Harder than I thought....

I am out of practice with blogging, this is what I keep telling myself. I stopped for a variety of reasons, not just the Chinese porn issue. A few friends have asked me when I am going to start again as they like to read about what we have been up to. I thought about it for a few weeks, or was that months, and then I remembered that the main reason I started in the first place was to keep in contact with family and friends.

So here I am once again feeling just like a newbie, wondering what I am going to blog about. Do not get me wrong just because I stopped blogging didn't mean that we stopped existing :)

I scrolled back through the photos of the last few months and came across this cake. I made it for my girlfriend's birthday. It was a chocolate cake with a chocolate butter cream filling iced in a dark chocolate ganache. I used 1.5kgs of dark chocolate in that icing; that was one heavy cake.

The flowers are from our garden as I am not au fait with fondant flowers, so fresh it was. I do keep meaning to enrol in a professional cake decorating course. I am fine with buttercream but I find fondant a bit of a mystery. I am sure there are plenty of special tricks in respect to producing the perfect fondant bloom.

Well that's all for now. I am going to ease myself back into this and see how it goes. Thanks for popping in.

Pooh Bear Cake

I asked my daughter what cake she would like for her birthday party. She assured me she wanted a Princess cake like her sister had for her birthday as few years ago. It was the type of cake with a Princess doll sticking out of the top of a cake skirt. So I leapt into action and prepared for a Purple (as she HATES pink) Princess Party extravaganza.

Just before sending out the invitations I thought I had better double check that Princesses were still the popular choice.

'No,' I was told. 'I have always wanted a Pooh Bear Party!'

I have to look on the bright side, at least a Pooh Bear cake was easier to do than a Princess cake.

Space Pokemon

For B1's 10th birthday he asked for a sleepover party and a Pokemon cake. I was hopeful that he would choose Pikachu as I was reasonably confident that I could alter B3's Pooh Bear cake design in a Pikachu fairly easily.

No such luck! B1 wanted a 'Legendary Pokemon' for his cake. Originally he choose a very spiky one and asked for the cake to be in the shape of his body - nightmare. He eventually settled on a Space Pokemon, Mew. This gave me a chance to use my edible glitter once more, as a sparkly cake suits a Space Pokemon.

This is what Mew looks like so my free-hand icing drawing turned out OK. The cake is chocolate and the cupcakes are vanilla (as B3 is allergic to cocoa). B1 had three friends to sleep and the last time Mr Bee or I went down it was 2.00am on the clock. They were up again at 5.00am so B1 was not a very happy chappy by 5.00pm that night but he did have a lovely time, even if Mr Bee and I declared NO sleepover parties again (he knows we will give in eventually).

Merry Christmas

There has to be a little smoked salmon on Christmas Day, even in the shape of a Christmas Tree. I knew that Christmas Tree cake pan I found at a charity shop would come in handy some day.

'I am not even looking at it, so what do you mean look out for the cat?'

Prep work done. Goose in the oven (there are no photos of the goose due to the champagne). 

At the end of a long day the party hats have been cast aside.

NB. The soya sauce and the tape measure were not used in the Christmas prep :)

Granddad has Arrived

Granddad has arrived at Bumble Bee Cottage for Christmas. He went to the trouble of wearing different coloured shoes to surprise the Bumble Bee'rs but they didn't even notice his feet they were too busy talking his ear off.

The other passengers seemed to notice though. I wonder if he got a seat all to himself as a result?

A Peppermint Scented Dork

I was asked to make a cake to be raffled off at B3's Christmas Fair. I was more than happy to oblige. I brought the cake in on the morning of the Fair, more than a little pleased with myself at how it turned out, only to be informed that the Fair was NEXT MONDAY - what a dork.

I left the cake with the teachers for their morning tea and made another one the following week.

I then decide that this would be an ideal cake for a Christmas article I was working on so I made a third cake for the photo shoot. After the shoot I took the cake to B1 and B2's school for the staff morning tea.

The cake is chocolate with peppermint buttercream and candy canes. After making three of these cakes in eight days I can't look another candy cane in the face!

Chocolate Peppermint cake

I haven't made a cake for Mr Bee to take to work for a while so as I was feeling in the festive spirit I made a chocolate cake with chocolate peppermint icing.

I encrusted it with smashed up peppermint candy canes. I haven't bought candy canes while we have been in Guernsey so I have never noticed before but the candy cane available in the shops here (at least the ones I could find) are pink.

Pink candy canes wasn't a problem; it is just that I would have preferred traditional red. It didn't really matter as the cake container came home empty that evening.