All in the Name of Research

So, I was looking at things in the baking section of the supermarket the other day, and what do you suppose i saw...

Anyway, out I curiosity I bought them...well, the packet. And I just made some...straight after my dud chocolate ones. I wanted to see the difference. You know what, there is not a huge difference to the ones I made with the packet mix and my own. In fact, these ones are a bit too sweet. Some of them still cracked too...hmmm..

Mine (the baked from scratch ones) are the dark ones and the Donna Hay ones are paler. Obviously, this photo was taken before filling...I just wanted you to see. I think I'll keep baking from scratch...what do you think.

All Aboard the Mac Train

I have been meaning to write this post for so long now...finally I have got myself into gear to actually do it!!

I've started to dabble in the art of macaron baking! I love these, and I hate them all at the same time. The are so temperamental to make it's not funny. It all seems so easy, they don't look that hard to make, but yeah...looks can be deceiving!

My first attempt I consider a success.

Chocolate macarons. They had a nice crust on the outside and were nice and soft on the inside. They developed the all important macaron feet on baking and did not crack. Most importantly, they were yum!

Attempt number two was ok. I upped the anti on these and decided to make a pistachio macaron. I made a batch of pistachio meal and went from there.

These didn't rise as much as the chocolate ones. I put that down to the different nut meal used, given that everything else I did was the same as before.

Attempt number three had mixed results. This time I tried making coconut macarons. Some of the batch were good, and the rest cracked and were flat.

The macarons shown here are the successes out of attempt 3.

Attempt 4. Why not try chocolate again, they worked before. Blah...not photo worthy at all. Even though they had small feet, they cracked and didn't rise all that much...nonetheless, I will not let the Mac beat me!!!

Stomp, Stomp Stomp

My kids love dinosaurs...my son in particular. What is it about boys and dinosaurs...hmm? I wanted to practice some decorating. I bought a cheap cake mix and added a few extra's to it so it'd taste good (was a butter cake mix with lemon essence, poppy seeds and melted white chocolate added).
I made a lemon, white chocolate ganache and proceeded to decorate.

Dinosaurs!!!

Lessons learned:
1. White chocolate ganache doesn't really set when it's warm and humid! OK, so I've read about that one numerous times, but now I have 1st hand experience.
2. I need to work on losing the ganache mound on top of the cake.
3. I have noticed more improvements in my covering and my edges are heaps better too!

Anyway, "the dinosaurs were dancing in a prehistoric swap. They shook their heads, swished their tails and did the dino stomp. Dance dino, dance dino, stomp, stomp, stomp...."

Spring Garden

Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending a day with Anita, from LaLa Cakes. When I arrived she had everything all set out ready to work. Cake, fondant already coloured, ganache prepared, tools layed out and a apron ready to use as well.

She demonstrated each step and then I followed. She showed me how she levels and tortes her cakes, so I followed...she has a very level hand and does it all by eye unlike me who has a small cake leveler. We then "syruped" our cakes and ganched. Layers and then on the outside. Main lesson learned here is that I have not been spending enough time on my cakes to get them just right and I have not been using the right tools...
We played around with flowers for the decorations...she taught me how to make ribbon roses.
Lunch break and then back to it. Covering the cakes with fondant and then smoothing to get really sharp edges. Again, I have not been using the right tools for this...but now I know the secret...

Finally, the best bit. We decorated the cakes!!!

Thank you Anita for such a great day!!

Baby Riley

A good friend on mine had her 3rd child the other day. A little boy named Riley. I made her some cookies and practiced icing them. Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of them before I gave them to my friend, so had to make do with my phone whilst at the hospital. My phone does not take the greatest of photos.

Anyway, back to the cookies. I made some chocolate and some vanilla sugar cookies in circles and car shapes. I iced in white and baby blue royal icing.

Apple Season

It's apple season...well here in Victoria/Melbourne it is. Just the other day I picked some apples from one of my apple trees. There is not much better than fruit picked from your own trees.

Well, a mud cake might be slightly better, depending on your mood. This one is a bit of a mish mash on the inside. A white choc mud/choc marble cake make up the top and bottom layers and sandwiched in between is a layer of devils food cake. It was filled and covered in ganache and then covered and decorated with fondant.

After a dodgy job of covering the cake (the fondant dried out a bit too much and started to crack and tear) I had to think of a way to hide the awful bits. Considering my recent apple harvest, I decided on an apple orchid.

I Love Cupcakes

I really love cupcakes. I love the ready made serve of cake, I love the opportunity they give me to practice a bit of decorating, I love trying new cake recipes with them and I love how they look. And most importantly, they are YUM (unless something goes wrong)!!

This week I made a couple of different cupcakes. The first was a chocolate recipe I hadn't tried before..was ok...but not great. I made some whipped choc-mint ganache and practiced piping swirls on them. This is they:

The next ones I had a go at were devils food cupcakes. These were good. Not too sweet, so really lent themselves to a bit of ganache (milk chocolate) decorated with fondant. This is what I did with them:

Oh so pretty!! I think these would be great for a special celebration cupcake stand, don't you?!