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.

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

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.