The Rocky Road melted

We love Rocky Road chez Becca.  It's crisp, crunchy, chocolatey and chewy - as my friend Sheila would say, what's not to love?  Incidentally, Sheila isn't Australian.  Just in case you were wondering.

Normally, you add the marshmallows at the last moment, give them a twirl into the chocolate mixture then pour the whole lot out into the tray to set.  But this time I was using pink and white mini marshmallows and they melted really quickly, whilst I was twirling and swirling them through the mix!  I had no way to rescue them, and thought - what the heck, I may as well go for pretty rather than stylish here...

So I added on pink Smarties, covered the whole lot in the last of our Colourburst Candy Melts and gave it all a good dose of pink fairy dust, oops, I mean edible glitter.  Et viola, treats for us at Becca Towers.  Mmmm...

A girly birthday, Becca Bakes style

I was contacted by S to make a birthday surprise treat for her good friend K.  She wanted pink, purple and girly sparkle.  And perhaps Red Velvet instead of vanilla.  Ok I said, sure thing!  How will these do you?

Happy Birthday K!!

Zoe's 10th birthday, part 1 - giant cupcake

I love repeat business.  It feels so good to be included in a families celebrations, and thought of when they have a special occasion.  In this case, I was asked to do a cupcake decorating party for the lovely Zoe for her 10th birthday.  And also to provide the birthday cake.  She's a fan of chocolate, so it was to be a naked chocolate giant cupcake and the guests were to decorate it themselves.  But then she saw and enjoyed the Carrot Cake I made them for Christmas (which looked similar to the Red Velvet one I blogged about recently), and decided she'd like me to decorate her birthday cake after all.  

As it was to be a chocolate cake, she chose chocolate icing too, and pink and blue decorations.  Here's another lovely way to use the plaque cutter from my last post - I really like it.  And I'm loving the new bow cutters I bought, I feel like I'm getting the hang of them.  The little name plates are for the party (see next post)...

Christmas-time, but not a Christmas party

S was recommended to try some Becca Bakes goodies by her friend L (woo hoo!!  a customer recommendation), so got in touch to ask for party cupcakes for her daughter.  They were not to be Christmas-sy at all, but rather girly and in the favoured colours of purple and green.  Flavours were the perennial favourites of chocolate and vanilla.  No problem I said, and gave her these beauties - with just a touch of sparkle, to make sure the party went well.  Enjoy!

Petal cake for a birthday girl

We talked over a few cake ideas, Mini-2 and I, for her birthday party.  We had bought some coordinating Muppet plates, cups and napkins a while ago (because we happened across them in shop one day, and they were on offer - we love a bargain) and had also bought some rice paper toppers from The Cupcake Company on Facebook (website coming soon)  in a similar vein (i.e. some Sesame St characters too) and had thought to somehow combine the lot of them in a cakey style.  A two tier cake sounded fun, and I had thought to do polka dots, like the border of the napkin.

But all those ideas went out the window when I saw the utter mess that was the top tier cake.  Oh my goodness, I don't think I have ever had such an unmitigated disaster with a cake before!  I had sized down the recipe I chose, using the fabulous CakeOMeter.  Only it ended up giving me so much mix that it went right up and over the top of the tin whilst baking, and never fully cooked in the centre.  This was despite me using a heating core and extending the cooking time by almost double.  Gee whizz.

So it was to be a single tiered chocolate fudge cake after all that (the pink vanilla cake wasn't even salvageable for cake pops, sniff).  I had been keen to try the petal technique of buttercream icing since seeing it on MyCakeSchool, but hadn't yet had an occasion to do so.  Aha, I thought, perfect occasion now. 

Once it was done it seemed a bit plain, so I added  a few sparkly flying butterflies and the job was done.  And the best bit?  Despite not being a part of our discussed plan At All, she totally loved the cake :)

At her actual party a few hours later, checking out how the number 5 candle looks from the side...  Do you see the big, pink Birthday Girl rosette badge?  She wore it to school on the actual day and got to wear it again today :)

And here she is posing for Daddy to take a photo.  Not quite sure why she wanted us to specifically take a photo of her with a Very Big Knife, about to cut her cake, but her wish is our command.  Happy Birthday darling!

BB goes international

We were contacted last year by a lady who grew up in Dundee but now lives abroad, in Jersey (I think).  She found us online and chose us because we were small and seemed friendly (which reminds me, I need to update the website with some current photos).  She wanted some cupcakes made and delivered to her mother here in Dundee, and we were happy to help.

I have to assume that the whole family were pleased, because the lady got in touch again this week.  After emailing back and forth, we went for a mixed dozen of chocolate toffee and raspberry ripple.  And the feedback was that her mum thought they were too lovely to eat.  Almost.

Oooh, a hen party...

I see a lot of interesting cake decoration techniques and effects on my travels through cyberspace, and either mentally or actually bookmark many of them for future reference.  A prevalent recent one is animal print on cakes, like cow print on a Toy Story cake, or zebra print or leopard print.  In most cases these are a case of cutting shapes in black sugarpaste and placing them on top of white sugarpaste to make the design, but in the case of the latter two, I've actually seen them done in the sponge itself.

Zebra-print I'm planning to try out at some point... but leopard print had me stumped.  I read  how to do it and still didn't really get it.  And didn't really mind, because my girls are a bit young for animal-print anything just yet and I've been busy enough just now with holidays and back-to-school and life in general not to have oodles of time in which to experiment.  Then this one looked easier, but I only just read it now...

Anyway, I couldn't find any leopard-print cupcake cases at short notice, so here's what the customer and I worked out would co-ordinate with her theme/idea for her best friend's hen do.  Classic Vanilla cupcakes in dark brown cases with either white, black or chocolate sugarpaste accents and some lustre and sparkle...  Have a blast ladies!!

 

Mini cupcakes or a traybake?? Or both...

A lovely lady, let's call her R, and I have been friends since we met with my eldest daughter (and her youngest) at a toddler group years ago.  She's one of those friends whom you don't see all that often, but pick up where you left off when you do get together, and are always happy to catch up or run into one another.

She was one of my first customers, and has recommended me to others.  And this year, her daughter wanted my mini cupcakes and a traybake again for her birthday.  There was a bit of discussion with the older brothers as to precisely which traybake but the brief was simple - white, purple and sparkle.  Ah, music to my ears!! 

The boys agreed on the Mars Bar slice, full to bursting with Rice Bubbles (I know, I know, they're not called that here, but it's the name of my youth) and covered in white chocolate this time.  I forgot to take a photo, but you've seen one before ;)

I'm pleased with the cupcakes though, and both mother and daughter loved them!  Happy 7th Birthday Dea!!

 

 

 

A man who knows what he wants, how refreshing

It has to be very pink, very sparkly and very girly - and have white hearts and butterflies and can you do the hearts on sticks?  And could you off-set the cake and pipe Happy 21st birthday Karen around the plain cake board, evenly in the space remaining, in pink and white if possible?  It's all she's wanted and talked about for weeks, so it has to be right.  Oh, and do you colour the sugarpaste yourself?  Yes?  So can that be pale pink and the icing to be hot pink?  I think that's all, oh and can you deliver it please?

Phew.  A man who knows what he wants - quite a nice change actually ;)

 

Pink, sparkly and with roses please

I've been friends with J for a little over 5 years.  We met via a mother's group, the NCT, for whom I volunteered for 4 or so years.  Her elder daughter is a few weeks younger than Mini-1, and her younger is a few months older than Mini-2 - perfect or what?!  As you may remember, Mini-1 recently had her birthday, as did J's Mini-1.  I couldn't make her birthday cake as she has serious food allergies and I haven't any experience of gluten/dairy/egg free baking (yet).  But her other daughter... well, the request was blue cake with a pink, sparkly top and lots of roses.

Lucky I'd been practising with my new rose mould - and you thought it was all a coincidence, huh!  So the cake baked up well, as it was a recipe I've used successfully before.  After cooling and crumb-coating with icing flavoured and lightly-coloured with strawberry jelly crystals (a technique learnt from my new American cake friends on a Facebook advice group)  I added on the heart and rose-shaped chocolates I'd made earlier in the week.  Et voila!

And here's the happy birthday girl with all the lovely candles in place - it was a Princess costume party and she was Rapunzel.

 And here we see Snow White and Jasmine, ready to join the party!

Pale lemon coloured icing

Sparkly and pretty - that was the client's brief for her daughter's 1st birthday cakes.  One chocolate, one vanilla both double-layer and the rest was up to me.  Ooh, the pressure to be creative.  Could I do it??  I don't really think of myself as creative, but perhaps I'm getting better - what do you think? The top one is the chocolate cake, layered with vanilla buttercream icing.  The lower one is the vanilla sponge cake, layered with strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream icing.  Mr Becca didn't realise that they were for the same customer, so at first couldn't understand why they looked so similar.  Silly boy!

Bit of an oddity but the chocolate cake didn't rise very well when I baked it yesterday afternoon.  Really scary, but luckily I'd started early enough that I had time to re-do it.  And phew, this time it worked beautifully.  So, for afternoon tea (after busy days at school and nursery), we all had some totally delicious surprise chocolate cake - the girls were not unhappy! tee hee  Once both cakes had cooked and cooled I made a double batch of icing so I could match the colour of both cakes, and was away.  Thanks to advice from a friend, I'd made the sugar shapes in advance, and it really was just like using playdough. 

The customer's mum has just collected the cakes and thinks they're great - woo hoo.

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!