Paid Adventures #2 - The Butterfly Birthday Cake

A friend of mine asked me to make a birthday cake for her daughter's 9th birthday, and gave me free reign to create what I wanted!!!!! I  know that Jess loves butterflies, so I used that for the theme

Adventures in Novelty Baking #1 - WWE

It was Wrestlemania the other week, and every year me and my OH have a Wrestlemania party for our friends. I was talking about what to bake, and as a joke he suggested a WWE Championship Belt cake. I laughed it off, thinking I would bake some regular cupcakes, or something, But I couldn't get the idea out of my head, I kept thinking about how to make it, what I would need, what it would look like.

So I made my first ever attempt at a novelty cake....

... and I think it looks pretty good!

FYI - this is the real thing:

Paid Adventures #1 - The Birthday Cake

A while ago a friend asked me to make a Monsters Inc birthday cake for her son's 3rd birthday, and I was really excited about it.

Then the date got closer, and I started to panic. I had never made a cake that somebody was paying me for, and I was worried it would all go wrong and everybody would be really disappointed!

So I made a practise cake to make sure I knew what I was doing, and it went really well. The icing and the buttercream looked really good, and it tasted great!

The actual cake turned out great as well, although I didn't take a photo of it. I'm really glad I agreed to it, and would definitely do it again.

The Scones!

Old Adventures Revisited: Scones, Part Two

Hmmm..... well, some mixed results! I used Delia Smith's recipe, and the mix which supposedly makes 10 scones barely made 5! So I made another batch of dough, and doubled up the quantities.

Some of the scones turned out all right, and they rose up a bit. Some of them barely rose at all, but still tasted good! The last batch is still in the oven, I'll post a picture when they're done.

Old Adventures Revisited: Scones

I have never been able to master scones. Sure, they taste fine, but they never rise and expand to the huge size that home-made scones should. I roll the dough out, cut the scones out and they stay the same size after baking. No matter what I do, which recipes I follow, which "tips and tricks" I try, NOTHING works!

So why keep making them? Why not stick with tried and tested cupcakes? I guess I want to prove that I CAN make them, and one day I will succeed.

Hopefully, today will be that day.... See you on the other side!

Cupcake Love