Cake and Bake Show 2013

Back in September, myself and my ladies spent a day at Earl's Court sampling cake, cocktails and stalking Great British Bake Off contestants. Here are a few photos from our day...

A Selection of Delectable Stalls

 Showstopping Cake Displays

 

 

Intricate Cakes inspired by Fashion through the Ages

Winner's Bake Off Live featuring John Whaite and Edd Kimber

Me meeting Edd Kimber - so exciting!  

A Georgie Porgie Thank You

Hi everyone. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all for your support and I really hope that you're enjoying my blogging adventures as much as I am. When I started this blog, it was just to fill up my spare time but it's become so much more than that. I would never have realised I had so much potential when it comes to food and cookery if it wasn't for this platform and it's given me a great opportunity to develop myself creatively. It's also opened quite a few doors for me professionally speaking - something that I had never thought was possible through something as personal as blogging, but for this I will be forever greatful. So consider this my thank you to everyone who has supported Puddings and Pies and made it all worthwhile. 

For one lucky winner, I will be personally handcrafting (with love) a big, sticky, gooey, chocolately Mars Bar Loaf Cake. I will then make sure it makes it to you safely and in once delicious piece! All you have to do is like my Facebook page through the competition banner below. What could be easier? 

Chocolate and Raspberry Choux Buns

After my experimental period over Christmas - I've decided that choux pastry is my new favourite. I've got very fond memories of Choux Buns. It's something my mum and I would buy as a treat at our weekly food shop - the caramel ones to be precise. They are the epitome of decadence, naughtiness and never fail to send me into a delectable sugar coma. Having make Profiteroles and a Gateux St Honore, I decided it was time to try my hand at Choux Buns.

Chocolate and Raspberry Choux Buns

You're going to need a batch of choux pastry to start with. I haven't had a chance to write up my personal method yet, but I would recommend you follow this recipe from Delia:

http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/baking/how-to-make-choux-pastry.html

For the filling....

Take one box of raspberries (saving a few for decoration) and place into a saucepan with half a cup of sugar and a dash of water. Heat this slowly until the sugar caramelises and the raspberries break down to make a coulis. Add a squeeze of lemon juice to taste. 

Sieve the coulis into a bowl or jug and put to one side to cool. 

Next it's time for the Chantilly cream. In a mixing bowl, pour 300ml double cream, 1 tsp vanilla paste, 100g icing sugar. Whisk until the cream is nice and think. Put in the fridge to chill. 

Melt 1 large bar of dark or milk chocolate (up to your preference) in the microwave, or over a pan of simmering water. Dip the top of each choux bun into the chocolate for a nice coating and put aside to set. 

Once the chocolate has set, spoon a good amount of cream into the bottom case of the choux bun, add the raspberry coulis and sandwich the chocolate covered top onto your mountain of goodness.

Raspberry and Cream Cheese Muffins

It seems that I have gone a little crazy for raspberries this month. They're not even in season. But if you bake them into treats then who's to know! It's also been a bit of a stressful month so far - a month of change and hard work. Naturally, I fall to baking to act as stress relief. After a particularly harrowing day yesterday, I not only prepped and cooked chicken livers for dinner (59 pence! How could I say no?) but crafted a batch of these raspberry strewn lovelies. As far as baking goes, these are very straight forward. Using only 40 minutes in total (25 of these are spent in the oven), it will be no time before you bite into a warm, gooey treat for the most depressing month of the year.  For those afraid of cream cheese, give these a try. You'll be surprised by how much you enjoy it.

Raspberry and Cream Cheese Muffins

NB: Raspberries can be replaced with any other berry of choice.

Ingredients

100g Soft Cheese

250g Caster Sugar

175g Raspberries

200g Plain Flour

2tsp Baking Powder

2 Eggs

75ml Oil 

1tsp Vanilla Extract

A pinch of Salt

Method

Preheat the oven to 190C or 170C (fan oven) and line your muffin/cupcake tin with cases. You could also use a flat baking tray.

Beat the soft cheese with 25g of sugar and pop in the fridge for later.

In a small saucepan, heat the raspberries with another 25g of sugar and bash together until they form a coulis like consistency. Try to be uneven in your smooshing as a few bigger bits of berry are lovely. Put to one side to cool.

Sift the flour into a bowl and add the sugar, baking powder and a pinch of salt. 

Add the eggs, oil, vanilla and stir together thoroughly or use a beater on a very slow speed. Stir through the raspberry mixture. Don't worry if your mixture looks a bit odd and lumpy.

Fill each case to about 2/3 and plop a teaspoon of the soft cheese mixture into the middle of each. Use your finger to push down gently. 

Bake for 25 minutes or until risen and golden brown.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

Who says vegan baking can't be awesome? This is a great chocolate cupcake recipe with no dairy products and a little fruit surprise in the middle. This recipe is converted from a US version so apologies for the strangely accurate measurements. You can also use the recipe for a normal vegan chocolate cake rather than cupcakes. Just use sandwich tins or a spring-form cake tin.

Cake Ingredients

384g Plain Flour

6 Tbsp Cocoa Powder (I recommend Green and Blacks)

2 tsp Baking Powder

400g Caster Sugar

1 tsp Salt

10 Tbsp Vegetable Oil

2 Tbsp White Vinegar

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

473ml Water

1 Fresh Raspberry for each cake you bake

Chocolate Frosting

6 Tbsp Pure Vegan Spread

2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder

100g Icing Sugar

Preheat your oven to 170C. 

Take a bix mixing bowl and add all of your dry ingredients. Mix them all together.

Make a well and add the liquid ingredients.

Whizz together with an electric whisk.

Pour the mixture into your cupcake cases and into the middle of each cake, place your fresh raspberry.

Bake for 25 minutes. 

To test if they are done, skewer the middle and it should come out clean.

Leave the cakes to cool on a wire rack.

Take another mixing bowl and add the vegan spread. Whisk until light and fluffy.

Add the cocoa and icing sugar (adding more if not thick enough) and whisk until combined.

Once the cakes have cooled, pipe or spread the buttercream on top and enjoy!

Wilcox Wedding Cakes

On a side note: Puddings and Pies is now on Facebook! Please take a moment to like this page here.

Last month I undertook my first ever wedding order. 60 cupcakes, half of which were to be vegan, alongside appropriate decoration and cake toppers.

We opted for Stem Ginger cakes with Lemon and Honey Buttercream and Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream and a Fresh Raspberry Center.

I will be posting the recipes for these later on, but for now let me just leave you with some pictures of the display.

I'm available for any function or party, just send me an email at georgie.wishart@gmail.com

Dorset Apple Cake with a Plum Jam Glaze

I found out at an early age that my name, Georgina, means 'girl of the farm'. I also come from Dorset. This means that I occasionally get teased about my southern, farmer nature. When I find my farmer-esque accent slipping in to my daily speech, I panic and run and hide from my heritage. But today I'm celebrating Dorset! It's a beautiful county with so many things going for it. One of which is the Dorset Apple Cake. 

My dad and his girlfriend have an apple tree in their garden and recently gave me a large bag of apples to use up. What better way then to stick them all in a cake? Then eat the cake. The glaze is another creation of leftovers, as I had some leftover cider from my cassoulet and half a jar of plum jam looking a bit lonely in the fridge.

Dorset Apple Cake with a Plum Jam Glaze

Recipe adapted from Delicious Magazine 

This is a great cake to be eaten while it's still warm, so don't wait to tuck in!

Ingredients

For the cake:

225g butter, softened

450g apples

1 lemon - zest and juice

225g caster sugar

3 large eggs

225g self-raising flour

2tsp baking powder

25g ground almonds

Demerara sugar for topping

For the Glaze

3 tbsp Plum Jam

50ml Dry Cider (Optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Grease a springform cake tin and line with baking paper.

Peel, core and cut the apples into small pieces and toss with the lemon juice.

Cream the butter, sugar and lemon zest in a bowl until fluffy.

Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time, adding a little flour with each addition to keep the mixture smooth.

Sift the remaining flour and the baking powder into the bowl and fold in with the ground almonds.

Drain the apple pieces well and then stir into the mixture.

Pour into the cake tin and level the mixture.

Cover the top with demerara sugar.

Bake in the oven for 1 hour or until well-risen and brown. To test, poke a skewer into the middle of the cake, if it comes out clean then it's ready! If the cake is browning too much, make it a hat out of baking paper to protect the top.

Whilst the cake is cooking, melt the jam and cider together in a small saucepan. Leave this to cool and  set.
Once the cake is out, leave it to cool in the tin for ten minutes.

Remove the cake from it's tin and pop onto a plate. Use a pasty brush to cover in the jam glaze.

The Chocolate Covered Flapjack Cake

I love birthdays. Other people's birthdays that is and never my own. There is too much pressure surrounding your own birthday when really you'd rather be hiding in a dark cavern and praying to a God that you won't get any older. But other people's birthdays are great. As long as it's not you having to look at those never ending, accelerating numbers on the front of a hilariously offensive card. A big reason I love birthdays is because I love to spend hours choosing the perfect present for someone and anxiously watching them open it. It gives me a rush once I see their delighted face and realise that all that time and effort has paid off. It's also a great reason to bake and eat cake! 

As a relatively new recruit in my office, I hadn't yet had much of a chance to show off my skills in the kitchen. But when the boss' birthday arrived, I jumped at the chance to bake a cake for the occasion. It was unknown what his favourite flavour was and so I had decided on a safety Brooklyn Blackout chocolate cake, courtesy of my Hummingbird Bakery book. This was the plan until last week, when there was a scrum over a flapjack. Occasionally we get a visitor to our office who comes to use one of our desks and will always bring a hamper of treats for us. One of the treats this time was said flapjacks (a pack of 3). I heard a commotion coming from the kitchen to discover that one of our editors was contemplating the last flapjack, much to the boss' dismay. Suddenly it dawned on me. I had to make a flapjack cake! 

I spent a few hours googling 'flapjack cake', only to find normal trays or bars of flapjack. No cake shaped beings in sight. So I took it upon myself to create one. 

Here is my recipe for:

 Chocolate Covered Flapjack Cake

Ingredients:

450g Oats

300g butter
75g demerara sugar
6 Tbsp Golden Syrup

2 big bars of chocolate

Your favourite cake decoration

Directions:

1. Line two sandwich tins with greaseproof paper and preheat your oven to Gas Mark 4
2. In a saucepan over a low heat, place the butter, sugar and syrup. Stir until melted.
3. Take the pan off the heat and add the oats. Stir until all of the oats are covered in the mixture.
4. Distribute the mixture between your two sandwich tins and pat down with the back of a spoon.
5. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes until golden and starting to crisp on the outsides.
6. Flip your flapjacks out onto a cooling rack or plates and pop in the fridge to cool.
7. Once they have cooled, melt two big bars of chocolate in your microwave, stirring every 30 seconds.
8. Spread a thin layer of chocolate over the top of one of your flapjack layers.
9. Place the other layer on the top.
10. Spread the remaining chocolate over the top and decorate in any form you see fit!
11. Place back in the fridge for the chocolate to set.
12. Make sure you take the cake out of the fridge a few hours before eating for the flapjack to soften!

Tasty Buns

There's nothing better than a sweet, sticky bun from the bakers. It's something I'm sure everyone must feel some sort of nostalgia about... even just the smell that emanates from a bakery full of incredible treats. One evening after work I was desperate for something sweet and I saw these adorable Cinnamon Roll Sugar Cookies on Pinterest (my new favourite obsession). As good as these looked, I was after something a little more substantial... something a little more melt in the mouth. 

Here is the outcome.

Cinnamon Buns

Ingredients:

For the buns:

• 500ml milk
• 150g butter 
• 800g strong plain flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 7g fast action dried yeast
• 100g golden caster sugar
• Brown sugar for sprinkling

For the filling:

• 75g butter
• 2 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 75g golden caster sugar

For the glaze:

• Icing Sugar
• Ground Cinnamon
• Water

Here's what you need to do:

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 7 or 200 degrees.
2. Put 25g of the butter and the milk into a jug and pop it in the microwave. Heat in 30 degree intervals until the butter has melted and the milk has warmed. Set this to one side.
3. In a bowl, put your flour, sugar, salt and yeast. Give it a quick stir to combine everything. 
4. Add the milk/butter mixture to the dry ingredients and mix in with a wooden spoon until a dough starts to form.
5. At this point, I found it easiest to get my hands in and form the mixture into a better dough. But prepared to get a little messy.
6. Now you need to knead (get it?) the dough for a good 10 minutes. Stretch it, punch it, squish it, do whatever you need to do to get rid of all of your stress. At the end it needs to be smooth and luscious.
7. Cover the dough and put it to one side.
8. Now you need to make the filling. Melt your butter a little bit and combine it with the other ingredients so it makes a gorgeous paste.
9. Get a big sheet of baking paper and sprinkle it with flour. Now roll your dough out to cover the baking sheet. If you've done it right, the dough should be very stretchy.
10. Now spread the filling all over the dough. Again, I found it easier (and more fun) to use my hands to ensure that the dough was covered properly (and you get to lick your hands afterwards).
11. Now if you pull the baking paper up on one end, whilst tucking the dough round a little bit, as you pull the dough should roll and form a giant swiss roll shape.
12. Prep a cupcake or muffin tin by placing little cake cases into each of your muffiny things. 
13. Use a very sharp knife to slice thin portions of dough from your swiss roll. Sometimes the whirl shape doesn't hold properly, so just use your creativity to twist it a bit until it forms a cool shape.
14. Place each whirl into a case and sprinkle over a little brown sugar.
15. Bake in the oven for 8 - 10 minutes until golden brown.
16. Leave to cool.
17. Make the glaze by combining the icing sugar and cinnamon and then add water until you've got a good, loose consistency.
18. Drizzle your glaze over the buns and enjoy!