Monday 14 May 2012

Birthday Cakes!

Last week was my big brother's 23rd birthday so I decided to make him his favourite cake: Coffee and Walnut! The 5th of May is a special day for our family as my parents celebrate their anniversary on the same day as my brother's birthday, so we get a double celebration!




This cake is forever a favourite among the coffee lovers in our family and is truly an enjoyment to make, albeit a little bit of a lengthy process. The recipe is from the first Great British Bake Off book!

Unfortunately, out of the six people who were to consume the cake, three of us hate coffee cake so I also decided to make some cupcakes. I'm a complete novice at decorating cakes and I've been desperate to get better (somebody please help me!) so I invested in Ruth Clements The Busy Girl's Guide to Cake Decorating which has clearly answered my prayers.




Yes, ok, they aren't a huge achievement but I have to start somewhere! I invested (I say invested because the set cost me twenty pounds...) in a Wilton cutter set for letters and numbers which I hope will be used a few more times, I have to get my money's worth!

I used the vanilla cupcake recipe from Ruth's book and was incredibly dubious as it called for four eggs, though the resulting cupcakes were very nice and fluffy. I attempted to use my initiative when decorating the cupcakes and only consulted the book for advice on how to stick the icing together, a good triumph in my eyes! I'm pleased to say both lots of birthday cake went down very well!

On a last note, my apologies for the lack of posts I've written recently, especially as the ones I have written have been mainly pictures and no recipes! It is currently the end of my first uni year so I'm finding myself low on time and my family is also going through a tough time. I will continue to attempt to blog and my thanks goes out to you all whole continue to hear my blabber on such rare occasions!

3 comments:

Alex said...

Sure your brother loved the cake, it looks delicious. And those cutters were well worth the investment, your cupcakes look great. Think I might have to invest in some myself at some point!!

I've also been quiet over on my blog due to uni deadlines, I just handed in my dissertation, phew. Hope all your work goes well, and you can get back to proper blogging soon!!

The Caked Crusader said...

I have a set of those cutters and am thoroughly inspired by how you've used them - it's a lovely idea

Victoria said...

I love coffee and walnut! Sadly my boyfriends hates both those things so we rarely have coffee/walnut cake but we make up for it by eating pretty much everything else :)

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