Recent Bakes 5

It’s been a couple of years since the last time I posted my Baking creations, so I thought I would keep you in the loop with a new post!

One of the biggest things I learned to make last year, was Banoffee Pie. I basically looked up how to make an easy one online, and just followed that recipe. Not going to go into it into too much detail, I have previously posted about it before!

These are Christmas Tree shaped Brownie’s from a cake mix from Sainsbury’s. OK, didn’t get round to maing them until after Christmas, but they were delicious nonetheless!

I was rather inspired by a clip from an episode of Heston Blumenthal‘s Heston’s Feasts show, where he made a homemade Gobstopper. Now the above cakes have nothing to do with either Gobstoppers, or any of the ingredients he used in making his own, but the colours in the Gobstopper inspired me here. Basically, I mixed the icing, and then instead of putting Hundreds and Thousands on top, I mixed them into the icing, to give the icing a much more colourful look!

I found a copy of Jane Dunn‘s cookbook Jane’s Patisserie Everyday, in a branch of The Works in Morecambe, and fell in love with this cake inside. So I bought it, and then made this cake. It’s a Brownie Cake. Filled to the brim with varying different types of Chocolate Chips, whilst also being squidgy and gooey, just like a giant brownie should be. Although I will say the recipe was a little tricky to follow in some particular steps!

I recently discoved that Betty Crocker now produce tubs of Strawberry Icing. However, as far as I can see in the shops, there was no cake mix to go with it. So, wanting to try it out, I made a basic Vanilla Sponge Cake, and iced it with the Strawberry Icing, along with some Chocolate Vermicelli sprinkles!

Another recipe from Jane Dunn’s book now. This one is a Chocolate Orange Cake. It has the zest from an Orange, both in the cake, and sprinkled on the top too. Again, potentially trickier to make than it looks, but it’s definetely worth it. The Icing in the middle is both flavoured and coloured in Orange too, with the top being finished with the zesty sprinkles, and some slices of Chocolate Orange for good measure!

Finally I am going to treat you to something else I made last year. This was my Birthday Cake, which I made with a bit of help from my Mam. The recipe comes from Hidden Surprise Cakes by Angela Drake. In the past I have just done half the recipe, here though it’s done to full size like in the book. The top and bottom sections are sandwiched together by some Betty Crocker Chcolate Icing, and the exterior was a home made (found the recipe online, but can’t remember which one it was right now) White Chocolate flavoured icing. I think it’s quite possibly, the best Birthday Cake I have ever had!