Reunion Cake and Cake Bites

Friday (18th) was my school reunion.  It's been 20 years since I left secondary school, though it does seem it was only the other day.  I decided to bring a special Reunion Cake and my new favourite thing Cake Bites:

The cake itself was a 4 layer vanilla sponge with vanilla buttercream and raspberry jam.  It was covered in white sugarpaste and decorated with the school badge.  It went down very well and disappeared fast.

These also went down well :

Choclate Cake with vanilla buttercream, formed into balls and topped with mint chocolate candy coating and decorated with white candy coating.  So moorish!!

My one and only Christmas Stall will be on Saturday 17th December at Kat's Whiskers Christmas Cracker in Crouch End.  For more info Click Here

Cakes and Bits

So September was a bit of a busy month for me
I made what I call an abstract cake for my friend's birthday.  The cake itself was chocolate cake with carmel bits in.  Topped with Chocolate Ganache-which is my favourite thing now and decorated with random pieces of coloured white chocolate.  It's really different.

And I kinda like it.

I also made a cake for my cousin's 21st.  It was again a caramel chocolate cake but this time topped with malteasers and melted white chocolate

Making recipes for my tasting testing panel, I had some left over dulce de leche left over so looked on the internet and found a recipe for duce de leche biscuits:

Very moorish mmmmm

So I'm now getting ready for Christmas . I've got my list of what I will be making and baking, looking forward to it!!

Back for Good

Where has the time gone!? Now in September, all the talk is about Christmas.  It's been a crazy couple of months.  The London Riots in August was the most heartbreaking thing for me, especially as I spent my early years (15 of them) growing up in Tottenham.  The whole thing was and still is surreal to me.  A benefit gig was organised to help those affected by the riots and I played my part by selling cakes.  All the proceeds went towards the fund set up to help those affected by the riots.  In total over £1500 was raised.

So what's happening with me?  I've still been looking for full time work-yes 15 months since being made redundant.  I had 2 interviews last week, didn't get either of the jobs.  I'm also finding now that many employers are only offering 3-6 month contracts with not guarantee that it will be extended...

I'm still going on with DBC, the officially launch now is looking like February 2012-my birthday month.  I'm working towards that date.  In the meantime, I am testing different recipes on my taste testing panel.  Each month they get a selection of cakes/biscuits from my and give me their feedback. I shall be blogging about them each month.

My latest cake was for a good friend of mine.  She always makes me laugh and it was so nice seeing her as we don't get to see her that often.  I made a simple sponge cake filled with lemon buttercream and lemon curd.  I covered it in lemon buttercream with some sugarpaste accidents.  I also added some Vanilla Premier cupcakes which will form part of my range.

Cakes Ive Made: Star Cake and Flower Cake

So these past  2 weeks Ive made cakes to take with me to celebration BBQs.  The Star cake was a 2 layer sponge cake sandwiched with lemon curd and lemon buttercream.  I love this sponge mix as its so easy...just put all the ingredients into a bowl, wisk and then bake.  The decoration was more tricky as I was using Silver Spoon sugarpaste which is soft anyway, but due to the warm weather made it even softer.  I battled with it and won (just).  I then decorated with start cutouts:

The flower cake was again my sponge mix filled with lemon curd and covered with lemon buttercream.  I decided not to cover with sugarpaste this time, so I smoothed out the buttercream and added sugarpaste flowers in blue and pink-perfect as the celebration was for 3 year old boy and girl twins.  I loved how it turned out:

The Future

When I first started out with this blog, the situation was that I had  been made redundant and that while I was following my ultimate dream of setting up my own cake business, I was still looking for full time work.  Well, a year since being made redundant, I am still looking for full time work.  Today I got rejection emails from 2 jobs which I could-I'm not just bigging myself up-do with my eyes closed.  I have GCSE's, A levels, a Honours degree and 14 years admin experience but obviously this is not enough.  I know the job climate is not good at the moment, but how frustrated am I?

I have even been applying for retail work which again I can do, have had several interviews, but again no job offer which I suspect is due to me not having retail experience.

During this time I have also been working on DeniseBakesCakes (DBC) as this is ultimately what I want to do.  I guess with having no luck in finding full time work, the cosmos is saying that this is my destiny and DBC is all I will need.

I have set up a taste testing panel and I'm baking cakes etc at the moment.  Very excited about it!! Pictures will be this week.

I'm Back

Wow
So its been it good while since I last blogged.


Things are a changing. I have put a hold on doing my cake stall, because  a) The fayre I was doing was not very well attended and so I would come home with cake upon cake upon cake  and  b) I am gearing up for my officially launch which is going to be in September/October time.


I putting together my menu of cakes, I have set up a tasting panel for people to, well, taste my cakes and rate them.


In between, I will still be making cakes and posting them here, there just won't be lots and lots of them...


On Saturday (28th May)  I went to an engagement party.  Naturally, I took cake.  I made my mega sized super moist carrot cake with cream cheese icing and some sugarpaste flower.  It was very much appreciated.

Cakes Cakes Cakes and Crafty Fox Market again!!

I've been busy with the cakes, so this post is a big catch up

Red Nose Days

My little cousin who has just turned 10 wanted me to make some cupcakes for Red Nose Day as her school were selling cupcakes to raise money.

So these are the cupcakes that I made:

Just some chocolate cupcakes with mint buttercream covered and decorated with sugarpaste.  My cousin said that these cakes sold out superfast!!

My next cake was a request for a Barbie Doll cake.  The brief was pink, pink and more pink.  This is how it turned out:

I was very pleased with it and the customer was very happy!!  The cake was chocolate with vanilla buttercream covered in sugarpaste.

My cousin's birthday was coming up and she wanted her birthday cake designed around a lego theme.  She also wanted some cupcakes to take into her class to give out.

So here are the cupcakes:

Red for the girls, blue for the boys (by request) and topped off with a lego brick.  Cupcakes were chocolate with mint butter cream.

The main birthday cake, decorated with sugarpaste lego bricks:

This took forever and even when I finished it, I wasn't completly happy, but Jade liked it and that's the main thing.

Crafty Fox

I will once again be providing cakes at theCrafty Fox pop up market.  If you are in the Brixton area on the 16th April, come on down. I will have classic cakes as well as vegan/gluten free options and I will be debuting cake pops!! Can't wait, hope to see you there.

Event Reveiw: The Horatia weekly Sunday Fayre

On Sunday 6th March, I attended the Horatia weekly Sunday Fayre.  I was, of course, selling my cakes there.  The Fayre was in its second week, so the customers were more of a steady trickle than a stampede, but I'm confident that as it gets more well known, more customers will attend.  Other stalls were selling vintage jumble, jewellery, cards and prints.  My cakes sold quite well-the Raspberry and Almond cake (Gluten Free) was especially popular.  

 Jam Donut Muffins

 Toffee Apple Cake

Raspberry and Almond Cake (Gluten Free)

Fudge Blondies

Carrot and Apple Cake (Vegan)

Orange and Marmalade Cake

I have also ventured into the world of muffin making.  I have loads of muffin baking books, but never tried any of the recipes.  So I thought this would be the ideal time.  I made Jam Donut muffins, which were a big hit, especially with a lady who bought one, left the fayre then came back to buy another one because they were so scrummy.

All in all a good fayre, which I will be doing again this Sunday.  So if you are around the Holloway/Highbury area, do check it out

Event Alert: The Horatia Sunday Weekly Fayre Sunday 6th March

I will be selling my lovely cakes at this new weekly fayre based in Holloway, North London.  Not sure what kind of cakes I'm selling yet but guarenteed they will be tasty!!

Birthday Cakes

Wow...its been a long long time...but I'm back!!  Exciting things on the horizon but first...


It was birthday on the 22nd Feb...yes I am 21 (again).  My friend's son also has a birthday on the same day-he turned 16; I remember those days.  So naturally I made him a cake..
The cake I made was a 2 layer chocolate sponge cake filled and topped with white chocolate buttercream.  I decorated it with white chocolate fingers (similar to Lorraine Pascale's "I can't believe you made that cake" cake) and topped it with a mixture of white and brown Malteasers...Here's the pic

It smelled so good, I was tempted to keep this for myself, but of course I didn't.  It was much appreciated.


Even though I've been told it's bad luck to make your own birthday cake, since discovering that I can in fact bake, I cannot now buy a birthday cake from a baker or supermarket.  Can't do it.  So I made myself a small chocolate sandwich filled and topped with cream and melted chocolate.  Yum...

Happy New Year!!

Yes it may be a bit late-10 days late in fact-but happy new year!!  December was a bit of a manic month for me with me baking various Christmas Cakes and selling my wares at  the fabulous Crafty Fox Market in Brixton (see pics below) but I enjoyed it nevertheless

So currently January is a quiet month, just one cake to bake and that will be for my mum's 60th birthday which is in a couple of weeks time. Quite excited about baking it; pics will be put up here when available...