mums for steak pie tea later but i won't be able to bloody well taste that either.

Rant over, and happy new year again!

Xx