Birthday Treats

So today is my youngest niece's first birthday and I went a bit nuts on the baking.  I did forget to take a photo of the pecan pie last night before it was demolished, but it went down incredibly well!  There wasn't even a crumb remaining.

I did remember to get some photos of everything else.  And here they are:

Cheese scones

Fruit scones

Both types of scone are based on Paul Hollywood's plain scone recipe, just with a couple of little tweaks.



Double Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes



Double Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes
(with a well inside coated with chocolate, then filled with salted caramel and topped off with chocolate ganache)


It's safe to say these were a tremendous success!  So much so, that I haven't altered the recipe from the first tester batch a few weeks ago.  It's not often it's right first time.

White Chocolate and Lemon Meringue Layer Cake

White Chocolate and Lemon Meringue Layer Cake
(using lemon cream (not buttercream), lemon curd, and the very bottom layer is a sheet of meringue coated in white chocolate to stop it going soggy.  All the decorations are made of meringue too)

Okay, so the birthday cake isn't the most elegant or glamorous of cakes, but it tastes rather fine!  And what looks like finger marks in the cake are in fact... finger marks of said birthday girl.

All in all, a huge success :D  We're all a teensy bit full now!

My next plan:

A twist on a battenburg using chocolate and vanilla sponge, Baileys cream and chocolate ganache.  Oh yes.

How I found my way back here I'll never know.  Until I'd finished watching The Great British Bake Off tonight I forgot this blog even existed.  Wow, my last post was in 2007!  Time indeed flies like a fast flying thing!

I had a baking break for some time, most notably in the last year while I've been concentrating on getting smaller and fitter.  Baking doesn't go especially well with a huge lifestyle change.  Now, however, I got the bug back and I'm having a blast.  In fact I spent almost three whole days in the kitchen recently.  The sum of which was:

Pecan pie
Fruit scones (based on Paul Hollywood's plain scone recipe)
Macaroons - some mint, some pistachio
Chocolate fairy cakes - this weekend to be turned into 'Double Chocolate Salted Caramel' cakes
2 x large plain sponges, meringue sheets and decorations - this weekend to be turned into my niece's first birthday cake, which will be 'White Chocolate and Lemon Meringue Layer Cake'

Busy?  Yes.  Happy?  Hell yes!  I wish I'd never stopped baking.  I got back in the kitchen to find myself nothing short of relieved to be stood surrounded by full cooling racks, squeezed empty piping bags and flour on the floor.

Yesterday I managed to flick cake mix into my face.  I couldn't repeat it if I tried!  I must have looked like a right looney with cake mix splattered over my face and in a fit of giggles all on my own, spatula in hand, amidst kitchen carnage.  It's bloomin' hard to beat though!

So, photos will be taken of finished cakes and updates posted this time.

And this time I won't stop baking.  I'll just give it away instead of eating it all myself.  Lucky friends unless you're guinea pigs, then you might want to prepare yourself for disasters of the experimental kind!