To Infinity and Beyond (A Birthday Cake)

This last week was a busy one. Aside from it being Easter:

And therefore filled with hundreds of Easter egg hunts, we also celebrated my daughters birthday. I decided to take a week off from blogging but don't fear, I will be posting regularly again now. I made her a buzz lightyear cake at her request:

She also wanted an orange cake but since Buzz Lightyear isn't orange I made the cake orange instead:

So thats what I've been up to, I hope you had a good Easter. Zoe x

Celebrating 100 Posts With Very Lemonny Lemon Cake!

It's a day to celebrate for us today. This post marks the 100th post so far into this blog. Woop Woop! And of course what better way to celebrate than with some yummy cake (any excuse). When I mentioned this idea to cassie she volunteered to share her recipe for lemon cake with you, yes please! So without further ado let me hand over to Cassie to tell you how to make your own delicious cake:

What you need:
For the Cake:
225g Butter
225g Golden Caster Sugar
225g Self Raising Flour
4 large eggs
Zest and Juice of 1 Lemon

For the icing:
125g Butter
450g Icing sugar
Zest and Juice of 2 lemons (about 90ml of juice)
Two 18-20cm round cake tins

What you do:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius and line and grease your cake tins.
2. Beat together the caster sugar and the icing until pale and fluffy. (I do this in my free standing mixer).
3. Add the eggs and the flour and beat to combine. Followed by the lemon juice and zest beating again.
4. Divide the mixture between the two tins and bake for around 20 minutes or until the cake is beginning to come away from the sides of the pan. Turn out onto a rack and leave to cool completely.
5. When the cake is cool beat together the butter and the icing sugar until you have what resembles fine breadcrumbs. (Again I use my mixer for this but you can do it all by hand).
6. Add the zest and then the juice and beat vigorously until you have a smooth and light icing.
7. Put a small blob of icing on your serving plate and place one cake on top of it. Use a third of the remaining icing to sandwich the cakes together and the other two thirds to cover the top and the sides of the cake. It's unlikely that you'll manage to get a smooth finish to the icing so embrace the texture use a fork or a knife to get a homemade but delicious looking finish.

A great way to celebrate anything.

Thankyou so much to every one who has been reading along, we really enjoy reading your comments and answering your questions so keep them coming. Here's to the next 100! Zoe and Cassie. xx

Dished Up: Sticky Toffee Cake

Two things that I love are sticky toffee puddings and bonfire night. Let's be honest who doesn't love a good sticky toffee pudding? So after playing around with a few recipes I came up with this Sticky Toffee Cake to serve up as a sparkling treat as we remembered gunpowder, treason and plot this year.

You may find the icing a little tricky if you've never made a caramel before but this video will give you an idea of what to expect. And believe me, it's worth getting right!

What you need.....

200g Dates, chopped

200ml Strong Tea

1tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

125g Butter

200g Demerara Sugar

1tsp All Spice

250g Self Raising Flour

3 Eggs

2tbsp Golden syrup

And for the icing....

125g Caster Sugar

80ml Double cream

160g softened Salted Butter

200g Icing Sugar

Sparklers (optional)

What you need to do.....

1. Start off making a dry caramel by melting the caster sugar in a heavy based pan. Once the sugar has melted, cook it to look like a strong tea. 

2. When the colour looks right quickly pour in the cream and beat it in. You have to do this carefully as it will really bubble but you need to stand back and mix at the same time or you'll end up with just a hard lump. If you have a bit of a lump keep it over a low heat and melt it slowly. Set this aside and let it cool completely. You can put the pan in some cold water like this to speed up the cooling process.

3. Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius and grease and line a 20x30cm tin. In a small pan bring the tea to a simmer and stir in the chopped dates. Simmer for 5 minutes then turn off the heat and stir in the bicarbonate of soda.

4. Beat the butter and the Demerara sugar until it's pale and creamy. I did this in my freestanding mixer. Then mix in the flour, spice, eggs and golden syrup. Fold in the date mixture and pour into the tin.  Don't worry if it looks a little curdled. Bake for 30-35mins until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool.

5. When the cake and the caramel are both completely cool make the icing by beating the salted butter and the icing sugar for 5 minutes with an electric mixer until really light and fluffy.

6. Beat in the caramel and slather the icing over the cake. Cut into squares and enjoy with your sparklers. (Don't worry though, if you haven't got any it's just as tasty without!)

Happy Bonfire Night, Cassie xx

Angry Birds Cake

At the weekend it was Boaz's party and I made him an angry birds cake of course. You probably already saw the crocheted angry birds I made for him and he loved these. I modelled the birds and pigs out of fondant icing for this cake.

While I am not cake making expert I have learned a thing or two about icing over the last few years so here are my top tips:

1. You don't need lots of fancy equipment to make decent icing figures, I usually just use my hands and a knife. Sometimes I use the knife handle to make blunter dents and I have used cocktails sticks too but nothing fancy or expensive.

2. Be careful not to let your hands get too sugary, if you do then it starts to all stick and can undo alot of good work. You can wash your hands occasionally as long as you dry them thoroughly afterwards.

3. Black icing is very tricky to use so be very careful with it, and the dye in gets all over the place (see the marks on the top of this cake)

4. Lastly but most importantly don't expect your first (or second or third...) to look exactly like you're hoping. As with all craft this is about practice and experience and they'll get better as you make more. Plus kids are happy if it even vaguely resembles whatever it is you're aiming for.

Its not the fanciest cake in the world but he loved it. Happy Birthday Boaz! Zoe xx

Dished Up: A Whole Lot Of Apples

Today we welcome Cassie back to Tadpegs. You have met her before when she wrote about the crocheted camera case and this is the first in a series of posts Cassie will be writing about food we are calling 'Dished Up'. Enjoy!

I am a girl who LOVES summer so it is really good for me to be reminded of the joys of autumn to ward off those post summer blues. A friend helped with this recently as she gave me a lovely large bag of apples from the tree in her garden. So one beautifully sunny afternoon I sat in my garden and set to work peeling them.

The husband loves stewed apples so I just threw most of them in a big pot with a glass or two of water and cooked them down. I like my apples quite tart so I didn't add any sugar until they were all cooked and then added some to taste. make sure you keep an eye on the apples though and stir them regularly other wise they will catch on the pan.

I filled couple of tubs with the apple and put them in the freezer ready to pull out and whip into a crumble when we're entertaining over the winter. Some was reserved just to eat that night and I even had some cream in the fridge for the more decadent (and fast metabolismed) in the family to have with theirs.

I also used some of the apples to make a Squidgy Spiced Apple Cake. You can find the recipe here. In fact I made two. It was really easy to make and came out deliciously moist and tasty. I served one at our church house group and it went down a treat. The other is in the freezer all ready for our Nearly Christmas Mini Craft Fair which you'll hear about in a few weeks.

Thankfully there was a piece left for me to sit down after a morning running around with the tinkers and enjoy with a cup of tea. Cassie xx