Monday, October 25, 2010

The Champs-Élysées is a busy street....

Even though the chapter in The Book from which this cake comes is called "for boys", today we welcome back SW, who is most definitely not a boy.

We did have some debate in our team over whether we should make the "sports car" or the "racing car", but popular opinion chose the sports car and who am I to argue with popular opinion?

So the prototype for the day's efforts:


I have to say, this is one of the many instances where the picture looks deceptively easy and I managed to fuck it up good and proper in the execution. I _think_the car is supposed to be some kind of Saab-y type deal... mine looks more like a monster truck, but we'll get on to that.*

Anyway, I tried something different tonight - a packet Madeira/lemon cake done in a loaf tin (and oh my gosh, it doesn't taste as good as butter cake but wow! so easy to spread icing on the cut side!) and then I made the Vienna butter cream exactly as per the AWW instructions. Pffft. My way of lumping everything in and whizzing up is better.

I think I might gradually have forced my colleagues into realising that the Frosting of Death really is deathly, and luckily I found something to colour my humble homemade butter cream without giving anyone a heart attack:



Wilton concentrated paste ("no taste"), where have you been all my life? It coloured the icing nicely without making it runny, which is about as much as I can ask for, these days.

Anyway, it wouldn't be an AWW cake without candy and coloured coconut. Not only did I buy the wrong kind of coconut (shredded not dessicated, argh) but I also forgot Wilson's helpful tip of the freezer bag. So it was a mess all round. The licence plate, rear view mirror and door handle are made from the fondant part of a licorice allsort, the headlights are a jellybean/smarties creation and I am not entirely sure, to be honest, what the musk sticks are supposed to represent - but I just followed the instructions. Carving the cake turned out to be easy and instead of chucking out the off cuts I just used them underneath the car to give it more height.


I had to improvise a little with the aerial, because do you know how hard it is to buy friggin' pipe cleaners? so I coloured in a wooden skewer with a black texta and shoved it in the front. Now it's all done and ready for the return of the lead footed SW.

Anyway, the final product (it actually looks a bit better in real life, from a distance)

                                           Back:
                                           Front
                                           Side

PS SW - the price you pay for eating cake is a swear jar. every time you mention the words "France", "holiday" or "retirement" you pay Navonod in blood. Or so he tells me.


*It occurred to me last night that baking my way through The Book is pretty reflective of life. You do it a couple of times and think how had it is, then you get a couple of easy ones or you get on roll and start getting cocky, thinking that being a grown up isn't actually that hard and what's everyone complaining about and then wham. you go right back to the drawing board and the easiest thing is impossible. stupid lack of mad decorating skillz.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Fame is corrupting

Or is that power? Either way, I'm squeaky clean.

Betty and I have had our first taste of stardom, including the paparazzi. My work has an internal newsletter and Bakey Cakelicious rated a menion. Hurrah!

It was good for a giggle, anyway...


Something else that's good for a giggle? This webcomic, funniest thing I've read in ages.Who knew what magic you could weave with stick figures!

Hyperbole and a Half - God of Cake

Monday, October 18, 2010

The friendly ghost

What could be fitting to farewell another office fav, and a big fan of the baking?

The ghost jumped out at me as the perfect treat for someone who was disappearing from our ranks!

Another last-minute baking effort meant packet mix, (loving the excuse that the book actually recommends them!) and two beautiful butter cakes were selected and whipped into one large rectangular tin.

With no time to waste, the decorating started the minute it came out of the oven. My second attempt at fluffy frosting proved even messier – it was much harder without a second pair of hand to mix while I poured the toffee in evenly to get just the right sticky, fluffy consistency.

The greatest thing about fluffy frosting is that it makes icing so easy – it practically spread itself into a delicious, gooey, fluffy covering. The final touches were big blue eyes, a strange green smartie mouth, pink coconut (still in the fridge, left over from the pink elephant – again, I hope nobody actually ate that!) and the ultimate finishing touch – the Chief’s hat! (I think the new chief was even a bit jealous!)

A suitably sugary, sweet farewell!

Nine posts and 10 cakes posted - I'm done! - Betty xx

Cake takes flight


(Two cakes to go, and I am determined to get there!)

Over the past five weeks, I had been so lucky to be part of a fantastic leadership program under the inspired coachings of the lovely George and Simon.

I had promised the group a cake the previous week, (I even bought gluten-free flour for Kate!) but was overcome with too many late nights!

Down to the wire and the final week of the course, and only the helicopter would do!

The gluten-free cake turned out to be fantastic to work with, it had a beautiful moist texture, and minus the bloating of regular flour, was positively more-ish!

With limited time, I decided to cheat and use my trusty name sakes’s ready-made icing, with the addition of some particularly vibrant colours. The helicopter turned out the be surprisingly easy to mould; the gluten-free cake took shape easily.

Unfortunately though, the heaviness of the cake proved disastrous in the car on the way to work, with the whole helicopter taking a tumble during the drive, not once but twice!

Luckily though, the cake made it, (with only minor icing damage) and like our ideas, it took off!

Footy fever


 Two Melbourne teams were in the grand final and Melbourne was all a-hype!

Having scored some free tix to the previous weeks’ convincing victory over Geelong, I was back out and proud as a pies supporter and ready for a big win!

Watching the first grand-final undid all good yoga relaxation work of the morning, despite feeling sick, it was impossible not to be on the edge of my seat from half-time onwards!

And what a result! My victory cake – the footy field – had to be transformed into a something appropriate for a draw!

AS the final played out, I decided another hedgehog would make a perfect ground for the G, topped with green coconut. A clinker was the only possibility for the ball, and it had to be a pink one. (I had to do a lot of checking, just to get the right one!) Painting skewers seemed like way too much work, and when I couldn’t even find them in Coles, drinking straws saved the day as a much cheaper and simpler solution!

What a strange afternoon, as we all realised we would be back next week!

And back we were, ready for a result. Sadly I didn’t get to watch the re-play (being far too relaxed in an all-day yoga workshop) but boy was I ready to celebrate with a pies premiership cake!

A simple choc cake, this one was for my fav pies supporter, my little sis – Oh, the premierships a CAKEwalk – yes, it was! GO PIES!!

A monster for my fav little monster


T’was the birthday of my little Saraj, and only something outrageous would do! It came down to the jelly cake or the monster. (I decided the jelly cake would be a bit too difficult to take to the pub.) 

This cake needed to be just as ugly inside, so I decided that rather than a cake I would bake hedgehog slice. (The rectangular tin was also the perfect shape for the “cake”.)
 So it turns out Hegehog slice is possibly the easiest thing ever to make – just melt the butter and mix it all in! And very difficult not to eat while baking.

Some VERY buttery choc icing started ‘decorating in the tin’ meaning that I didn’t even have to find a plate. (I will admit I was concerned it would fall apart if I tipped it out.) Surviving a day in the car, and a trip to the show (where multiple Bertie Beetle bags were purchased as b’day pressies and general pressies) and overcoming a bartender who was reluctant to give us a knife to cut it, we managed, at long last, to consume the delicious, crunchy non-cake.

Aaargh! Tis the pirate!


Talk like a pirate challenge: accepted! 19 September be always a favourite on me calendar – International Talk Like a Pirate Day! 
If you haven’t discovered this website already, it be worth a look – me fav part be t' pirate translator. (I actually once even submitted a resignation in pirate speak … ) "

So talk like a pirate day was on t' Sunday, and I had it all ready t' take into work on t' Monday – except I forgot t' brin' t' cake! Whoops! T' one bonus was this did give me time t' track down a gold doubloons – t' piece de resistance that me bucko in Canberra didn’t quite manage. 
In all modesty, I officially award meself t' winner in t' challenge, for findin' t' starboard piece o' eight, and t' special ‘Freddo o' t' sea’ insignia on pirate’s hat! "

Nobody mention the pink elephant in the room


Ahhh the day to bake my way to a payrise … the boss’s birthday! Sadly, I failed on that account, it might have had something to do with the fact that I didn’t actually bake and cheated by buying two Coles choc mud cakes. (He did say they were his favourites!)

It was all relatively easy from there, some clever cutting and the elephant quickly took shape, while pink coconut required a hands-on approach (and pink hands for a few days). 

I must admit I slacked off on icing the sides – I kinda ran out of icing, and the mud cake wasn’t the easiest to ice.

A strategically positioned ear and tusk and Mr pink elephant looked ready to dance right out of the tray and celebrate an unwanted b’day. (That might have been my other mistake … )

Farewell to a clown


It doesn’t take long for the farewells to roll around, and before we knew it we were saying goodbye to Arnie! That left me with a Thursday night dilemma of what to make, and again, I went with the simple option, that could be made out of one round butter cake (which was in the freezer from the last baking session!)

A few improvisations were made in lieu of decorations I didn’t have on hand – an ice-cream cone covered in sprinkles replaced the party hat, while silver ribbon curls made for much more fun hair! Wafer biscuits took the place of ice-cream wafers and the lillipops were multi coloured (and about a year old – I think they were in a Bertie Beetle showbag from last year – I really hope nobody ate them!)

A fitting farewell cake for an office fav!




Little miss muffet


Back to work after three blissful weeks of holiday and it was time to get back to baking.

I must admit the back to work blues meant I wasn’t very inspired, but when Aaron brought me in a spider, I really couldn’t put it off any longer!

I chose little miss muffet because it seemed the simplest – one round cake, plus a bonus cupcake for miss muffet’s tuffet! I didn’t really think about how difficult it would be to find the right doll, however, and had to make do with a try-hard barbie from Coles.

For this cake I went back to the classic basic butter cake from the recipe book, topped with some electrifying blue icing!

A near disaster was just averted when I discovered I had no idea where my piping bag or nozzles were – a make-shift bag made from baking paper and no nozzle wasn’t ideal, but I managed the design despite being a bot thicker than intended.



Another tasty treat for the workmates to enjoy!

Run, run as fast as you can … !


Ok, so you may (or may not) have noticed that I am a bit behind in my blogging. Ten cakes behind to be precise - time to catch up in a hurry!


July 2010 – The gingerbread man

The focus of July’s baking challenge was on a BIG gingerbread biscuit. It had been years since I had last made gingerbread men, and I had certainly never made one as big!

Following the gingerbread recipe in the AWWCBC cookbook, it was all going smoothly, I had made my pattern from tracing paper and cut it out with a knife … to find it stuck to the bench! I had forgotten how fragile the necks can be!

Take two and I rolled the gingerbread out onto tracing paper, so that it could easily be lifted onto the tray. The leftover gingerbread was also a great chance to test out the little gingerbread cooking cutter that I got at the show last year.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a cake without cake, so gigantic chocolate cake it was!

Chocolate icing sealed the gingerbread man to the cake, while liquorice strips, smarties and icing pens made light work of decorating the man.

The perfect man to say happy birthday to Becky Boo!

I sphinx it's a pyramid

I (Martha) strayed once again from the book into, as Mr Graham would say, "avant garde" territory today, to welcome back a much-missed member of our team, Wilson.

Since Wilson returned today from her Egyptian holiday, the really happy frood in our team convinced me (after a brief debate about the differences between iced vovos and strawberry mallow biscuits which ended in my defeat) to construct a pyramid in celebration.

What the frood didn't realise though was that I have no spatial awareness and don't do too well with shapes, either. Or carving/sculpture. Luckily, the frood has a slightly more impressive cranial capacity than Martha so was able to not only find a template, but do the legwork.

I mixed up the biggest fuck off cake mixture I've ever seen - 8 eggs, 500g butter and practically a whole bag of sugar and flour. I decided at the last minute to make a rainbow cake, so I divided the mixture into three parts, coloured one part pink and flavoured it with strawberry essence, the other with cocoa and I left the other plain. I had to bake it in two deep square tins, and it took ages. So much for an early Sunday night!

I left the cakes to cool overnight and in the meantime, crushed up two packets of scotch finger biscuits to use as sand and packed two cans of frosting of death, colouring, a bread knife, a box of matches and a little bag of cocoa (for the bricks).

The frood and I set to work as soon as we got in in the morning, with the frood starting out with carving while I mixed up some sand-coloured (kinda) icing:

The first cut is the deepest... BABY*

 
 The two cakes were stacked on top of each other, then the frood carved down the sides at the precise angle of 51 degrees (well, it would have been precise if we'd remembered the protractor) and fashioned some of the off-cuts into a peak. I then bollixed that up by frosting it too enthusiastically and making it slump >:

I used the first can of frosting-of-death to dirty ice the pyramid after we spackled it together, before covering it in the sand coloured mixture. The frood arranged the "sand" (crumbs) on the iced board while I made brick lines using the ole matchbox-dipped-in-cocoa trick (thanks, AWW!).

Work in progress:


And then the frood found a little green army man and Blunt Angel found another, and we had ourselves a diorama. Add in King Kong to the scene and it became nothing like an Egyptian pyramid but it was still pretty fun - and I think quite tasty.

The final product:


*that one's for you, LVV.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Boom boom sexy time (Happy Birthday Tricky)

Today marks the momentous occasion of Tricky’s birth, 21 years ago. On that day, in 1989, did Ma Tricky realise what a lad she was about to raise? What a devastatingly handsome, debonair, smooth ladies’ man she had?
Probably not.

I think everybody is a bit perplexed by my (Martha) choice of cake decoration. It is a replica of this cake that I first found on Cake Wrecks and thought was just odd and kind of inappropriate but also kind of funny:


However, even given the state of perplexedness (perplexment? Perplexion?) I’m pretty sure the cake itself is still good.

The funnest part of this cake was revisiting what I thought was a Nanny-special cake, the simplicity chocolate cake. It’s essentially a melt and mix cake and it always turns out awesome and chocolate-y. I only learnt a couple of years ago when I was flicking through Mum’s PMWU cookbook that my Nan stole the recipe from there.

So after baking the cake in a loaf tin and chucking in some extra chocolate chips (it’s his birthday after all) I left the cake to cool overnight.

I’m totally sure that Mr and Mrs Martha didn’t mind in the least picking up butter, icing sugar and milk on their way home from the airport after 6 weeks in Canadia. And I’m almost positive that whipping up the Vienna cream at 6.30 this morning didn’t disturb them, either.

I couldn’t get the butter icing as snow white as I wanted, but I did manage to get a pretty light colour thanks to some fairly vigorous whipping and the use of this Wilton product:


Overall I think it was a fairly faithful replica of the original – even though I have managed somehow to tear a huge fuck off hole in my piping bag.

Happy Birthday, Tricky. Hope you had a boom boom sexy day.