Birthday cake for Mrs B

Chocolate Beetroot Cake with violet Vanilla Buttercream Icing and pink glitter



Adults love to blow out their birthday candles too, you know

Happy birthday Mrs B - so pleased that you liked and enjoyed your lilac and pink sparkly birthday cake - it was fun to make for you.  The recipe for this cake is on the facebook page at www.facebook.com/beccabakes2 in the links section.  Why not click 'like' and become a fan of the page?  It'll make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, and you can virtually enjoy all that we bake and make...

Nothing this week

I have a busy start of the week coming up, with a friend's birthday on the Monday, the school Bingo Night fundraiser event on the Wednesday and a meeting with the local branch of Business Gateway on Thursday.  I'm planning to bake my friend a dark chocolate beetroot cake (her favourite flavour and it's a recipe I've used successfully in the past) and a selection of goodies for the school fundraiser.  Another friend has kindly offered to bake brownies for the school event too, which will be really helpful.  I'm not sure how many the school are expecting to attend, nor if I'm expected to provide enough nibbles for all of them, but I'll do my best! 

The Business Gateway meeting is in response to a few kind friends suggesting I go into business, but I'm not sure really.  Seems like it may be a lot of hard work and I'm not sure there's really a market out there for another baker in Dundee...  I'm friends with a few women who do marvellously attractive and tasty work, so am slightly lacking in confidence (I know, me - lacking in confidence! pah!).  So the meeting is to find out a bit about exactly what may be involved, how much I'd need to do in advance and so forth, we'll see...

Some recent products



Okay, here we have heart-shaped lemon cupcakes.  Well, the ones that worked.  I struggled to remove most of them successfully from the silicon tray - better luck next time!   Then the most recent birthday cake, made by our fair hands.  Yes, it's a bit garish but equally - the recipient loved it!!  As did her friends and family.  The interior is pink and filled with pink icing and red jam, so tasty too.  And the cupcakes were Raspberry ones, simply so that I could try out the latest addition to our arsenal, purple food colouring.  I only used a smidgen, but had wanted a paler lilac, so will try a bit less next time.  All in all, tasty but not perfect-to-look-at.  As I said in our profile information, we're not fabulous but we are practicing!

Brownies to order

These are the Chocolate Walnut Brownies I made to take as a house-warming gift, requested by my friend Mary-Jo.  They sank slightly in the middle, and a possible reason why is over-heating or over-beating (so I was reliably informed by a Facebook fan).  So next time, I'll have the oven on slightly cooler...  Nonetheless, the adults and kids munched them all very quickly indeed, and they were lovely and squidgy in the middle.

Starting out

I'm new to this blogging lark, but have a page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/beccabakes2 and thought I'd set up this blog for those of you who may be interested to see what we do, but aren't on Facebook for one reason or another.  Generally speaking, I bake once or thrice a week, simply to pass the time and for something fun to do.  Sometimes it's for a specific occasion - like going to a friend's new home and she requests brownies, or my daughter's birthday.  Other times it's to try out a new icing nozzle, or food colouring.  Other times it might be because I was reading a magazine and came across a recipe that sounded easy or tasty... who knows.  I'll post photos of my attempts, and update this as often as I can.  I'd love your comments, both positive and constructive.  Happy Baking folks!