Birthday time!

So it was my mums birthday a couple of weeks ago and I decided to make her a cake - I say decided, it's kind of expected these days. Not that I mind. 

Anyway this is going to be a quick post because I don't have much time but here are some pictures: 

It was a lemon cake with lemon buttercream - I'm sure there's that recipe here? Not that it matters because nobody reads this but oh well. Lemon is my favourite. Anyway, that's it! I'm off now, bye!

Abbie x

Triple rainbow chocolate cake!

Wow, it has been so long since my last post! I'll start with an update- I am now 17 years old and currently doing A-Levels at school. I still do baking, just not as often now, too much school work! But I made a cake yesterday, and I thought I would share that and a few other baking projects I've done since leaving this blog so enjoy!

Firstly, here's the cake that I was baking until 1am last night, and decorated this morning: 

Excuse the photos, the iPhone 3GS isn't known for its camera quality right? So this was the cake after I'd crumb coated it, so the icing isn't perfect and especially not even (the icing used was Betty Crocker chocolate fudge icing, one pot managed to fill the layers and crumb coat the outside). 

Final product 

And then you cut into it and... Eighteen layers of rainbow goodness! Each little layer took ten minutes to bake and we had three tins, which is why it took so long! I kept the decoration simple because it was the inside that needed the attention, and I also didn't have much time!

And here is the first slice! 

I am so pleased with this cake, and it was definitely worth the time and effort! Here are the ingredients:

16 ounces of butter or margarine (I used Stork) 

16 ounces of self-raising flour

16 ounces of sugar (yes I know, it's basically asking for diabetes)

8 eggs

2 1/2 TABLESPOONS of vanilla essence 

1 and a half tubs of Betty Crocker chocolate fudge icing 

Americolor gel food colouring in super red, orange, egg yellow, leaf green, blue and purple (sorry I can't remember the names of these).

To make the cake - 

1./ cream the butter and sugar with an electric whisk 

2./ add one egg at a time (already whisked with a fork) and with it add one tablespoon of flour, whisk until mixed. Repeat this with the rest of the eggs.

3./ add the rest of the flour, and whisk.

4./ separate the cake mixture evenly into six bowls and add a couple of drops of food colouring to each bowl so you have each colour and make sure they are fully mixed.

5./ grease three cake tins, and divide one colour into the three tins

6./ bake at 170 degrees Celsius (fan) for 10 minutes

7./ repeat with each colour

8./ leave cakes to cool

9./ spread a very thin layer of icing on each cake build it up until all the layers are used

10./ spread a thin layer of icing on the top of the cake and round the sides (don't mind the crumbs showing in the icing) and chill for twenty minutes until the icing has set.

11./ take the cake out of the fridge and add another layer of icing so that the cake is all covered and even this with a spatula

12. / add any decoration you want and enjoy! 

Well this has been fun, I may start uploading again! Bye! 

Abbie x

A bit of art for a change (:

Hey, I know this is meant to be a baking blog and all but I thought i'd show you all something different. As in my art work. Baking is my hobby but drawing/painting is aswell, and i know this sounds cheesy and so many people have said it before, but its what I do when i'm stressed out and/or don't want to talk to anybody. Which happens quite often. Which is probably how I ended up being nominated for "The quietest person in the year award" for the yearbook *sigh.* I know, it was really really really embarrassing. I'm quite shy, not that you would notice from these posts. Example A: English, i'm great at rambling on in essays and everything and i get good marks but as soon as it comes to speaking and listenening, I ended up with a D. Great! So thats my A gone down the drain:(

Anyways, back on topic, here are some of the pieces I did for my GCSE art and some other random stuff that i did in my free time(which is a rare occurence these days thanks to revision.) The first topic was pop art and the second was animals:

Ok, a bit blurry but it will do. This is a pop art piece i did of the UK singer ' Jessie J'

Heres another one of her, done under exam conditions ( I know i like the quiet sometimes but 2 whole days of complete silence is ridiculous.)

This is the owl that i painted, didn't go too well, the eyes went wonky but at least it gave me and my friend a good laugh.

A pencil drawing of a rabbit and a toy rabbit <3

A pencil drawing of my cat, Millie, half asleep

The same picture, just painted this time(:

And finally the other day, when i felt like punching a wall and bursting into tears, this is what i painted on my wall. Its a Beatles themed design thing, I'm a big fan of The Beatles by the way, got a T-Shirt and everything that I wear practically every day.

Yeah so I will be posting more baking soon, I've got loads of things i've made but not had time to blog because of these stupid exams all the time.

See Ya!!

How to make sugar cookies.

I didn't make sugar cookies until a few months ago when i first visited Bake at 350 ' s blog, and even the  i only tried a simple design because although they look AMAZING  they're a little daunting to say the least. A few weeks ago i made a hello kitty cookie for my food technology gcse coursework and everybody loved them because they looked so cute! And then last week, while checking the hundreds of blogs that i seem to read, i came across Lilaloa's cookie contest and decided that i absolutely NEEDED the prizes, although after seeing everyone elses designs, i think thats nearing on impossible.

Anyways, back to making the cookies, i followed this recipe but using 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla and not using any almond extract.

The dough should look something like this, but i found it was a little sticky at first so i kneaded  a bit more flour into the dough so it was easier to roll.

Using a cutter is a lot easier than stencils, especially when the stencil has 14 sides. *sigh* Anyway cut out the stencil and then cut the cookie dough around the stencil with a knife.

This is what thedy looked like after i'd cut them out, quite cute aren't they?

When the cookies have cooled a bit, draw out the design with edible pen. I use the americolor ones that come in a 2 pack from The cake decorating company in Nottingham.

Then trace the outlines, where you have drawn on in pen, with royal icing. All the outlines with my designs were black so thats the colour that i coloured the icing.(p.s. don't make the mistake of thinking glace icing is the same as royal icing. It isn't!)

Then colour the icing all the different colours you need, and add water until its the consistency of golden syrup or something similar.(p.s. use a toothpick to get into the corners of the cookies and to pop any airbubbles)

So thats it! After i used the edible pen again to draw on the details like the eyes and faces. Simple! (kind of.....)

See below posts to see the finished designs, and don't forget to check out Lilaloa's great competition.

Abbie x

Cookie contest!

Heres the miffy cookie:

Cookie contest!

Heres the powerpuff girl:

Cookie contest

Heres the green pig from angry birds:

Cookie contest

Heres the green angry bird: