Jen's Birthday Cake!

A friend at work told me that I had to watch Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets as he'd done a whole episode on cakes and pastries. So I duly went round to another friend's house and watched it. It's amazing! I'm now working through the recipes that he did - though the piece montee might have to wait a bit as I have no money and no man (man being required to roll out the nougat stuff as apparently it's very, very difficult to do!) I tried the lemon cake, which was yummy - it's almost fatless so has a much lighter texture than normal sponge. I'll have another go at it soon and give a proper account, complete with photos. 

The cake for this entry is more a pretty cake than anything else. My lovely friend Jen had her birthday last week and so I decided that yesterday was the day that her cake would get made. I had a baking session for a church thing today, we made plain cakes with pretty fondant icing and piping (should have photographed, didn't!), chocolate and raspberry sponge, mmmm tasty, will post the recipe, and that of the white chocolate mud cakes soon.

I decided to make her a flowerpot cake. I got the idea from www.cupcakeenvy.com, who almost make me want to fly to America, go to their doorstop and beg them to apprentice me. Anyway, back to flowerpots. I decided that chocolate cake was the only real option as it's the correct colour! Due to my oft-repeated frustrations with cakes curdling I decided to try the all-in-one method as detailed by Delia Smith. 

6oz marg

6oz sugar

5oz self raising flour

1oz cocoa

3 eggs

Sift the flour and cocoa into the bowl, add all the other ingredients and mix for about a minute until they all come together. 

Greaseproof a cake tin (I used a 6" round cake tin) and cook for about an hour. It's often worth checking after 45 mins depending on your oven, but generally an hour is the minimum time for a cake that deep

I got my Kenwood mixer from my parents house last week and it's lovely to have it back. Although I'm thinking I need some kind of cupboard in my bedroom to fit in all the stuff that won't fit in my kitchen. Sadly they don't make one bedroom flats with enormous kitchens!

1. Before shaping the cake I put it in the freezer for an hour or so, otherwise it'll just fall apart, especially as mine was still very slightly warm!) Then, I cut the bottom half of the cake into a pot shape, leaving the domed bit of the cake for covering in flowers

2. Then I warmed up the fondant, I coloured it brown so had to work it a lot anyway, which meant it didn't crack when I put it on the cake :)

3. I made some butter icing and added a little water to make it quite thin and easily spreadable. I turned the cake upside down (it didn't sit flat on its top, but it wasn't too difficult to work it) and bottom (now the top!) and sides with butter icing to make the fondant stick

4. Then I brushed the butter icing with water as it had got set and rolled out the fondant to 5mm

5. I picked up the fondant and laid it over the cake, smoothed it down with my hands and then with an icing smoother. Made sure it was all stuck nicely and then turned it the right way up (onto a piece of greaseproof so that icing on the bottom didn't stick to the side)

6. Then I trimmed the edges to about the right height around the cake, and stuck another strip of icing on using more butter icing. 

Then I just needed to make more flowers. I'd made some earlier with my friend but I needed loads!!! I used a daisy cutter. For the small ones I just cut them out and then rolled the petals a bit with a cocktail stick so they had a nice curved shape. Then got some yellow icing, rolled it into a ball and pushed it down into the middle and then poked it with the cocktail stick for a textured look!

For the bigger flowers you really need sugar paste as fondant will just break! I used a larger daisy cutter then cut each petal in half with a sharp knife and rolled each of them out with a cocktail stick before doing the same thing for the middle. I used leftover royal icing for sticking the flowers onto the cake, but you can mix a bit of fondant icing with water which works just as well. I started round the edge with the fondant daisies as they were still floppy and helped cover up the cake. My mate had made some pretty red flowers earlier as well using smaller cutters and they added a bit of exciting colour!

My ability to do such mind numbing things as rolling out petals always amazes me. I guess I just like cake a LOT ;) I'm considering making some baby baby ones using the leftover brown fondant, but we'll see what else I do this week! Caramel and apple buns also look to be appearing on the horizon. 

Yours ever, 

the ever-baking Hannah