Rachel's Birthday Cake

Tom's little sister was 17 a few weeks back and I got asked to make the cake! It was a simple sponge but strictly without jam, so there was no buttercream spare this time. I had an absolute nightmare with the black icing; I attempted to persevere with the first tar-like batch but it resisted and managed to kill 2 of my mixers! I don't really know what went wrong with it but it looked like it belonged on the pavement more than on a cake... cue a very stressful last minute trip to the supermarket (3.45pm on a Sunday!) enabling me to start again. 17 on one-side and an R on the other and lots of random swirly bits in between! It tasted good too!

This was my first real venture into birthday cake style icing but I'm signed up to take on his other sister's 21st cake, I'm feeling adventurous so watch this space...

The Great Wall of Buttercream

Buttercream spaghetti anyone? Well, I am Italian.

I have a slight issue with anything that requires waiting. Macaroons. You pipe out your little rounds on a baking sheet, put them in the oven, liberate them from the oven in due course and then you have to wait. Wait for them to cool before you the buttercream-sandwiching process can begin to complete the macaroon as we know it.

It's just that I have a definite weakness for the warm, straight out of the oven goods, and naturally you need to try them (even if they are an un-sandwiched macaroon half) to make sure they taste good. So while waiting for my macaroons to cool, I may have eaten a couple, perhaps a few. Alas, I am an idiot. I haven't taken the butter out of the fridge to get to room temperature! (No, crazy though it sounds, I don't have a microwave) Thus, the waiting for the macaroons to cool has evolved into waiting for the butter to warm yet the outcome is the same. Many un-sandwiched macaroon troops were lost in the waiting game, consumed for no purpose other than impatience.

When I finally did get round to making the buttercream and sandwiching the little beauties together, I had way too much buttercream! Oh no! So obviously, I put a cool looking piping nozzle in and squeezed it all out onto a piece of baking parchment. Refrigerate and reserve for sweet cravings. I wish I was kidding; Tom and I demolished this little wall in a day.

Dissertation Distraction Part 1

Okay, so my final hand-in of my dissertation is due in about 3 weeks. I feel slightly unnerved however, because I'm not stressed. Don't get me wrong, it isn't that I'm so amazing and have worked super hard all year so that I can chill-out now, quite the contrary, I still have loads of work to do but for some reason I'm just not quite stressed-out enough yet to motivate me to do it! I'll put it down to my frequent yoga practise and peaceful mind/body relationship...

...Or, it could be that I fell in love with a cute little book on macaroons and decided to set myself a challenge - make every recipe from the book! Dissertation smissertation.

So first stop was wintery spiced macaroons, with cinnamon and ginger and nutmeg, but seeing as they tasted a little bit too Christmasey and we are now in March (Hurray!) I thought I'd colour them lilac to hint at the coming spring! Filled with classic buttercream. What else?

Birthday Boy

So, while I've been gone it was my wonderful boyfriend's birthday (only 4 days after mine), naturally I was compelled to make him a kick-ass cake but I also wanted to play with a new icing head I got so one could argue that I went a little overboard on the piping!

Anyway, it was your average birthday sponge sandwiched with mouth-watering fresh blueberry jam (I use the word jam loosely as the berries were almost entirely intact) and blueberry buttercream. The buttercream came out an off-putting 70s shade of salmon/putty so I toned it down to a pretty lilac, yes I know, incredible masculine.

I had the lights off and the lighter at arms reach ready to start igniting the candles when at the signal (the door at the bottom of the stairs clicking shut when my beau got home from work) unfortunately though the surprise was slightly ruined by him running up the stairs 3 at a time - probably with birthday boy excitement - to catch me mid-way through lighting :-( "Go away!" was the wittiest response I could muster and he patiently waited outside while I lit the rest of the candles. In spite of that, the cake was delicious and now armed with even more piping heads I'm looking forward to excelling myself next year.