Expectation vs Reality

As I continue on my baking quest, I'm beginning to notice how cross I get with myself at times when something doesn't quite go according to plan.  Just the other week I made the Hummingbird Bakery Chocolate and Guinness cake for a lovely friend of mine who had invited me over for dinner.  I saw an opportunity to practise my baking skills, which have been neglected a little since I moved back home.  The two photos below show the finished product.  It looks OK, I like to think.  However, there had been no end of stress before the final product.

Chocolate and Guinness Cake Mark II.

Quite nice palette knife work.

Well, the recipe calls for the cake to be in oven for 45 minutes at 170°C.  So after 45 minutes I opened the oven door and started to pull the cake out of the oven.  It was at this stage that I realised the cake was nowhere near done.  So I put it back in the oven and played the waiting game.  Unfortunately, I had just caused some damage to my cake.  Because the cake tin had been moved, it meant that the mixture had basically been knocked around a wee bit, and this resulted in the inevitable collapse of the centre of the cake.  Cue wailing and general remonstrations about my incredible stupidity.  However, I overcame this minor disaster by simply flipping the cake over once it had cooled.  As the base was perfectly flat and even, I had a perfect new top to my cake.  Luckily the lovely thick cream cheese frosting covered up the fact that the top of the cake was in fact the base.  I think I would have gotten away with the whole thing if my 'Anglican Guilt' (the guilt that stems from making a sub-par cake that would certainly not be good enough for the church fête) hadn't got to me, forcing me to confess to my friend the disaster that had befallen my cake.  Still, my friend and her family seemed to enjoy it nevertheless.

This plays perfectly into my next baking attempt.  My parent both absolutely love the Lemon Drizzle Cake that is made at the fantastic Seedhouse Restaurant at Ned Yates Garden Centre in Wilmslow, Cheshire.  Therefore, one afternoon whilst they were at work, I decided to have a go at making a version of Lemon Drizzle Cake for my parents as a nice surprise.  The recipe I went for was one that I adapted slightly from the Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book - the Lemon and Thyme Loaf.  

Now, my parents are not the most adventurous people when it comes to cake, so I decided to leave out the thyme, and instead add an extra teaspoon of lemon zest.  I also, on top of the beautiful lemon soaking syrup, decided to make a traditional Lemon Drizzle icing, which was made by simply mixing icing sugar with lemon juice.  This baking attempt brought out more of my usual baking anguish.  The next two photos below demonstrate how I pictured the cake in my mind.  They are two beautiful examples of Lemon Drizzle cakes.  These are the 'expectation'.

Gorgeous Lemon Drizzle Cake from 'bake with me!'

Another beautiful example, this time from Baking By Numbers.

The next two photos below display the 'reality'.

My attempt. Sigh.

Not great from this angle either...

By now, I have accepted that this isn't that bad, but at the time I was really very disappointed in the finished product.  It looked untidy, the lemon icing looked a bit too thin and it didn't 'drizzle' as nicely as I had wanted it to.  Obviously the main job of the cake is to taste nice (which it did indeed!), but I am beginning to get frustrated at my severe lack of presentation skills.  So my aim is to now attempt to develop said lacking presentation skills.  Wish me luck!

Beckie.

Chocolate Fondant Cupcakes

A couple of months ago I was invited to a leaving party for a member of staff from the York Plasma Institute.  I knew that I had to bring something delicious with me, so yet again there was another attempt at a Hummingbird Bakery recipe from the Cake Days book.

This time I thought I'd try individual cupcakes, and luckily for me I had all the ingredients in for the Chocolate Fondant Cupcakes.

Lovely, chocolatey ingredients.

For what can seem like a daunting recipe, this was actually relatively simple.  The trickiest bit for me was not the bake itself (although I did yet again overfill a couple of the cake cases a little, which meant one or two cupcakes overflowed during the baking process; these ones I just ate there and then), but the fear over cutting out the sections of cake to fill with the fondant.

Ready for the fondant filling.

However, this seemed to go off without a hitch, and I was then onto making the fondant whilst the cakes cooled further.  This wonderful combination of double cream and chocolate tasted absolutely divine, and you have no idea how happy I was when there was some fondant left over after filling all the cakes.  I grabbed a spoon and happily dug in.

 

Mmmmmm, fondant.

Once the fondant was in the little scooped-out holes, it was time to replace the cake that had been cut out.  This was like fitting the cupcakes with little cakey hats.

Cake hats!

After putting the 'cake hats' on, it was time to smother the tops of the cupcakes with yet more fondant, which made them look absolutely mouth-watering.  The beautiful, shiny tops were very enticing indeed.

 

Finished!

Just a few hours later, it was time to take the cupcakes to the party.  They were all set out on a table, and soon enough several physicists (including one slightly shifty Professor) were circling around.  The cupcakes disappeared fairly quickly, which was very gratifying for me, and I did get many compliments on them, even from the shifty Professor.  The main point made was that they were very rich and choclately, but without being overly sweet, which meant that they were pretty much the perfect chocolate cupcake recipe.

I would definitely recommend making these, as it really is yet another lovely recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery. 

Beckie.