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.

Candy melts aren't always a good idea...

One of the companies here makes flavoured and coloured candy melts (Silver Spoon, but I couldn't find the product on their website?), so the pink ones are strawberry.  When I bought them, I had thought this was a good idea.  Not so much now.

We had Maltesers to use up, so I made Malteser Slice.  And thought it would be fun to use the pink chocolate on top, rather than the usual white chocolate.  Please, don't try this at home.  Apart from the melts not actually melting as well as normal chocolate does in a bain-marie, it really didn't taste right having strawberry flavoured chocolate on your Malteser Slice.  Looked good, but did not taste good.  Ah well, that's what experimenting is all about really, isn't it?

The Cake Doctor is in...

'Hi Becca! Could I please order some more malteser slice and brownies :) may actually be medically addicted! Lol xx' 

I switched on my computer yesterday to see this on our Facebook page.  Of course, a few emails back and forth later and I was convinced I was going to be able to soothe her addiction and ease her longings.  Funnily enough, Mr Becca is actually Dr Becca, and confirmed that the NHS (National Health Service, to you non-British readers out there) would not pay for such treatment.  So Clare had to go private, and came to us. 

I didn't take any photos, as we've all seen a few Malteser Traybakes and trays of Brownies by now.  Suffice it to say, they were dusted with edible glitter to my heart's delight - and Clare's.  And I posted this on Facebook today, so spread the word cake-lovers!

'Becca Bakes wants to let you know that the Cake Doctor is in. If you're feeling unwell or know someone who is, have an addiction to Brownies or Maltesers, or even have a prescription for cupcakes - we can help. Just email or leave a message on the wall, we're here to help. Be sure to tell all your friends...'

Gift box of baked treats

Clare, the bride who had requested the individually-boxed cupcake favours a few weeks ago (and been so pleased with them - all the children at the wedding had loved them), wanted to give a different sort of thankyou gift to her wedding photographer.  Her thought was to do some Brownies, Malteser Slice and cupcakes - my thought was to box them up and make a little treat out of them.  After some discussion about decoration, I got down to business.

In order to get the goodies as fresh as possible, I baked the Brownies first and did the Malteser Slice while the Brownies were baking.  Kind of, after the washing up was done and the surfaces cleaned and sanitised, but you get my drift.  Making a paste of the syrup, chocolate, biscuit and Maltesers was a tough job, but someone had to do it...

Once the brownies had cooled a bit, they were cut up and boxed

Then it was time to deal with the rest of the Malteser Slice.  The colours chosen for the decoration of the cupcakes was red, white and black so I sprinkled the white chocolate top layer with red and graphite edible glitter and left it to set.

Then it was on to the cupcakes.  I felt that these had to be done last, as they taste best when eaten within about 48 hours of baking (even better if within 24).  It's difficult to make only 4, so here's what we started out with...

I had used whitened vanilla buttercream icing and put a little red colouring around the inside edges of the piping bag to get the effect.  It was less red in my mind, but Clare loved these.  The black glitter was darker in my imagination too, but it hasn't come up so dark in these photos.  Here's another, what do you think?

And my friend Jill, over at aspire2be photography, took this arty shot for me

And here we see the final treat box, all cut and wrapped in fire-engine red tissue paper.  Hope the recipient loved it as much as the client did.

Happy birthday traybake

I received an email a week or so ago, enquiring about a Malteser Traybake for a lady's 18 year old son, and could I spell out 'Happy 18th Jack' on it in Maltesers please.  An unusual request, if only because Maltesers don't come in a mini size.  After a few emails back and forth to decide precisely how we could accommodate one another, we ended up with this beauty.

Red glitter and blue sparkly piping.  It works, doesn't it? 

Then she rightly decided that one tray simply wasn't enough, and upped the order to one and a half.  And one of our lovely followers on Facebook agreed to buy the other half.  So everyone was happy. 

Malteser Slice for Lee

I checked my email earlier this evening (becca.bakes2@gmail.com if you were wondering), as I'd asked a friend to email my price list to her contacts.  And was very pleased to learn that she wanted something for her eldest son for tomorrow.  He'd told her he didn't want a cake, or party, but she felt she couldn't give him nothing and was wondering if it was too short notice for me.  Luckily I had her number so we chatted and agreed on a Malteser Slice traybake with red and silver sparkle (two of the colours of his favourite football team).  After all, it's not really a birthday without sparkle, even if you are a newly-teenaged boy.  I'll deliver to her work tomorrow afternoon, while Mini-Becca #2 is at nursery.  Here's hoping he likes it!