Nutella banana bread is to die for

The girls love that I bake, and sometimes like to join in.  So this Nutella Banana Bread was a special request for one of them.  She remembered it from a few months back, and was sure it was to die for so wanted to have some more.

Personally I didn't remember it that way, but I'm not so keen on bananas as the kids are - though I am coming around to them slowly - but I do love chocolate, and Nutella.  We always have some bananas in the house (and Nutella for that matter) because they're such a nutritious, healthy and handy snack to have, so this cake may well have been made with some slightly overripe bananas - it doesn't affect the taste or texture of the final bake so I think it's a great way to use them up.

I like chocolate (did I mention that?) so I added in some totally unnecessary chocolate chips to the mix.

Then drizzled over lots of melted Nutella, in the middle and on top.

And baked it.

And shared it round.  Mmmm, that didn't last long (but it stayed deliciously moist while we had it). 

Courgettes in a cake for Dundee Baking Club

I have baked cakes with vegetables in them before, most notably carrot cake, and a beetroot chocolate cake, and they have been delicious.  I even bought a book a few years ago, all about cakes with vegetables and less sugar (I was going to name and give a link to that book, but for the life of me can't think what it's called.  If I remember, I'll be sure to include it here), but don't think I've even cracked the spine on that one - perhaps don't tell Mr Becca.

This recipe was for the first meeting of the newly re-branded Dundee Baking Club and the theme was Autumnal Bakes.  As you may recall, about 4 years ago I founded the Dundee branch of the Clandestine Cake Club with Jac from Tinned Tomatoes.  We were very happy with our meetings and members and rolled happily along for quite some time.  Stuart of Cakeyboi joined us and together we ran it all enjoyably.  Then we felt we wanted to bake other than just large cakes, so respectfully broke away and this cake was for our inaugural meeting.  I like to bake big cakes, as our family has little appetite for them so baking for others means I get to taste a little but have the fun of  the bake.

Above we see the grated courgette (or zucchini if you prefer), eggs, brown sugar, flour and spices.

And above here we see the disappointingly thin slivers of cake  :(  I don't know how you would feel with these layers, but I was seriously unimpressed at how little they rose in the baking process.  I had double-checked the recipe quantities and method, in case I had done something wrong, but no.  And my raising agent wasn't out of date or anything like that either...

So I made sure I had plenty of cinnamon flavoured buttercream icing and got to work.  I dusted it all lightly with cinnamon and gold edible glitter spray, plus a dose of delicious walnuts and took it to the meeting.

Where I am pleased to report that it was gobbled up and no-one noticed that the layers were a little on the thin side.  

Super Lemon cake

One of my colleagues has a name starting with S.  She's fairly unassuming, doesn't like to blow her own trumpet, and likes lemon flavoured cake most of all.  So when I noticed it was her birthday coming up, well... I couldn't let it pass without a little bit of fanfare!

I bought some of Lakeland's fantastic PushPans a year or two ago and love using them.  They give a great shape and bake up well every time. I own some in 6" and some in super-tiny and cute 4", and it was the latter I decided to use this time - as some of the senior students had said they planned to buy her a cake for her birthday.

I used my normal sponge cake recipe and instead of adding vanilla extract for flavour, I added Star Kay White lemon plus the zest of a lemon.  I'm really impressed with their extracts, as the flavour is authentic without tasting artificial, and a few drops give lots of flavour - so the icing consistency isn't ruined.  Perfect.

I joined the two layers of cake with the buttercream and some extra delicious lemon curd, and added both the lemon extract and some yellow colouring to achieve the perfect taste and colour for my buttercream.  With the addition of a little fondant sugarpaste decoration of a Superman style capital letter S in bright pink, we were good to go.

And I'm thrilled to say that S loved her cake, and it was just the right size to last her and a friend a couple of days.  

Golf and a 70th, how do you combine the two?

One of the school mums got in touch via the Facebook page to enquire about a cake for her father's 70th birthday.  He really enjoys playing golf and gardening, so whe wanted them included somehow.  And the grandchildren would be present to eat it, so the flavour was to be chocolate.  Fair enough, i said, and got my thinking cap on.  I Googled golf cakes and there were some stunning design ideas to be seen - there are some seriously talented cake makers out there in internet land!

I baked up my go to chocolate sponge recipe, and layered the two large cakes with lashings of luscious and thick green vanilla buttercream icing, to act as the background.  I knew I wanted grass on there too, as the customer had decided on an all buttercream cake.  I went to our wonderful local cake shop, The Cake Guru, and described the shade of green I had, and what else I had in mind.  I'm so pleased with Wendy's recommendation, as the grass tones in perfectly, don't you think?

As the cake flavour was chocolate, and the buttercream vanilla, I didn't feel that the usual strawberry jam filling would be suitable really.  I hadn't been warned of any allergies, so I slathered Nutella in btetween the layers - perfect choice with those flavours, don't you think?

Careful and prolonged use of the grass nozzle tip created the top layer and the decoration at the base edge, a little crushed biscuit for the sand bank and we were good to go.

I'm so pleased to say that the customer feedback was very positive - not only did they love how it looked, it was totally devoured on the day.  A very happy 70th birthday indeed.

Choc chip spiced banana loaf

I was really enjoying the taste of the pumpkin pie spice, and we had some bananas going spare... so Spiced Banana Loaf was born!!

It went down a storm with The Team, and the select few taste-testers who were lucky enough to get some.  A definite winner for next autumn!

Chocolate chip pumpkin cake

I follow quite a few American baking blogs and Facebook pages, and at this time of year they all talk about the most wonderful sounding Autumn flavours of pumpkin, caramel, cinnamon, apple and the like.  So much so that I even made a Pinterest board just for Autumn flavours, mmm...  Feel free to follow that board, any board of mine, or even every board of mine - it'll be fun to have you along.

So anyway, one of these recipes I noticed was for a chocolate chip pumpkin cake (I don't have the link handy, but will add it in when I remember where I found it) that sounded easy and tasty.  Ok, found it! and it turns out it is actually for Easy Pumpkin bars, I must have tweaked it a little...

Although, looking at the photo I seem to recall that this may not have been quite the right recipe, because I remember halving it as I only wanted two, not four, loaves.  So I think the one I used must have been called a pumpkin loaf, or pumpkin bread.  Ah well, it will have been similar.

As you can see, the loaves are very low, so I could have just made one larger/taller one with all the batter I had... I probably made a note on the recipe to remind me of that for next time.  Because yes, dear readers, there will be a next time.  This was delicious, like an afternoon tea type of cake that suits the British palate quite well.  I have found in the past that pumpkin items tend to be incredibly moist, and not our favourite texture (like a pumpkin pie perhaps).  But this was eaten by the whole team, and all taste-testers were pleased with the texture.  Well, all the British locals were - one good friend, American, felt it wasn't quite moist enough for her!  ha ha.

You can't please all of the people all of the time, I guess...

Colourful 60th birthday cake

I was pleased to assist S with another order, this time for a special cake for her mother's birthday. She had no specific idea of what she wanted, but we agreed upon bright coloured sponge, classic vanilla flavour, and co-ordinating pastel decorations on the outside of a white vanilla buttercream cake.

I'm sorry to say that the photos came out rather yellow-tinged, not sure why.  I gently swirled the icing design, and chose flowers and a plaque for the design.

I had fun mixing up the sugarpaste to similar but (hopefully) paler versions of the sponge interior layers.  I'm still hoping to get a customer photo of the interior, once the cake was cut.  If that photo comes, I'll be sure to update you.

Circus style cake for a birthday

A lady got in touch with a cake request that had me stumped at first.  She wanted circus style for her soon-to-be 5 year old daughter, and in my head I had visions of a two or three tier masterpiece, with modelled clowns and lions.  And panicked, because that type of cake is way out of my comfort zone, and doability.  Now that I'm lucky enough to have another academic year of work, I have less time available to craft more magnificent pieces of art than before, so am careful which orders to accept, and which I need to regretfully decline.

But after a bit of chat back and forth, we determined that it was something more suggestive of a circus than the epic masterpiece I had envisaged.  When added to the fact that her children preferred buttercream, I had a better idea of what would suit the family.  Bunting was a definite, as it's so fun!

Red and white were the only required colours, so I had fun with the bunting et voila!  

The bunting was printed onto paper, thanks to a link from The TomKat Studio - Kim puts so much fun stuff on the blog, it's hard to rein yourself in!

On the top of the cake was a plaque, but it just says simply Happy Birthday, rather than a name and age.

But we know it was Blythe's 5th birthday - hope it was fabulous sweetie!!

Zebra print for Zoe, part 1

I don't normally tell you the names of people whom I write about, in order to protect their privacy.  I suppose I could just 'change their names to protect the innocent' like they do on tv or in magazine articles, but I never remember to do that.  However in this instance, I really hope Zoe doesn't mind me using her name - the alliteration between it and the requested zebra print was just too wonderful to pass up on.  

I had the privilege of doing Zoe's birthday cake last year, and was thrilled to be called on again.

This year her mother sent me an image, and asked if I could make a similar cake.  However the colours were to be different, as purple is Zoe's current favourite colour.  No problem I thought, as I'd really enjoyed making this type of bow on a cake, and was looking forward to trying a different style.  I had two options for making the zebra print, and had tried to do the type where you lay out a huge area of white sugarpaste, then lay the black on top and roll over the two to sort of flatten them both.  It kind of did and didn't work, but...

I'm pleased to report that Zoe was blown away by her birthday cake, and they all loved it!  Happy birthday big girl!!

Malteser Twirl birthday cake

I know it's been a while, and I apologise, and thank you for sticking around!  But life as a working mum is really rather hectic, I had no idea!  There's just no time for anything to be done well, sigh...  But that hasn't stopped me baking, oh no.

Here we have an unusual request this close to Christmas - a huge, decadent and delicious birthday cake smothered in chocolate buttercream and Twirl chocolate bars and Malteser malted chocolate balls.  K ordered it for her chocolate-mad hubby for his birthday, knowing how much he loves both the chocolates.  I was really keen to decorate this one, the smell at Becca Towers was something else!!

Happy Birthday Mr T (no, not the actual guy from the 80's tv series The A Team) - enjoy your cake.

Caramel, princesses and unicorns for an early birthday treat

Both our girls are quite gregarious, and have lots of friends in their class and outwith school.  But our kitchen table has only 6 chairs, so parties at home are limited in size.  I feel it makes for a more enjoyable occasion, as no-one tends to feel left out when there are only a small group of friends to entertain.  And the girls have certainly never complained, they enjoy the attention too.

In this case, Mini-2 had a group of friends who all lived very near one another and we'd arranged that L was going to come to our house one day after school to play.  But of course, as young kids do, they chatted about it and then G, E, A and K wanted to come too.  Uh, ok sure I said, then racked my brain as to the least stressful way to do that for her...

As her birthday was only a week or so after the planned playdate, we decided to call it an early birthday party and have cake and cupcakes and fun!

Mini-2 chose caramel as her cake flavour, and these super cute picks and cardboard wraps for the table decorations.

We ended up with a 6" cake and a dozen or more cupcakes, so the girls took them home as party favours.

The food boxes match the napkins and cupcake wraps - cute huh?  

Happy early birthday sweet girl.

The world's most famous mouse

A lady got in touch to ask if I could  make a cake for her soon-to-be-2 year old boy, in the theme of Mickey Mouse.  Hmmm... sure thing, I said, as inspiration struck.  I had a back-up plan, and a friend with just the tools I needed to do the job well.

The brief was for a small cake and not much icing, so I went for a cute little vanilla 6" with strawberry jam and not-too-much vanilla buttercream.  Just a touch of the ole red, white, black and yellow and we have a very happy birthday indeed to sweet Jay!!

Ombre, polka dots and all things purple

M's sister's birthday was coming up fast, and her brother-in-law had been so busy working he'd had no time to organise a cake.  So M rang me, in a mild panic, asking for advice.  We agreed on purple, as it was her sister's favourite colour (and hers, and their mothers, odd) and the rest was up to me.  They loved my rainbow and ombre cakes, so that was a definite inclusion.

But it was all to be a surprise, so I wanted to ice it in white to disguise the interior.  I liked the polka dots I'd done on the Mickey Mouse cake, so did another style of them.  Turns out one of the birthday gifts was a polka dot wine glass, so the cake fitted in beautifully.

And at the party they were kind enough to take and send me a photo of the sliced interior - lovely!  

Happy Birthday Leanne!

Sprinkling gorgeous!

Sometimes Summer just makes you feel happy.  And sometimes you wanna jump for joy.  In which case, we can make a cake to help you out.  Let me present our sprinkling gorgeous 6" vanilla sponge with Nutella and Nutella buttercream.  Iced in lashings of vanilla buttercream, smothered in colourful happy line sprinkles.  

Now, doesn't that just make you smile?  It went into an office for a Friday treat, and I believe it certainly made them all smile  :)

This photo is to give you a sneaky peek behind the scenes - to see how the cake was achieved.  I had seen a tutorial suggesting you roll it in the sprinkles to achieve full coverage over your buttercream, but I just felt that this squashed the design a little.  If you look closely at the space where I placed my logo in the first picture, you may notice a little squashing there.  Or not.

I then did my best to 'throw' the hundreds and thousands at the cake in an attempt to get them to stick.  This too sort-of worked.  But overall, it made me and the customer(s) happy, so all was well.  Have you tried this technique?  What worked for you?

A cake can be the actual birthday gift...

This was a fun request - the cake was to resemble a bow-tied gift box!  It had to be in lilac and cream, where the icing was cream and the bow and any accents in lilac.  there were also to be matching cupcakes and it was for Laura's 21st.  Righto then, off to work.

I had recently seen a few bows done in a different style from that which I had learnt and sort of mastered, and was keen to try one out.  So I asked for a tutorial or some advice from another baker and she pointed me in this direction.  I found it really well written and easy to follow, et voila - I made lots and lots of loops!

Despite adding CMC powder to my sugarpaste so that it would be possible to roll it thinner and have it harden faster, I still made these a few days in advance and probably rolled them a little too thick.  I had been a bit nervous about how I would place and attach them, so did a couple of placement practices.  Until I found that you can't place any more than one layer without something to hold/bind them - oops.  Nevermind, the final run worked out well I think, and I used buttercream and a touch of sugarpaste to hold them in position.  I added the gift tag in last, as it needed to be soft so it could mould to the shape of the finished cake.  Suffice it to say that the customer was thrilled, and I heard back later that the birthday girl had absolutely loved it all.  Result!  Oh, and Happy 21st Birthday Laura   :)

It's not too obvious unfortunately, but some of the cupcakes have cute indentations on them that say 'party time' and 'happy birthday' with balloons.  Perhaps white wasn't the best colour for that?

A cake emergency? Becca to the rescue!

School finishes early in Scotland, on the 28th June this year.  Well, actually it isn't that early - my American friends seemed to finish earlier than that, and they have 11 or 12 weeks of holiday - eek!!  And luckily for us our Swedish friends finished a week or so before us and were able to come to our fair city to visit us.  But it is a few weeks earlier than in England (down South), and we go back the commensurate number of weeks earlier too.  I imagine it may have something to do with the weather or daylight hours or something, but either way it was that time of year for graduations and moving up a grade and so on.

And today I got a text from a regular customer, let's call her P, saying she had a cake emergency and could I help?  I replied honestly, saying it was unlikely but what did she want?  The request was for a vanilla cake with white icing and decorations in the school colours of purple and green, and it had to have the school name on top and Class of 2013.  It was to be the treat on the table at the Primary 7 leavers dance arranged for that evening.  For those of you not in the UK, Primary 7 is the highest grade in elementary/primary school, after which the children go up to a (different) high school.  It's a bittersweet night, because the kids go from being big fish in a small pond, to the smallest of fish in a very big pond (as usually a number of primary schools feed into one high school).

I calculated the time available, and discussed ideas with a cake-baking friend, and lo, I was able to rearrange my day to allow for baking and decorating of said cake to her requirements - and thus save the day!  

I felt that, because time was of the essence, I would not try to smooth the buttercream but rather chose a design that had texture, thus allowing me to achieve the effect in a more timely manner.  I also had to think which style of decoration would go with that style of icing, and decided upon stars in the school colours, as all the kids were stars in their parents eyes.

I'm really pleased that I managed this cake in the short time available, and was thrilled that P's husband loved it when he came to collect it.  

  

How to make a young boy happy - football and cake

Boys like football.  Fact.  They also like cake.  Fact.  Combine the two and you've a recipe for success!  This particular boy is a fan of Dundee United Football Club, a team whose colours are tangerine and black.  So the interior of this cake is one layer chocolate (which I chose not to dye black.  I felt it may not only be messy, but slightly unattractive on the eye and palate) and one layer orange-coloured vanilla. 

Then it was a case of colouring the buttercream orange, to match the outside, and leaving out the jam - we felt it would taste odd with chocolate cake.  Decorate the base edge with little co-ordinating black and tangerine balls et voila - a birthday cake that any footie daft young boy would be glad to call his own.  Happy Birthday Andrew!

The lemon cake exploded

Oh dear, sadly I'm quite serious.  I almost feel that I shouldn't tell you about this one, because it truly looked pretty awful.  But I'm raising my children to be thankful for all that they have and to be tolerant of others and the differences between people, so it's included.

I may add at this stage that the cake tasted good, a bit more solid than I like my cakes usually, but still... It was lemony and sweet and really, what more do you need from a lemon drizzle cake?  It was drizzled with lemon syrup right after coming out of the oven, but Mr Becca felt it couldn't really be called a Lemon Drizzle Cake if you couldn't see the drizzle.

Fair enough, that visible enough for you darling??

As it happened, that was perfectly visible enough for him.  And exactly what he had in mind.  And I think it made the cake look better too, sure helped it taste good!  There was very little leftover of this treat too, after The Team and our friends had our fill.
Just need to make a note for next time, to get some cupcake cases ready for the excess batter - ha ha.

Strawberry and vanilla ruffles for a girly birthday

It was my friend A's birthday again.  I mean really, who apart from me has birthdays every year?  It's just greedy really.  What's that?  Everyone has birthdays every year?  Not just me?  No fair!

Anyway, for her birthday this year we happened to be going to visit on the actual day and I had wanted to try out buttercream ruffle icing for a while, so I figured I'd combine the two.  Oh, and a strawberry cake.  So three things in fact.  Sad to say that some things worked out better than others that day...

So, a great thing happened whilst I was making the strawberry cake - I successfully made meringue!!  This is a red letter item indeed, as the only time I had tried before to make meringue I had wasted 8 egg whites and quite a bit of time and frustration on the project.  And not succeeded.  Hence the photo of the pink meringue mix, I was happy!

I used tinned strawberries well-drained, but as the end result proved, perhaps not well enough drained - the cake was edible but very moist.  The recipe doesn't suggest to use them, and in fact when I managed to chat with the legend herself, Miss Edna de la Cruz, she had never heard of tinned strawberries and showed me a photo of the cake when cut.  Suffice it to say, I heartily recommend that you don't use tinned strawberries when you make this cake.  Ever.

On the plus side, the YouTube video I've linked to above for the buttercream ruffles worked a treat and I got them done, almost without mishap.

Only I misjudged exactly quite how much icing I would need for this technique, and had to make up more - twice.  So the top layer is flat because by that stage I wasn't in the mood for making up yet more icing.  Sorry A!

I think I rescued the cake though, don't you?

And as it was a sunny day, I thought to take my spring flowers cake outdoors for some alfresco shooting

Then, when we got to A's house after school that day, she wanted a photo too because she was so pleased with her birthday surprise.  Thanks sweetie, so glad you liked it!