NEW BABY CAKE

The new year has welcomed in a new baby for some friends of ours. The January diet has meant no cake making for me this month so what a perfect excuse to get out the scales and get baking.
The cake is a basic sponge recipe
200g butter
200g caster sugar
200g self raising flour, sieved
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract.

Make sure the butter is soft and cream together with the caster sugar. Add in the eggs one at a time, beating each one in well. Once the eggs are incorporated you can start to add the flour. Make sure that it is mixed in well without overbeating the mixture. Add the vanilla extract and pour into a 20cm cake tin lined with baking parchment. Bake for approx 50mins (although mine took a little longer today) or until a skewer comes out clean and the cake is golden.
Another good tip is to wrap some brown paper around the tins and tie with string so the outside of the cake doesnt become too overcooked and crispy.

I cut the cake in half and put buttercream and strawberry jam inbetween the two layers. The cake was then covered with some seedless jam to help the icing stick.
The cake was then iced with fondant icing in white and decorated with a teddy bear using the template from Simply Party Cakes.

The buttons were made using a small round cutter, then a second cutter slightly smaller than the first was gently pushed in to leave a circle imprint. Two make the button holes I used a cocktail stick and then joined these up with royal icing and left to set.

I hope the new parents enjoy the cake!

CHRISTMAS

The blog has been sadly neglected in all the Christmas chaos this month. So I've posted a few pictures of the things that I've been busy making over the break.
Next year I'll get in early and add some "how to's" of some of the makes I did this year. I'm especially excited about sharing the gingerbread house recipe with you as my little boy had so much fun decorating it.

Christmas cards from my 3 year old.

The finished Christmas cake

 A present for a friends little girl.

 Not a good picture of the napkins and table runner but it's the only one I had. They were made from a single bed sheet from Ikea and decorated with stars in different sizes using silver fabric paint.

 The gingerbread house that my 3 year old lovingly decorated.

FELT HEARTS

I love sewing with felt, it's so simple and the strong colours make the finished article quite striking. I've done some plain gingham hearts for the Christmas tree but the felts ones are my favourite.

All you need is a simple heart template made from baking parchment. Pin  the template to the felt and cut out 2 hearts.

Take one of the hearts and sew on decoration of your choice, I chose 3 white buttons for mine to match the stitching but you can choose sequins, a single button or embroider your own pattern on.

On your second heart pin in place a ribbon to hang the decoration from and pin together the 2 hearts.

Then you need to sew around the heart in a running stitch (making sure you stitch through the ribbon as you go), until you have almost reached your starting point.

Use the gap to fill the heart with toy stuffing, you do need quite a bit but be careful not to over stuff it.

Once the heart has been filled you can finish off stitching the heart, finishing off when you reach the end and tucking the knot into the seam.

THE FINISHED GINGERBREAD GARLAND

After sewing a lot of little gingerbread men I didn't need half of them to fill the garland!
Here's the finished article. Excuse the poor picture, hanging it above the mirror to take a photo wasn't the best thing to do!!
The garland was an artificial plant from TK Max, I didn't think it would work at first but after trimming off a few branches and tidying up each end, it has come together nicely.

CHRISTMAS PUDDING

 Monday saw the soaking of the fruit for the Christmas Pudding, it smelt delicious sitting soaking in brandy overnight.
I used the recipe from the Nigella's Christmas book as we'd tried it out last year. Her recipe recommends using a certain type of sherry to soak the fruit in, I opted for brandy instead.
The next day all the ingredients were combined into the bowl, giving them a good stir.
Unfortunately the other members of the house were out so they didn't get a wish as they stirred this year!
Then the mixture goes into pudding basins and wrapped in foil (just incase of a lid poping incident!) and put in a pan of boiling water for 5 hours!!!

Yes my house did resemble a sauna by the end of the day and I had condensation dripping from every window. I'm sure it'll be worth it on Christmas day (although I'm not looking forward to another 3 hours of it steaming!).

RIBBON WREATH

After collecting an assortment of ribbons in red, green and white, I'd been looking forward to making a ribbon wreath for months. We had a trip to Hobbycrafts on Sunday so I managed to pick up a styrofoam ring which was the only part I needed to get started. Excuse the quality of the pictures, these were taken in the evening so they didn't come out very well!

I tied a long piece of gingham ribbon into a loop and looped it around the top of the ring so that the wreath can be hung up.

The next part was to cut 9 reels of ribbon into small lengths of about 3inches.

Each piece of ribbon is then made into a circle and a pin is fastened through the ends to hold it together. You can then pin the ribbon loops randomly over the ring. It takes a while and it does get to a point when you think it's not really going to work, but it will!

Just keep going and pinning loops over the ring, making sure that it is all covered.

(not quite there yet!!)

And here's the finished article:

CHRISTMAS CAKE

I'm feeling quite prepared for Christmas this year and finished my 3rd Christmas cake today. It's wrapped up in foil cooling as I speak. I brushed the top with some brandy before wrapping in the tin so when it's cooled completely I'll take it out of the tin and rewrap ready to store and feed every week! That'll give it a good dose of alcohol before icing day.

The trick with fruit cakes being cooked over a long period of time is to wrap it well before putting in the oven. I used a double thickness of baking parchment in the tin before pouring (or dolloping more like) the cake mixture in. Then I wrapped the tin with a double thickness of brown paper, securing it with string. The paper needs to be at least double the height of the cake tin to protect it from getting scorched.

I forgot to take photos but the recipe I used is the one from Nigella's How to Be a Domestic Goddess. It hasn't failed me yet although with one of the cakes I did go a bit over the top with almond essence. Never mind, I'm saving that one for us as hubby likes marzipan so I'm sure he won't notice!!

Time to restock the fruit cupboard before stir up Sunday!