Geeky Goodies: Fish Fingers and Custard

I freely admit I am a terrible blogger but this latest hiatus has been stupidly long. Since my last post I have been on holiday, done a lot of overtime, had zero baking inspiration and had real life gang up on me all of which has left me with very little energy to devote to this place. And it's very hard to find the effort to work on something once you've gotten out of the habit of doing it! But the inspiration fairy has struck and now I’m back with a vengeance. I hope.

Now unless you have been living under a rock for the last year or so you should be aware that this Saturday (23^rd November 2013) marks the 50^th Anniversary of the cult classic Doctor Who. Whovians across the globe have been counting down the days to Saturday for months now as a special anniversary episode featuring 3 incarnations of the Doctor  (including one previously unknown) will be broadcast. Now is there a better reason to do some geeky baking? As a proud Whovian I don’t think so.

But what to bake? Dalek and TARDIS shaped cakes are too cliché, so I turned to the show itself for inspiration and there in the episode titled “The Eleventh Hour” was the answer. Fish fingers and custard.

I won’t bore you with the background to this combination but if you have no idea what I’m talking about I suggest watching the clip linked below.

Now in the show the Doctor ate real fish fingers with custard, I however don’t like fish fingers so I had to bust out my Fez and do some thinking. And then it came to me, chocolate brownies. And for once one of my mad cap ideas actually looked like the vision I had in my head, so I am proud to present a cakey version of an iconic dish.

Adipose approves of this

Ingredients
Your favourite brownie recipe
Vanilla flavoured frosting
Digestive biscuits
Custard

Method
Bake a batch of brownies as per your recipe. I’m pressed for time this week so I cheated and used the Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge Brownie mix (which is incredibly tasty). Ideally you want your brownies to be quite firm and not too gooey in the middle. Once baked, leave to cool and when completely cold carefully cut the brownie into thin rectangles. Mine were about 1 inch by 4 inches.

Now using a food processor (or by hand) crush the biscuits until they look like very fine breadcrumbs (just like when making a cheesecake). I used about 200g of biscuits. Pour the biscuit breadcrumbs onto a plate and put aside for the moment.

With a palette knife, carefully cover each slice of brownie with the frosting. Make sure it is completely covered including the bottom of each slice. Then put the brownie onto the breadcrumb plate and cover it with the biscuit crumbs. Move it around until all the frosting is covered with biscuit crumbs. Put the finished fish finger on a plate and continue until you run out of brownies. Any biscuit crumbs you have left over can be stored in an airtight container for another day (I’m thinking mini cheesecakes would be a good use for them!)

Now get yourself some custard, sit back and enjoy your brownie “fish fingers”. I think this recipe would be a great one to make with children as it is very easy and somewhat messy to do!

If you are feeling brave why not check out The Geeky Chef and have a go at making real fish fingers. I gather the combination is actually rather nice.
http://www.geekychef.com/2012/11/fish-fingers-and-custard.html

And as a bonus, here is this week’s episode of Nerdy Nummies in which Ro made adorable Adipose cupcakes! I am going to have to try this, the Adipose are my favourite aliens. 

And if that isn't enough Doctor Who themed goodies for you, head to Lakeland as they currently sell some brilliant Doctor Who themed baking equipment and party ware. I love the chocolate mould!

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/p18038/Doctor-Who-Bakeware-Range

  

Recipe: Peach and Raspberry Cupcakes

Ok my promise to be a better blogger didn’t go particularly well... but in my defence after I wrote the last post the UK got hit by a serious heatwave! I know temperatures of over 30 degrees are normal in a lot of the world but here it really isn’t and the UK is not set up to deal with extreme heat (only shops and the like tend to have air conditioning for example) and I don’t cope well in hot weather. Seriously for the last month I haven’t been able to think about anything more intelligent than ice cream! If I could get to my ice cream maker easily (and had space in the freezer) I would have posted some ice cream recipes for something, but I haven’t been able to and my freezer is full. The only advantages of this crazy weather is that my potted herbs are growing nicely and the solar powered fountain in my garden is working! But all is not lost, last week there was a brief temperature drop and I was able to do some baking!

So here is my latest cupcake recipe, I know a recipe post on a Friday? Well I've decided to drop "Monday Recipes" and just post recipes when I have them to post! I’m afraid this post marks a return to the fruity cupcakes though.

For once these cupcakes were not made in the cupcake maker, but they should work in there though! Obviously they’ll be smaller and you’ll probably get more cakes than the stated amount. Please play around with the quantities of fruit to get the amount you prefer, the stated quantities arose from me using whatever I had lying around!

Makes 12

Ingredients
115g/4oz softened butter
115g/4oz caster sugar
115g/4oz self-rising flour
2 eggs
110g fresh raspberries
1 peach, approx 110g in weight

Method
Gently wash the raspberries put them to one side to dry out. Chop up the peach into small chunks, I left the skin on but feel free to remove it if you prefer that.

Cream together the butter and sugar then beat in the eggs. Sift the flour and fold into the mixture, then fold in the peaches and raspberries. Divide the mixture evenly between 12 paper cases and bake in a preheated oven at Gas Mark 4/180 C for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack and enjoy. In normal temperatures these cakes should keep for a few days in an airtight tin, beware in hotter climates the cakes may spoil quickly due to the fruit content.

Happy 1st Birthday Princess Cupcake!

I've neglected this place terribly recently, so I've only just realised that Princess Cupcake's Cakes is one year old today!

I like to think that I've come a long way since that first post, even if my update schedule has been somewhat sporadic of late... But things are going to change and I'm going to get better and stay that way (I know I've said that before but I actually mean it this time.)

Happily I've just got a load of new baking equipment (including the most amazing cookie cutters) so I will start posting again soon.

So thank you to everyone who reads this blog, I've been terrible to you all recently but I do appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you for showing me that people do read this blog and that there is a point to me doing this! I promise I shall treat you all better from now on!

Charlotte

PS. I've just looked at Bloglovin for the first time in ages and discovered that Google Reader has been shut down, so if you have been using that to follow me please follow me by email (I have a handy gadget for that in the sidebar!) or switch to Bloglovin. You can use the gadget in the sidebar to switch (in theory I have this blog verrified as mine but I have no idea!)

If you need help on switching to Bloglovin this blog post is quite useful :)
http://notyourmommascookie.com/2013/06/switching-from-google-reader-to-bloglovin-what-you-need-to-know/

Monday Recipe: Strawberry and Marshmallow Pop Tarts

So this recipe is actually something I made during my recent hiatus, I’ve only now got round to actually writing it down and posting it! To be honest these are so easy to make I’m not sure why it has taken me so long to post this.

Pop Tarts have to be one of my favourite snack foods, even if my indecisive nature means I can’t decide what my favourite flavour is. So imagine my excitement when I found an episode of Nerdy Nummies in which Ro made Nyan Cat Pop Tarts! Now I’m not a fan of Nyan Cat but I was extremely happy to see just how easy Pop Tarts are to make. So here is my attempt at making Pop Tarts!

In the video Ro used a packet mix for the pastry but I prefer to make my own pastry. This quantity of pastry made about 3 tarts (I only made a small batch as this was an experiment) but this is obviously dependent on how big you make them. If you want more just double up the quantities. Mine are strawberry and marshmallow flavour, but please change the filling to whatever you want.

Ingredients
225g/8oz plain flour
110g/4oz butter or margarine, cubed
cold water to mix (as cold as possible)
1 tbsp icing sugar
pinch of salt

Filling of your choice, I used Original Marshmallow Fluff spread and strawberry jam.

Method
In a large bow sieve together the flour, sugar and salt, then add the cubed butter. Using your fingertips rub the butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. Then add the water 1 tbsp at a time, mixing with your hands, to bring the mixture into a dough, there is no exact measurement amount of water you need, every batch of pastry is different. So just add the water a little at a time until the dough is ready, it is ready when it just clings together. The dough shouldn’t be sticky but should come cleanly off the sides of the bowl as you gather it together. Wrap the dough in cling film or place in a sandwich bag and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180 C.
Then remove the dough from the fridge and leave it for a couple of minutes to warm up, dust the work surface with flour and roll it out, you want the dough to be about 0.5 cm thick. Once it is rolled cut out 6 rectangles all the same size.

Carefully spread the jam and Marshmallow fluff (or your filling) onto 3 rectangles making sure to leave a gap of about 1 cm around the edge. Brush the edge with a little water and place one of the untopped rectangles on top. Use a fork to press the edges together and poke a few holes in the top of each tart. Place on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown, transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly before eating.

These tasted delicious when cold, I left them un-iced so that in theory they could be reheated in the toaster but they er didn’t last than long...

Something new

Hi everyone, this post is kind of a sequel to the Game of Thrones decorating tutorial that I posted the other day. As I mentioned in the first post I made those cakes as a competition entry, and it being a Youtube contest that means a video was required!

So in case you guys are interested, here is the video version of that tutorial.

Honestly I'm not sure if the instructions make more sense spoken, but since I'm planning on getting a new camera later this year I might be able to record some videos for this place. Would any of you be interested in that? I could do tutorial videos on techniques (e.g. icing a cupcake etc.), decorating tutorials like this one or even product reviews.

If something like that would be interesting to you my readers please let me know; email, comment, PM whatever, I'd love to get some feedback on this idea!

Decorating Tutorial and Recipe: Game of Thrones Cupcakes

Ok so this post took me slightly longer than I was expecting to write, and it’s a really long post so for once I shall make use of the jump break feature! Seriously I've written essays shorter than this post! There are also quite a few pictures.

I’ve wanted to do some Game of Thrones (GoT) themed baking for ages and in a stroke of good fortune one of my favourite Youtube channels is hosting a GoT themed contest right now. This gave me the perfect excuse! So here I present 2 designs of cupcake; one is incredibly easy while the other is a bit more advanced. I’ve also included my lemon cakes recipe.

Snapshots: Rose Birthday

Wow I have just noticed that Princess Cupcake's Cakes has had over 2000 page views! That is a thousand hits in about 3 months! Thank you so much everyone!

And now onto some real content, here is one of my latest bakes. This cake was made especially for my mum for her birthday last week

Nothing too fancy as I was rather busy last week, this was actually decorated while I was cooking a big family dinner for 6 people!!! (I'm not very good at cooking for more than 4 people normally, though I did cook for 10 very hungry archaeologists once). But this is the first use of my heart shaped, silicone cake pan that I picked up around Valentines. It's a cute mold but despite being thoroughly greased the cake stuck slightly on the bottom, not sure why.

It's a chocolate cake covered with Betty Crocker cream cheese style icing (like I said I was busy, I didn't have time to make frosting!) I then carefully piped the lettering and hearts with one of those little icing tubes you can buy in the supermarkets. The hearts were then filled in with pink edible glitter and the cake finished off with some beautiful dried rose petals and candied rose petals (the pink bits) that I have lurking in my sprinkle stash.

Mum loved it and my grandparents were pretty impressed too, I hope you my lovely readers like it to.

Next week I have a new recipe coming up and some other exciting goodies. Game of Thrones is involved ;)

Oops

I'm so sorry everyone, I've neglected this place dreadfully recently! I really hadn't intended to go this long without updating! Want to hear my excuses?

For a start, Blogger has just been driving me nuts! As part of the site revamp, I want to reorganise the label library as it is a bit of a mess. Blogger is not co-operating with this as I can't seem to find a way to delete the old ones (which I KNOW you used to be able to do!), and all I can find on the internet are guides that tell you how to replace the labels on existing posts with new ones. Not what I want to do! So if anyone knows how to fix this issue please drop me a line! Oh and going through all the old posts to fix formatting differences is just so boring and time consuming.

Secondly my own lack of artistic skill has been getting me down. I know what I want the layout to look like, but I lack the necessary skills to do this. Which is depressing and honestly it's hard to find the effort to finish fixing up the layout when I'm not happy with the bits I have made and can't make anything better. However I do have a plan, so hopefully the layout won't be unfinished for too long.

Finally I've had dreadful writer's block. I have several post series on here that need finishing and I've tried to finish them, but I'm just not happy with the way those posts have come out and I refuse to post anything that I'm not happy with. Not only have I not been able to finish old posts I haven't been able to come up with any ideas for new posts or I have but I just can't get them into a state I'm happy to post so I've had to take a break from writing recently.
But I think I have defeated that particular monster for now and I do have lots of new ideas. I actually have a "Baking to-do list of DOOM" lurking on my computer now! I've decided to focus on baking things that I find fun or amusing for a while and I'm all inspired now. So hopefully you all should start seeing the results of this soon, warning what lies ahead shall be nerdy!

So that's where we are now. I'm now in a position where I'm happy to start posting again, it might be a few days before new stuff starts appearing but it is on it's way! If you have read this post, thank you for sticking with me! I shall do my best not to disappoint you my lovely readers.

Charlotte

Ps. Before I forget, I have managed to get some new pages up. The "About" page is a bit rubbish, so please ignore that (I intend to change it), but the "Recipes" links to all the recipes I've posted here. Oh and the newest page "Conversions" is full of useful information including a selection of conversion charts for weights and oven temperatures. I have at least one more information page to write and post coming soon but if there is anything you my readers want to see, please drop me a line (email or comment!) and I'll do my best to make it happen.

Quick and Easy Easter Bakes

This edition of “Quick and Easy” is a little different as in the UK at least we have a couple of traditional Easter bakes which I’ve decided to feature here.

Recipe Ideas
Let’s deal with the traditional bakes first.
One of the most important parts of Easter in the UK are Hot Cross Buns. These are gently spiced buns filled with currents and topped with a cross. These buns are steeped in superstition and are believed to bring luck and cement friendships, and most importantly they are really tasty!

Traditionally they are full of currents but shops are now full of interesting twists on the classic which include additions such as chocolate. So why not try making classic hot cross buns or some modern twists? Me and my mum love apple and cinnamon buns, here is Paul Hollywood’s recipe. I made these the other day and they taste delicious!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/hot_cross_buns_74750

Secondly we have Simnel Cake; this is another deeply traditional Easter bake in the UK. This is a rich fruit cake topped with a sheet of marzipan and 11 marzipan balls. These balls represent the 11 apostles of Christ minus Judas. As an extra there is also a layer of marzipan hidden inside the cake. I’ve never eaten Simnel Cake as I don’t like fruit cake but my mum says it is really yummy, I’m planning to make one next year.
Fancy having a go yourself? Here is a really easy recipe from baking queen Mary Berry
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/easter_simnel_cake_82449

Want something a little less traditional and more family friendly? Well I think you can’t go wrong with chocolate cupcakes. Or how about making mini Simnel Cakes? Or for a great recipe that children can try, how about chocolate nests? Made in exactly the same way as chocolate cornflake cakes, just swap the cornflakes for all bran cereal and add a few chocolate eggs.

The shops are also full of cute biscuit cutters, so why not pick up a set and make some lovely iced biscuits. Good shapes are chicks, rabbits and eggs, which naturally can be iced to look just like Easter Eggs.

Simple Decorative Touches and Themed Cakes
Easter is a pretty easy theme to attribute to a cake, so I’ve combined these two sections into one.
Obviously the easiest thing to do is to just throw sprinkles at a cake, so how about finding some adorable little rabbit or egg shaped sprinkles? Or top cakes with chocolate eggs and little fluffy chicks. Some of my cake books have brilliant instructions for cakes that have been iced to look like Easter Eggs and rabbits. One day I’ll get round to trying those out!

So there we go, a quick post on some easy Easter bakes. I’m sorry this post is so late and kind of short when compared to other Quick and Easy posts but as I said yesterday Easter just crept up on me this year. I think this is because this is the first time in years that I haven’t had to stress about exams and essay deadlines at this time of year!

Decorating Tutorial: Easter Nest Cupcakes

I almost completely forgot that it is Easter this weekend, easy to do when there is snow on the ground in March! Though as I write this the sun is coming out which is nice, I’d almost forgotten what it looked like! So sadly I haven’t prepared much Easter themed content, but I do have a couple of things prepared starting with this tutorial on Easter Nest cupcakes.

These cupcakes are absolutely adorable and are so easy to make, I think they’d be great for children to have a go at. So let’s get started!

You will need
1 batch of cupcakes, I used double chocolate cupcakes.
Icing sugar and green food dye
Chocolate frosting, I used a tub of Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge frosting as I was feeling lazy
1 bag of mini chocolate eggs
Bird cake toppers, one for each cake
Piping bag and star shaped nozzle

Step One

Mix together the icing sugar with a splash of water and some green dye, mix well. You want a thick icing that is slightly runny, I can’t give quantities as I just dumped some icing sugar into the bowl! Cover each cake in the icing and leave to dry, I left mine overnight.

Step Two

Fill the piping bag with the frosting. Then pipe a blob of frosting onto the middle of each cake.

Step Three
Pipe one continuous spiral of frosting around the blob. Or pipe a circle around the blob, and then pipe a second circle on top of the first one. Finally add a couple of chocolate eggs to each nest and insert the cake toppers.

I hope these instructions make sense and that you have fun making these cakes. If you make these please let me know I’d love to see your results!

Layout changes

Hi there,
As you can see from the shiny new banner at the top Princess Cupcake is getting a new layout! About time eh?

While I work on this there might not be any new posts for a week or so. But soon I shall be back with a cute new layout and some new content.

See you soon bakers!
Charlotte

Happy Pi Day!!!

As many of you are probably aware March 14^th is Pi Day, for those who don’t know this day is dedicated to the mathematical constant pi (π). Why? Because if you write the date the American way, (3/14) you get the first 3 digits of pi.

So in honour of this truly great number I made some mini apple pies or are they apple pi’s? Ok I’ll stop now

For some reason my pastry decided to rise a lot,
so these looked a lot neater before they went into the oven...

To make these I just used some leftover short crust pastry I had lurking in the freezer and a couple of dessert apples that needed eating up. So yeah this isn’t a proper recipe really.

Makes 6 mini pies

Ingredients

half a block of short crust pastry
2 dessert apples: peeled, cored and finely chopped
2 dessertspoonfuls of light soft brown sugar
cinnamon to taste
small knob of butter

Method
Roll out the pastry and cut out 6 circles, line a 6 hole cupcake pan with these circles. Cut out 6 extra small circles for the pie lids, then using the leftovers cut out the pi symbol (π). Use a template or go freehand like I did! Then wet the back of each symbol with a little water and stick them to the pie lids.

Melt the butter and gently fry the chopped apple in it for a couple of minutes until the apple starts to soften. Remove from the heat and put into a bowl, add the sugar and cinnamon to the bowl and stir well. Divide the mixture evenly between the pies and then top each pie with one of the lids and push down gently.

Bake in a preheated oven at Gas mark 6/ 200 C for 20 minutes. Leave on a wire rack to cool. 

Nerdy Nummies

Continuing with the nerdy theme of yesterdays post, I thought I'd make a quick most to alert you all to the most brilliant Youtube channel I have ever seen.

The channel is owned by Rosanna Pansino, and she does the most amazing series called "Nerdy Nummies". In which she makes some fantastic nerdy themed food, my favourites are the Tetris cookies. This girl is a genius, and most of the things she makes are viewer requests (On the subject of which, seriously fangirls stop suggesting One Direction cakes, there is nothing nerdy about them!). Her channel is pretty popular but if I have only just discovered it I figured that some of my lovely readers probably haven't seen it yet!

Her channel can be found here http://www.youtube.com/user/RosannaPansino
And here are the amazing Tetris cookies

I hope you all enjoy her videos, I can't wait to try out some of her recipes. If any of you know of any other cool baking channels, why not share them in the comments?

Snapshots: Lord of the Rings

So it's time for another edition of snapshots and this one continues in my nerdy theme.
Out of boredom at the weekend I decided to make and decorate some muffins and figured that a Lord of the Rings inspired design would be cute. So here are some slightly nerdy chocolate and ginger muffins.

This one is called "A Shortcut to Mushrooms". It features a pale green meringue frosting and adorable little sugarpaste mushrooms (made out of leftover grey from the Companion Cube cake).

I think these are really cute, but next time I make them I need to make a better coloured frosting, it needs to be more grass like in colour. I'll also make more mushrooms in different sizes and perhaps some little daisies just to add a hint of colour into the design. 

And these are called "One Ring to Rule Them All" (V1). Like the mushrooms these also have meringue frosting, and sugarpaste rings. The rings were made of yellow sugarpaste which I then brushed with gold luster dust. 

These are called V1 because me and my mum thought up a much cooler way to do this design, which I will get round to making soon. 

I'm so happy that these came out ok, I have so many other awesome ideas for nerdy cakes (mostly LOTR at the moment) that I can't wait to get started on! And before I forget, just wanted to say, chocolate and ginger muffins? Not that nice, I think they would have been better if they only needed powdered ginger. The addition of stem ginger in syrup is a bit much in my opinion. 

Monday Recipe: Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes V1

Wow that’s a mouthful! As a fruit hater, my brother is never impressed by all my fruit cupcakes. So he decided to set me some challenges and this is the first one I’ve actually completed! United by our love of American candy (especially Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups), he set me the challenge of making Reese’s cupcakes.  These are my first attempt at the challenge and were made to accompany his massive birthday cake.

This is Version 1 of the recipe, kind of a beta test really! I have 2 variations which I need to try next, but that will have to wait until he buys a jar of peanut butter (I actually hate the stuff so I refuse to buy any).  As usual this recipe is designed for use in a cupcake maker and will make 6 fairy cake sized cakes, the recipe can easily be scaled up and should work in an oven equally well.

Ingredients
1 large egg
30g/1oz Self-rising flour, sifted
20g/1oz coco powder, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine
6 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in miniature size (removed from paper cases!)

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar then beat in the egg. Fold in the flour and coco powder, then put a small blob of cake mix into the bottom of each cake cases and put a Peanut Butter Cup in each case (obviously on top of the cake mix blob). Divide the rest of the mixture evenly between the cake cases and bake in the cupcake maker for approximately 10 minutes or in the oven at Gas 4/180 C for about 15 minutes. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean! Try and avoid stabbing the chocolate when you check.
Leave on a wire rack to cool.

These are tasty as is but are also great topped with a cream cheese frosting. 

Storage Solutions: Cake Cases

When decorating cupcakes I love to get everything to match a theme, which is why I now have a huge collection of sprinkles and paper cases. This would be fine if I had tons of space to store them all, but sadly I don’t.

This is just a selection of my cake case collection.
I have loads more pretty ones lurking

It’s easy enough to store cases that come in handy plastic tubs since they can easily be stacked in a corner or something. The problem is all the cases that come attached to cardboard backing sheets or in plastic bags usually with some cake toppers! Well to deal with these pesky sets I’ve been a bit creative.

By using an old jam and Kilner jar I’ve hit upon a handy storage solution! The jam jar is the perfect size to hold cake toppers, and the Kilner jar is big enough to hold all those cake cases that don’t have plastic tubs. Now all my extras are safe from damage, much easier to store (this takes up a fraction of the space they previously needed) and displayed prettily (it’s a shame to hide away all those lovely designs)! And as an added bonus storing them like this is a great way to recycle old jar, so Eco points as well as creativity points! All I need now are some pretty labels for each jar and maybe some ribbon?

Now I just need to figure out what to do about my sprinkles stash...
So how do you store your cake cases? If anyone does anything like this please tell me about it in the comments, I’d love to see pictures J

Snapshots: The Cake is a Lie

And that’s about as far as my knowledge of Portal goes... I really must have a go at playing it sometime but first I need to finish Lego Lord of the Rings and try some other games. My attempts at playing Bioshock are going to be hilarious but you aren’t here to hear me talk about games so on to the actual subject of this post.

Last Sunday was my baby brother’s 21^st birthday, and since I’m an amazing and fantastic sister I kindly made him a birthday cake. And here it is, the Weighted Companion Cube!

You have no idea how awkward it was get the cake into my photography setup.
It was extremely heavy which made moving it tricky!

This cake is constructed out of four, 8 inch square Madeira cakes which have been sandwiched together with cream cheese frosting.  The whole thing was then covered in sugarpaste (which I coloured myself) and then all the decorations were appliquéd onto the surface. They were also made of sugarpaste and glued on with royal icing. Each piece was cut out by hand with a scalpel (well apart from the circles/hearts, obviously I used a cutter for those) and all I can say is thank the lord that icing is not like pastry so it doesn’t matter how many times you re-roll it!

Me and my mum are united in our hatred of people who just shove candles into cakes without a thought for the amount of effort that has gone into them or the overall design, so I baked a cupcake to hold the candle. This cupcake is a Peanut Butter Cup Cupcake V1 (recipe coming soon) which has been topped with some leftover frosting and a blue sugarpaste portal. Where is the orange portal? Well that’s a trade secret ;)

I learnt a lot making this cake, not only did I learn that sugarcraft will always take longer than you think it will; I also learnt some new techniques.  I learnt how to cover a square cake in sugarpaste (much harder than a circle cake, especially one this size!) and I learnt how to level cakes (a spirit level is your best friend). All in all I’m pretty darn proud of this cake, it was truly a labour of love but I think it was worth it!

Quick and Easy Valentine’s Day Cakes

No matter what you think about Valentine’s Day it does present a great opportunity for cake decorating, especially as the shops are full of adorable cooking equipment right now. So here are some quick and easy ideas for Valentine’s themed cakes.

This post is structured slightly differently to my last Quick and Easy post as I’m not entirely happy with the way that post turned out. So the new structure for this series is as follows: Recipe Ideas, Simple Decorative Touches, Themed Designs and Fun Things from Shops.
Ok so let’s get started!

Recipe Ideas
I firmly believe that cakes should taste as good as they look, but who wants boring vanilla cakes all the time? It’s great fun to match recipes and cake flavours to the holidays so for Valentine’s why not try some of these goodies?

Chocolate – Since chocolate is an instrumental part of Valentines celebrations, why not keep things simple with a chocolate cake rather than a box of overpriced chocolates? To jazz things up why not try adding chocolate chips, fruits (raspberries and strawberries are a favourite of mine), chillies, caramel or your favourites?  If you want something a bit more visually impressive why not have a go at a Red Velvet Cake?

Flowers – Roses are the official flower of Valentines and happily as a flavour rose tastes really lovely when used in baking. Rose is actually my all time favourite macaroon flavour! Try adding some rose water to chocolate cupcakes for a lovely twist on the traditional flavours. Or why not try topping vanilla flavoured cakes with a gorgeous rose buttercream? To make rose buttercream omit the vanilla extract when making normal buttercream (or frosting) and add a teaspoon or so of rose water instead. This is great if you want a more subtle flavour as it’s much easier to adjust the quantities to your personal taste.

Simple Vanilla – Not everyone wants flavoured cakes but plain old vanilla cakes are dull. So why not add a new dimension to vanilla cakes by adding some food dye? Red and pink are great seasonal options.  Just remember that what kind of dye you use will affect the final colour; gel food dyes give rich vibrant colours while the liquid ones available in most supermarkets will give you softer more pastel colours. Also using plain vanilla cakes is a great opportunity to play with flavoured icing as the plain cake makes the icing flavour really pop.

Stuck for inspiration or just want something quick and easy? Then why not try clicking the “Recipe” tag on the side and take a look at some of my recipes.

Simple Decorative Touches
Now that you’ve got some an awesome recipe lined up you want them to look great right? So let’s start with the basics, cake cases. I’d suggest going with a red or pink case, but there are lots of beautiful patterned ones available. How about love hearts or a rose design?

Now when it comes to decorating your cakes what you can do is largely dependent on what icing you want you use. Sugarpaste and water icing work best when used to simply cover the surface of the cake, water icing makes great “glue” for sprinkles as well. Sugarpaste however makes a great canvas for both painted designs (which while simple in principal do require a certain amount of artistic skill) or piped patterns using royal icing. Frosting/buttercream however can be piped into beautiful spirals and swirls, spread on and shaped, and like water icing is very useful for sprinkle adhesive.

Sprinkles are the simplest way of decorating a cake, and since this is a Valentines themed post why not try and get some adorable heart shaped ones like on my Red Velvet Cakes? Supermarkets often sell premade icing roses which also fit the theme, but if you want something a bit more special why not try using real rose petals? Just make sure they are ok to eat first! Oh and don’t underestimate the value of edible glitter for that final touch!

Themed Designs
Want something a little bit more special than sprinkles and frosting? Then why not try some of these ideas? I did not come up with all of these ideas myself, several have been adapted from those I have seen in cake decorating books.

Rose Bouquet – Why not try making a simple rose out of sugarpaste and putting that on top of your cake? There are many tutorials available online and in cake decorating books, but if you don’t fancy making your own rose cheat and buy some premade ones. Cake decorating shops and the baking aisle of most supermarkets sell lovely premade roses; my local cake decorating shop even sells chocolate roses! Rose petals or even fresh roses would work in this design.

Sealed with a Kiss – This design does require some artistic skill but looks very effective. Simply cover your cake with some coloured sugarpaste, then using red food colouring, paint a set of lips onto each cake. It should look like you’ve just blotted your lipstick.

Hearts – Instead of using heart shaped sprinkles how about using royal icing? On a sheet of baking parchment draw the outline of lots of hearts and leave to dry overnight (make lots more than you think you’ll need to allow for breakage). Then after icing your cake in your chosen style, carefully remove each heart from the paper and place them on the cake. I think these hearts work great when used in a similar manner to my snowflake cakes from Christmas.

Anti-Valentine – All this pink and hearts getting you down? Then why not turn things your way with these broken hearts? Using sugarpaste cut out several heart shapes, then using a sharp knife cut each heart in half making sure you get a jagged line. You want the heart to look like it’s been snapped in half, then carefully insert a cocktail stick into each piece and leave for a few hours to harden up. Then cover your cake with black icing and then carefully insert each 2 heart halves into each cake.

Fun Things from Shops
And finally here are some fun things to look out for in your local shops, since these products are seasonal I won’t provide shop links as they’ll be broken in a few days time. So while out shopping keep your eyes peeled for these. 

Biscuit cutters – Available in a selection of sizes heart shaped cutter can make Valentines biscuits extra cute, and as a bonus they are useful all year round.

Cake Pans – I currently own heart shaped silicone cupcake cases and a large silicone heart shaped cake pan. These are fun to use all year round and being silicone they don’t take up much storage space.

Lurking in my local shops I’ve also stumbled upon heart shaped ramekins and lots of cute home wares for setting the table like placemats, coasters and even heart shaped wine glasses!

Well I hope this post was useful in some way, all that I have left for Valentines now is my review of the book Kinky Cupcakes which I hope to get up tomorrow.  That post may got up rather late (or I might just save it until Friday) as I have an awful lot to do tomorrow including work and getting ingredients for my brother’s birthday cake!

Recipe: Pancakes

Just a quick post today since I haven't quite finished the other Valentines posts yet and this post is seasonal anyway.

Today is Shrove Tuesday and in the UK at least that means one thing... pancakes! Shrove Tuesday in the UK is also known as Pancake Day; basically we start Lent by eating as much sugar as possible.

Pancakes are so simple to make and yet I know an awful lot of people who use packet mixes. Those things baffle me, loads of them tell you to add an egg or milk which means you’ve spend a couple of pounds on a bag of flour! That makes no sense to me at all (and don’t get me started on the ones that just involve adding water, they taste disgusting.)Well as a protest against packet mixes I’m sharing this recipe! This is the pancake recipe my mum always uses and in my opinion it makes the best pancakes.

Ingredients
100g/4oz plain flour
2 eggs
250ml/half pint of milk
pinch salt
1 tsp caster sugar (optional for sweet pancakes)

Method
Sift all dry ingredients into a bowl, then make a well in the centre of the flour. Add the eggs and a splash of milk. Beat until the flour is all incorporated, then keep beating while gradually adding the rest of the milk. You should end up with a smooth batter with bubbles of the surface, leave to rest for a while before cooking. You may need to stir the batter gently before cooking.

My favourite pancake topping has to be maple syrup but you can’t beat the classic combination of lemon and sugar. What’s your favourite topping?

Monday Recipe: Inca Berry Cupcakes

Ok so this recipe isn’t particularly Valentines in theme, but now seems as good a time as any to post this.

I stumbled across Inca berries (also known as physalis) while reading James Wong’s new book, Homegrown Revolution. As the title suggests this book is all about growing your own foods but this book focuses on distinctly more exotic fare rather than the traditional (and not cost/space effective) crops like potatoes and tomatoes. I have never had an interest in gardening until I read this book and it has given me some great new cupcake ideas, including this recipe. Seriously I suggest checking this book out it’s amazing.

Anyway I discovered lots of interesting new foods, including Inca berries and before I invested in a plant it seemed sensible to find out if I actually liked Inca berries first. Luckily my local Tesco supermarket happens to sell them and for only £1 a bag! Happily I do like them and thus set about playing with them. The result was the following cupcake recipe.

I decided to top these cakes with a cream cheese frosting mostly because I made these at the same time as the Red Velvet Cupcakes and I had made an awful lot of frosting... James Wong describes Inca berries as having a flavour like a ripe gooseberry with a hint of tropical fruit, followed by a bittersweet aftertaste. And I find the creamy flavour of the frosting makes a great contrast to the tangy flavour of the berries.

As usual this recipe is designed for use in a cupcake maker and will make 6 fairy cake sized cakes, the recipe can easily be scaled up and should work in an oven equally well. The quantities given for the frosting should be enough to cover 12 cakes but this is dependent on how you choose to cover them.

Ingredients
Cake
1 large egg
50g/2oz Self-rising flour, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5-6 Inca berries, leaves removed and chopped into quarters

Frosting
100g/4oz full fat cream cheese
50g/2oz softened butter
300g/12oz icing sugar, sifted
Vanilla extract

Decorations (optional)
6 Inca berries, leaves folded up

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar; then beat in the egg and vanilla extract. Fold in the flour and then mix in the chopped berries. Divide evenly between the cake cakes and bake for about 10 minutes in a cupcake maker  or for about 15 minutes in the oven at Gas Mark 4/180 C. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean. Leave on a wire rack to cool.

To make the frosting, first cream together the cheese and butter, then add the vanilla extract. I used about a teaspoon but add to your personal taste.  Then gradually add the icing sugar and beat it in, the frosting will look quite runny at first but it will thicken up. Once you’ve added all the icing sugar cover the cakes as you want and top each cake with an extra berry. If the frosting seems a little runny add a tiny bit more icing sugar or chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Well that’s it for now; if you try these out I’d love to know what you all think. Later in the year I hope to post some more recipes using crops I found through this book. 

Recipe: Chocolate and Caramel Cupcakes

Chocolate is a fundamental part of Valentine’s Day commercialism, but who wants plain chocolate when you can have chocolate caramels?

Yet again a flavoured hot chocolate that smells lovely but tastes kinda horrid has come into my life; this time it’s a caramel one. But like the raspberry one I’ve mentioned here before it’s basically just coco powder with flavoured sugar, so that means one thing, CUPCAKES!!! No pictures of these cakes as I didn’t bother to frost them before eating them, and un-iced they just look like normal chocolate cakes...

This one is currently available from Whittards, and can be acquired here.

As usual this recipe is designed for use in a cupcake maker and makes 6 fairy cake sized cakes. However it should work in the oven and can easily be scaled up to make more. 

Ingredients
1 large egg
30g/1oz Self-rising flour, sifted
20g/1oz Caramel Hot Chocolate, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar then beat in the egg. Fold in the flour and hot chocolate, divide evenly amongst 6 cake cases then bake in the cupcake maker for approximately 10 minutes or in the oven at Gas 4/180 C for about 15 minutes. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean! Leave on a wire rack to cool.

The caramel flavour is quite subtle so when frosting these I’d suggest a caramel flavoured buttercream (I have a recipe for salted caramel buttercream, when I get the hang of making it I’ll share it here). 

Recipe: Red Velvet Cakes (Cheating method)

I love Red Velvet Cake, the contrast between the bright red cake and the white frosting always looks amazing. And it’s a chocolate flavoured cake so what’s not to love? And the colour is pretty appropriate for Valentine’s Day. Sadly I find making it to be a bit of a pain in the backside. I struggle to balance the ratio of coco powder to food dye, and more often than not I don’t use enough dye. The result is usually a chocolate cake with a vaguely pink tint if you squint a bit.

But Lakeland has come to the rescue, as they now stock Star Kay extracts. These extracts come in a huge range of flavours and include a chocolate flavour. The extracts are quite expensive, but I’m given to believe that they are a very high quality brand so I don’t mind paying so much for them (and Lakeland have them on 3 for 2 at the moment). So armed with this and some red gel food dye I went into battle and made some adorable cupcakes for Valentine's Day.

Check out my shiny new backdrop! Much nicer than my messy kitchen!

Star Kay Chocolate Extract is available here. I’ve also found some Star Key extracts in Tesco so if you have access to a large store I’d suggest looking there. However Tesco will have a fairly limited range of flavours.

Naturally these are topped with cream cheese frosting; the quantities given below should provide enough frosting to cover 12 cupcakes. Obviously this is dependent on how you choose to cover the cakes, if you pipe the frosting like I did you’ll probably need more. As for the cakes the usual rules apply, this makes 6 fairy cake sized cakes in a cupcake maker. This recipe can be scaled up to make more and also works in the oven. I’m not sure how well the colour will come out when baked in the oven though.

Now isn't that a fabulous colour?

Ingredients
Cake
1 large egg
50g/2oz Self-rising flour, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine
2 teaspoons chocolate extract
Red gel food colouring

Frosting
100g/4oz full fat cream cheese
50g/2oz softened butter
300g/12oz icing sugar, sifted
Vanilla extract (to taste)

Decorations (optional)
Red/pink heart shaped sprinkles
Pink edible glitter

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar; then beat in the egg and chocolate extract. Fold in the flour and then mix in a little of the food dye. Gel dyes are highly concentrated so you don’t need much! Divide evenly between the cake cakes and bake for about 10 minutes in a cupcake maker  or for about 15 minutes in the oven at Gas Mark 4/180 C. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean. Leave on a wire rack to cool.

To make the frosting, first cream together the cheese and butter, then add the vanilla extract. I used about a teaspoon but add to your personal taste.  Then gradually add the icing sugar and beat it in, the frosting will look quite runny at first but it will thicken up. Once you’ve added all the icing sugar cover the cakes as you want and decorate. If the frosting seems a little runny add a tiny bit more icing sugar or chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Valentines Preview

Hi sorry for the lack of updates everyone, I've been so busy working on new posts/other projects that I haven't had time to get anything finished or posted. But to make it up to you all there shall be a flurry of new posts over the next few days as I try and get all the Valentines themed stuff up before next Thursday! So yeah my normal posting schedule of recipes on Mondays and Friday Reviews shall be ignored for the next week.

So what do I have in store for you all?
There shall be 3 new cupcake recipes, a review of the book "Kinky Cupcakes", Valentines decorating tips and some other stuff. Oh and there might even be pictures of my brother's 21st birthday cake.

I'm not really a fan of Valentines, being single it kinda sucks to have an entire day dedicated to reminding you of that fact and I do believe that you should show people that you love them all year round not just on a day created by cards companies. But I am a fan of hearts and pink... so I can happily embrace that element of Valentine's Day (and I love buying tons of cheap chocolate/flowers on Feb 15th!!)  so this year I'm shaking things up. In my world Feb 14th 2013 is "Love Everyone Day, Especially Youself"
We all need a bit more love in our lives especially us girls, so this year I vote that us single girls reclaim Feb 14th for ourselves. Eat cake, get a makeover, whatever just do something that makes you happy and share the love with everyone you care about.

Great British Bake Off

Just a quick update today folks to let you know that I have officially completed one of my New Years goals. Today I submitted my application form for series four of The Great British Bake Off!!!

I've been working on the application all week which is why there have been no updates, but now that is done normal service here should resume! :) I probably won't get onto the show but it doesn't hurt to try now does it? Wish me luck everyone :)

And if any of my UK readers fancy applying themselves just head to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours/shows/beonashow/great_british_bake_off4

and download the application, but be quick the deadline is this Wednesday!

1000 Page Views!!!

Yeah this post has no real content, I'm just celebrating the fact that today this blog hit 1000 page views! I know that in the grand scheme of things that doesn't mean much, but this is a big deal for me. Here's to the next 1000!

Icing Cakes – A Quick Reference Guide

There are several different types of icing used to cover cakes, some of which go by more than one name! This can get a little confusing, especially for beginners to baking and cake decorating. In this post I’m giving a quick overview of the different icings I use and some of the other names I know them by. At a later date (not too late I promise!) I’ll do a more in-depth post on each type, which will include instructions on how to make and use them.

Hopefully I’ve managed to get all of the common names for these icings, if I’ve missed any please let me know and I’ll update accordingly.  Some of the icings listed below have more than one use which I’ll touch upon, but at the moment I’m only concerned with icing as a cake covering. Anything that is primarily used for sugar craft I’ll cover in a separate post. Right so let’s get started, oh and the pictures show examples of me using that icing. I've tried to use pictures that I haven't posted before where possible!

Water Icing aka Glacé Icing
A classic icing, and probably one that most people made as children! This really is the simplest icing you can make, as it only needs water and icing sugar! This icing is pretty adaptable as you can easily adjust the consistency to suit any cake or biscuit. In addition to this because the basic recipe is always white this icing is great fun to colour and it’s very easy to add whatever flavour you want. Sometimes I use lemon juice instead of water and spoon it over hot cakes for a quick lemon drizzle cake that is pre-iced.

Water icing is made by mixing small amounts of water into lots of (sifted) icing sugar and mixing until you get the desired consistency. Just be careful when adding flavours and colours as these will affect the consistency!

Buttercream
This is one of the simplest toppings you can make for a cake and it’s highly versatile. Buttercream is made by simply creaming together butter and icing sugar and adding some flavouring, the most common of which is vanilla. Once you’ve got a nice smooth, thick and spreadable consistency it’s ready to use. Take care however, as using shortcuts like melting or warming the butter will only produce an oily icing, so where possible allow your butter to get to room temperature before starting!

Buttercream is great for filling sandwich cakes and topping all manner of cakes, I often pipe or spread it onto cupcakes. This icing is highly adaptable as by adding a couple of drops of food dye and changing the flavour you can match it to any flavour of cake. Some of my favourite flavours include: chocolate, cinnamon and rose.

Frosting
Now I expect that many people include buttercream under the umbrella term of frosting, but when I mention frosting I’m usually referring to cream cheese frosting. Which happens to be my favourite type of icing, it’s so tasty. I include marshmallow and meringue frosting here too, but those are slightly different so I won't discuss them here. 

Commonly found on carrot cakes and red velvet cakes, this icing is made in pretty much the same way as buttercream only with the addition of cream cheese.

Sugarpaste aka Fondant Icing
When you buy a premade birthday or Christmas cake this sugarpaste is normally what has been used to ice it. This type of icing is a popular choice when decorating cakes, and is very simple to use. To be honest I’m not entirely sure how sugarpaste is made but since it is widely available in shops it really isn’t necessary to make your own. Sugarpaste can be used to cover cakes by simply rolling it out as you would pastry and draping it over the cake, however it also has uses in sugarcraft as it is very easy to use for model making.

Sugarpaste is sold in pretty much any colour you can think of, and white sugarpaste can be coloured using food colours (or by kneading blobs of coloured sugarpaste into it). It is naturally extremely sweet however it is possible to buy flavoured sugarpaste (for example lemon and chocolate). This is usually only available in specialist cake decorating shops though. Shop brought sugarpaste can be kept for over a year if stored in an airtight container in a cool dry place.

Royal Icing
Another icing that has two uses, royal icing can be piped and used as decorations or used to cover cakes.  It dries hard and is very brittle once dry which means you should be prepared for breakages (and lots of them) if using this to make decorations!

This icing is quite simple to make, but does behave differently to other types of icing. Royal icing is made by beating together egg whites and icing sugar to create a thick smooth icing. Some recipes call for lemon juice but I never add it. To thicken royal icing you must never add extra icing sugar as this will ruin the proportions in the recipe, to thicken simply beat the icing for longer. If you require a runnier icing add a tiny bit of water (literally drops). When made this way the icing is perfect for use when piping decorations, if you want to cover a cake with it add some glycerine.  This addition means that while the icing is still hard when dry it won’t be as brittle, so it won’t crack so much when you actually cut the cake!

When used to cover a cake royal icing is either used to create a perfectly smooth surface (common on wedding cakes) or a rougher textured surface that makes a great snow scene on Christmas cakes.

As royal icing sets hard it needs to be kept in an airtight container when not in use, but if left alone in a cool, dry place and perfectly sealed it can be kept for months.

So there you have it a basic overview of all the different types of cake covering, I haven’t dealt with marzipan here as that is usually hidden under royal icing or sugarpaste. I hope this post is helpful in some way. As I said as the start, at a later date I’ll discuss each of these in more detail and discuss the icing used in sugarcraft. 

Radio Silence

Sorry for the radio silence, my work hours have been all over the place again. Seriously I had a 6am until 10am shift last week, that meant I had to be up at 4am so I could meet my transport at 5:30!! As you can guess that makes finding time to write (and actually having the energy to write) rather tricky. However now my hours have settled down again and England is currently being snowed on, I have time to write again. So I should have a new post up for you soon.

I'm currently writing some stuff about cake decorating, and I had an idea for a new cupcake last night so once I've tried that out I may have some more recipes for you all as well.  :)

Right I'd better get back to writing, toodle pip!

Some of my recent baking

Wondering why I haven't updated since the New Year's Resolutions post?

Sadly my work hours have been all over the place the last week and shall be this week too, but next week they settle down and everything here should return to normal(ish). 

I have been baking though, today I made soda bread. Not entirely sure how it's turned out though, I accidently made it with strong white bread flour rather than plain flour! oops It has risen and it looks like the picture in the book, but I have no idea if it tastes OK. Guess I'll find out tomorrow, at which point I shall update you guys with the results of that particular mishap!

Edited to Add: Well I've tried the soda bread, and it's actually very nice! It tastes best when eaten as is with some butter/spread, as when toasted it developes a rather heavy texture. Apparently this is normal with soda bread, I'm not sure as it's years since I've eaten the stuff! So all in all this experiment hasn't gone too badly but I think it shall be improved by using the right flour next time! No pictures as it all got eaten!

I also made this

I made this a couple of days ago but I've had to wait to post it as it's my granddad's birthday cake and I have no idea if my grandparents ever look at this place! (I had to keep it off Facebook because they do use that and may have seen it.)

This is a chocolate cola cake which I have covered with green sugarpaste, and then appliqued the elephant and it's blanket using more sugarpaste. The red stripe has been covered with red sugar (secured with royal icing) and the blue areas have been decorated with star shaped sprinkles (makes a change from snowflakes!) The elephant's toe nails and tusk were made of white sugarpaste and the eye is an edible silver pearl. 

All in all I'm really proud of this cake, as while I've done modelling with sugarpaste before this is the first time I've ever covered a cake in the stuff. I think it's turned out rather well, I managed to roll it to an even thickness and it was big enough for the cake! I even coloured white icing green and grey myself (the blue/red were pre-coloured). The cake is on a plate because I completely forgot to go buy a proper cakeboard, oops. My only issue with this cake is that I should have rolled the icing a little thinner when I cut out the ear shape, as because it was a little thick the edges didn't curl properly when I ran my ball tool over the edge. But annoyingly the icing kept sticking to the worktop so I couldn't roll it any thinner easily, next time I'll dig out my mum's icing rolling pin (it's much smaller) and non-stick board.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Normally I don't really bother with New Year celebrations, I must confess that I find it confusing that the annual ritual of hanging a new calendar is important and must be celebrated. But I know lots of people who do feel it is important, so in the words of my dear brother "Insert platitude based upon it being 2013 here"

2012 has been a good year for me, not only has it been a great year to be British what with our amazing Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee but I've achieved a lot myself this year. I graduated University and got a job (not where I want but it's a start) and I started this blog and most importantly I've stuck with it. I think this blog is one of the few projects I've started in my life and actually kept up with (my youtube account is evidence of this). And I want to continue in this way in 2013, I want to make this blog the best I can over the course of this year.

So now I feel it is time for that time honoured tradition of making New Year's Resolutions, I promise I won't bother you all with the traditional ones (get fit, eat better, drink less .etc) and keep them on topic to this place! I'm writing them down here so that this time next year I can return to this post and reflect on what I have (or haven't) achieved this year!

1. Improve the layout
I hate the fact I'm using one of Bloggers templates, it makes this place look rather dull. So at the very least this year I'm going to customise the layout with my own pictures and organise everything so that it's a more efficient layout.

2. Reviews
I've really been bad at writing these, I have so many books I should be reviewing and this year I promise I'm actually going to do that!

3. Finish all those half written posts
As the title suggests, I have quite a few half written posts scattered about on my laptop. I want to finish these and get them posted, I also want to start all those half-formed posts which only exist in note form.

4. Great British Bake Off
I adore this program and I really want to go on it. So I'm going to apply and keep you guys informed of my progress through the audition process if I get through the first round. By writing this here I can't chicken out and not send off the application form.

5. Variety
I want to make this blog great, and to do that I have to do more than write the odd review and post recipes. So I promise to start writing a greater variety of posts, from discussion pieces to advice pieces and start sharing more of my own bakes. Especially since I'm really trying to up my game when it comes to cake decoration.

I also want to continue to develop my baking skills and improve my photography.
So that's what I plan for 2013, wish me luck everyone! I think I'm going to need it!

Once again I wish you all a very Happy New Year, and I hope that 2013 treats you all well.