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

Is this burning an eternal flame?

There are so many bad candle/flame puns to make, and limited space/patience to make them in. My shortlist for titles was the bangles or Elton John - I decided The Bangles was a lesser crime against fashion.

To celebrate the first of my friends to visit Canberra in my (shared) honour, Beach Girl and Power Ranger (another Canberra resident) requested the Candle cake. That is, this one:

Which was to be my first attempt at fluffy frosting (Italian meringue, basically). Now, I have to admit, before we properly read the recipe, I could not understand why the Power Ranger's mum had refused her requests for this cake.

I mean, look at the picture - surely it's just a cake baked in a date loaf or other pipe tin? and then covered with plain white icing?

Erm, no. No, it's a sponge roll with jam, covered in Italian meringue and surrounded by a bed of candy. Still though, we ploughed on.

Loads of candy = check.
Jam=check.
Egg whites and sugar=check
Candy thermometer=check

I have never, ever made a successful sponge before. The candle tasted ok, although it was quite dry. The jam made it nicer. Beach Girl was super-fast at rolling it up, while it was still warm:

After we (impatiently) let the rolled sponge cool (there may have been some pizza consumed during this interval), we started the process for icing the cake. While we boiled the syrup away with the candy thermometer (brilliant invention by the way - the little mark on the thermometer that said "soft ball" was so accurate!), I whipped the egg whites til stiff. Unfortunately, this is where the whole plan fell down.

If it wasn't enough that I was ready for a nap even before we put the sponge on, by the time it got to fluffy frosting stage i was ready to drop. However, we powered through - but my lack of motivation was really showcased.

I don't know if it's because my egg whites were too cold, or my syrup added too quickly, or the beaters didn't reach far enough into the bowl or what, but what came out of the bowl after about 45 minutes wasn't "fluffy", even if it was frosting.

Nevertheless, we kept going and just let the icing drip dramatically and wax-like down the upright jam roll. It didn't end up looking too different from the picture:

Although we should have put the seam at the back. You will also notice our distinct lack of live flame. This was pure laziness - it was far too fucking freezing to go out to the shops for candles so Beach Girl and Power Ranger had a flame-off - who could design the best candy flame?

In the end and because Power Ranger was busy with Robin Hood, Beach's flame (right, above) won, and we used that in place of a real fire.

Result?

E for Effort
F for Fail!

Difficulty rating: 8.5-9/10
Time taken: The course of an evening from 6pm onwards
Artistic merit: 4.5
Overall score: 4.5 for appearance and taste, 8.5 for difficulty.

Next cake is something else hard i think, Beach Girl is requesting another cake in October!

Stay tuned for the Julia Gillard bake-off - Betty, you ready???

xx Martha

Every princess deserves a castle

My first cake was baked in a whirl-wind of a weekend, spent looking after my little cousin, Mish-Mash. Remembering my own fascination with this great book a a child, I thought I would give her the book to pick which cake she would like to bake - just cos. (Man, if only I got that option as a kid...I was stuck dreaming!)

Remembering my own favourites, I should have predicted that the winner would be the one with the most lollies to decorate and of course the chosen cake was the castle. (A surprising close second was the stove - I think for the jaffas - Mish's favourite!)

Heading up the 'For Girls' section, the castle represents every little girl's dream of being a princess in a fantasy land where the walls are edible and decorated with colourful candy.

A trip to Coles was in order to stock up on all the right lollies, as well as baking ingredients and toothpicks (for the flags). A few improvisations were made for the sweets we couldn't find - Tim Tams seemed a much tastier alternative for the wafer doors, and somehow Jaffas worked their way into the trolley, in addition to the rest.

For this cake, I decided to try out the butter cake recipe provided in the book. Part of my reasoning behind this was that I wanted Mish to experience baking beyond the packet mix.

Mish had a great time measuring out double quantities in the retro bowls and cups, while I discovered that my $9.99 hand electric beaters from Coles are not really big or strong enough for a double mix - the result was mix spinning its way up and almost into the mechanics...

Utilising the tins I already had available, we baked a square cake, plus muffin sized cupcakes to create the bases for the turrets. This turned out to be a great concept - except that the square cake didn't really rise very high, meaning that our Tim Tam doors turned into half Tim Tam doors!

With the cake assembled, it was time for my first attempt at fluffy frosting. Surprised to discover that no icing sugar was actually involved, I started the daunting task of making toffee to add to whipped egg whites to form a sickeningly surgary foam. Surprisingly ... success! A team effort with my little helper whipping the egg whites into shape while I concentrated on not burning the toffee on the stove produced a pretty good first attempt - spoon licking good!

And thus it was time to let the decorating begin! Mish went to town placing the Tim Tams, smarties and jubes, while I struggled to cut up liquorice allsorts to make the flags. An hour or so later the lolly packets were empty and our stomachs were too full of raw cake mix, icing and smarties, but most importantly, the cake was done!

Ta-da!!

All that was left now was to deliver the cake to its prospective consumers - namely Auntie K and Uncle D - who were suitable amazed!

To the adults, it seemed almost a shame to cut it up for no particular purpose, but Mish had no qualms about sticking the knife in and dishing out some generous servings!

The verdict - perhaps a little dry, but overall a creative and tasty masterpiece.

Betty x