Past Efforts

To get things off to a start (and as I haven't done any baking in the few hours since I had the idea for this blog) here are a few photos of baking that I have done in the past.  I'll probably try and do some of these again and when I do I'll take pictures of the process not just the end result.  In the meantime here's a taste of what's to come.

These toffee cakes were what started the whole thing off and led to Emily's comment about being made in a normal person's kitchen.  The recipe was for toffee apple towers but as I'd never done any sugar work like this before I made basic fairy cakes with a buttercream topping and concentrated my efforts on the toffee.

It was HARD.  I made a lot of toffee spread out in shards on baking paper.  What you see on this cake was pretty much the sum total of the usable shards I created from a whole batch of toffee.  More practise is most definitely needed here.
To add insult to injury I took this cake to a friends house (or tried to) for his birthday but when I was getting into the car the wind gusted, caught the cake and it smashed to pieces on the driveway so no one ever got to eat it.

This was the first giant cupcake I ever made and I was pretty pleased with the overall result.  My mould is one of the silicon ones and there are definitely tricks to success here.  Oiling the mould helps the cake come out more easily, as does letting the cake cool in the mould.
On my second effort I pushed the lid on to the bottom mould (it comes in two halves) rather than just placing it on.  The lid is what creates a dip in the middle for you to fill with lovely icing.  Fastening the lid on more firmly was a mistake as it made the cake dense and letting it rise of it's own free will then trimming as required would have been a better idea.

I was really, really pleased with these champagne mousses I made.  Even the chocolate swirls went right and these were not as difficult as they might appear.  I'll do these again with instructions at some point.

These toffee tumbles were another success and tasted wonderful.  Tiny choux pastry balls sit on fairy cakes, held together with fresh whipped cream and drizzled with a generous helping of toffee.  I did these for friends coming for the weekend and they were a big hit.

Finally I made this chocolate cake for a friend's birthday and really went to town on it.  I did home made vanilla fudge, my usual chocolate cake recipe, chocolate fudge frosting, shaved dark and white chocolate on top, Cadbury's chocolate fingers around the edge and then sprayed the whole lot with edible gold spray.  I loved making it and everyone loved eating it.  A big hit and my own idea so I was very proud of this effort.
I hope to get baking soon and add some lovely pics, warts and all, success or fail.