Girls with bangs*

First things first - happy birthday, Blunt Angel and Syke-O!

Secondly, let me explain the title of the post - the cake is called "the good witch", which to me says "white witch" (as in, white magic), and she has bangs* (well, musk sticks but let's not be too particular), which to me says "Stuff White People Like".

meh, a joke explained is never funny...

Anyway, to celebrate Halloween, and the birthdays of two of the lovely ladies at work, I decided to make the good witch from The Book.

OK, so it looks big but not that hard and there's little fine detail involved so it should be achievable, even if I am wearing a Stackhat and chained to the stove.

I decided to branch out a little from the packet-buttercake path and made a cake from scratch, from the Taste website - butterscotch almond cake. To tell the truth, it didn't taste very butterscotch-y - but the almond meal gave it a really great crumb and icing it was a breeze. It was dense and moist - probably because it was friggin huge that it actually didn't fit in my food processor (another vote for Kitchenaid stand mixer please Mrs Martha), so I don't know how well mixed it really was. Anyway, into the oven it went for about an hour and a half, then because it was so ginormous I let it cool overnight.

This morning comes, and I cut the cake out according to the diagram in the book, cut out all the candy trimmings, and start to make the icing. I decided to also branch out with that, and chose a recipe for white chocolate buttercream. Which tasted fine but was an absolute bitch to get right. First, I whizzed it in the food processor and it just went runny - like the whole thing was made form molten white chocolate. Then I tried beating it by hand, which just made it warmer and runnier. So, about to concede defeat and head to the shops to purchase Frosting of Death, I tried to firm it up in the freezer as a last ditch effort.

Success! I still wouldn't call it light and fluffy, but it would at least take some colour and was spreadable.

The next drama was colouring the bulk of it purple - turns out, doesn't work so well. i don't know how they got the vibrant colour in the book, but it wasn't happening for Martha. I ended up with a dirty sort of mauve.

That was all of the disasters out of the way - the only other thing I had to be creative with was her hair - french fries on cake? Nuh uh. So I used sliced up musk sticks instead, and I couldn't find any plain licorice so used chocolate licorice logs.

Oh and the greatest discovery yet? Black gel icing in a tube. It's supposed to be for writing but zomg, it worked so well as a replacement for licorice on all the decorations! My new favourite thing.

Happy birthday ladies...

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.

Duh.... I'm the captain. My son is Bart*

Sunday 19 September was International Talk Like a Pirate Day and to celebrate, Betty and I decided to bake the sad pirate cake in The Book. I can’t speak to Betty’s experience, but I found him really quite easy – the only issue being my own stupidity. You see, I baked the cake (thank you, Green’s Classic Chocolate cake mix) and made the amateur mistake of trying to carve out the pirate hat while the cake was still warmish. Turns out it was too soft and crumbly, but I think I managed to salvage it, mainly. I left the ear and the cake out to cool down and dry out a bit overnight and cut up all the candy for our sad pirate’s face.

I tried using my leftover fruit sticks to make his hair but alas! They too had dried up and were too stiff to trim. I think it’s time to have a candy audit of my bucket and get rid of some old stuff. Anyway, I had two yellow snakes left which I used to good effect, had a trimmed down Monte biscuit for his eye patch, smarties for his nose and good eye, and liquorice (red and back) for the rest of the details.

After making a complete abortion of a skull and crossbones from liquorice allsorts, I resorted to the black construction paper originally recommended in The Book.

I also have to admit to pretty bad laziness here – not only did I use a packet mix (which was completely legitimate, bootcamp wiped me out) but I also decided to finish up the Frosting of Death to decorate it (hence, I can only believe my colleagues when they told me he tasted good – I am not going near that stuff ever again). It has a pretty great texture for spreading, and it gets even more pliable when it’s adulterated with buckets of food colouring.
Overall, I think he ended up looking pretty cute – now I’ll leave it up to Betty to follow up with her awesome version.

My version:

The Book version:

*for Simpsons fans...