More Glorious Cakes

Just over a year ago, I posted a little post showing a collection of cakes I had made. Since then I have made a lot more cakes and thought I would share some pictures of the more recent creations. Hope you like them, at some point I may even put up a recipe or two on how to make some of them; Enjoy.

Christmas Pudding Cake Pops: These are chocolate cake pops with white glacier icing, and topped delicately with Christmas themed decorations to make them look like Christmas Puddings.

Mint Mini Egg Cake: This is a chocolate cake which I adapted from a cupcake recipe in 1000 Recipes – Cupcakes. Basically it’s a chocolate base with mint icing and green food colouring and topped with Mini Eggs.

Homemade Red Velvet Cake: This is taken from the book Bake Me a Cake: There’s always time for cake;  and is the first time I have tried making a Red Velvet Cake from scratch and not from a mix. The icing on top is Cream Cheese and is covered with hundreds and thousands. The cake is technically meant to be split in half, but it was crumbling quite a bit when removed from the tin, so i decided to leave it. In the future though,  am considering using a different kind of icing as Cream Cheese is not my thing I have discovered.

Volcano Cupcakes: This is another adaptation recipe from 1000 Cupcakes. This time the base cakes have Vanilla Extract in them, and are topped with icing that packs a little surprise. The icing has red food colouring in it, but actually tastes of Mint. The cakes are then finished off with sprinkles made from finely broken up Oreo’s.

Chocolate Orange Cake: This is very similar to the Mint Mini Egg cake, but is in essence my own design and idea. The base is the same to the Mint Mini Egg cake, but instead of Mint icing, has Orange flavored icing with Red and Yellow food colouring mixed in together to make it look orange at the same time. It is then finished with a Chocolate Vermicelli topping.

Hedgehog Cake: This is another creation of mine. I really like Chocolate Log at Christmas, but as it’s only a once a year thing, I thought of a way to allow myself to enjoy Chocolate Logs throughout the year without issues from seasonal critics. It’s a Chocolate Swiss Roll base with Chocolate Buttercream Icing and is done very much like a Chocolate Log, but part of the Roll is cut off and halved to make a head, which is then decorated with Buttercream, Silver balls and Smarties to make a head, and then finally has chocolate fingers broken up and inserted into the back to make it look like a Hedgehog. Originally I was going to call it a fallen log, or fallen tree cake, but I think Hedgehog Cake suits it better.

GENEPOOL (I decided not to include the Red Velvet Cake recipe in the poll above as the full recipe can be found in the book).

Cakes Glorious Cakes

I like baking, baking is something I find very fun to do. Either doing it in my spare time, or doing it for an event, either way I like baking. I have been baking for many years now, but more recently I have begun to take photos of the things I have baked to show my friends on Facebook. So, in something of a quick post but also to show off my baking talents to the world, I thought I would do a quick post showing some of the cakes I have made recently (and maybe not so recently)…and maybe include some description. Any way, enjoy the post (especially as you will not be able to enjoy the cakes, not unless I know you and let you have some, or make any of these yourself).

Chocolate Cake: This is a basic chocolate cake recipe with Icing in the middle and on top (I think) with icing sugar to finish it off (Click Here for the recipe).

Oreo Cake: This is something of my own creation, it’s basically a chocolate cake with Betty Crocker White Icing in the middle to make it look like an Oreo. Plus, the mixture for the two cake halves have crushed up Oreo’s in them (Click Here for the recipe).

Mini Eggs Chocolate Cake: This is basically a chocolate cake with Mini Eggs added on top for decoration. The inspiration to do this came from a cake recipe book I got as a birthday present a few years ago.

M&M’s Chocolate Cake: Much like the cake above, this is a standard chocolate cake but with M&M’s added for decoration. Originally intended to have Mini Eggs on, I couldn’t find any, so bought some M&M’s instead, then I found somewhere where I could get eggs, so bought some to make the cake above.

Minstrels Cake: Same again…but with Minstrels.

Cake Pops: One of the things I have grown to become quite good at making this past year is Cake Pops. I have made many of the last 12 months and continue to enjoy making them plus come up with ideas for some. These I made for New Year’s Eve are the basic Cake Pop recipe, but have chocolate instead of icing for the tops, and are then covered in an assortment of chocolaty sprinkles/decorations including popping candy.

Chocolate Log: One of my favourite Christmas traditions, me making a Chocolate Log. Basically it’s a Swiss Roll bought from the shops, and then covering it in Chocolate Icing, before dusting it off with icing sugar, and placing Christmas themed decorations on top. We used to have more, but now it really only comes down to Father Christmas (I am hoping to post a sort of recipe for this sometime in the future).

Chocolate Roulade: Following a recipe from the book (briefly) mentioned above, this was my first attempt at making Chocolate Roulade. It’s cream in the middle, chocolate base and topping and is finished off with some of those silver sprinkles that look like ball bearings.

GENEPOOL

Oreo Cake

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you, it says Oreo Cake, it is a cake with Oreos in it and looks like an Oreo. The Idea came to me a few months ago and after some experimentation the cake is Brilliant. So if you would like to make it you will need the following ingredients.

Ingredients:

6 oz. Self-Raising Flour                                   6 oz. Margarine                                 1 oz. Cocoa

6 oz. Caster Sugar                                            3 Eggs                                                    1 Full Packet Of Oreos

Now this recipe is very similar to the Chocolate Cake recipe but it is a little bit different so pay attention. You can make your cake a bit bigger by doing 8 oz. ingredients (except for Cocoa – either keep it the same or increase, but not too much) and 4 eggs if you want to.

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4/5 on the middle shelf or top shelf if you are brave enough, or if you are using a fan assisted oven it is about 160-170° (please refer to your user manual for which shelf and temperature to be sure). Weigh out your ingredients (except the Oreos) and put them into a large-ish bowl and then mix together using an electric whisk on a slow speed until it is all nicely together, then put it up to full speed until the cake mixture is nice and soft and a light brown colour. Stop the whisk, then using a knife go around the edge of the bowl and take any of the mixture that is stuck to the sides of the bowl and move it into the rest of the mixture. Then whisk again on full speed for a few more seconds to make sure it is all nicely together.

The right consistency to go for is simple, take a spoon and (using the spoon) pickup some of the mixture and then plop it back in (the mixture), if it plops off the spoon naturally without any help required then the mixture is at the right consistency, this also applies for the chocolate cake (but I forgot to mention that, MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA).

Now get a food processor (machine with blades in that can mix food up) and then get your Oreo packets, make sure that when you open it that it has Oreos in it. Then break them ALL (it is important that you use ALL the Oreos in a full packet, if it is not a full packet – get a full packet) up and put them in your food processor. Turn the Food Processor on (you may want to put a lid on if it does not have one) and then initially pulse the Oreos until they are all nicely broken, then hold down the button (no longer pulsing) until the Oreos are in tiny pieces (almost like a fine powder). Then pour in the Finely Powdered Oreos into you cake mix and then stir them into the mix, what you want to achieve is a granite like effect (if you have a granite work surface, look at it and then imagine it brown), you can use the electric whisk if you want to but it may be better to use a spoon.

Once it is nicely mixed together pour the mixture into two greased cake tins (thin with a big diameter, refer to Chocolate Cake recipe on greasing) and then place them in the oven. After about 30 minutes check on them and do the skewer test, if they are ok take them out of the oven and let them cool in the tins for a couple of minutes and then take them out  the tins and put them on a cooling rack. After you have let them cool down for a while it is time to do the icing.

Icing Ingredients:

1 Tub Of Betty Crocker Buttercream Style Icing Vanilla (refer to picture)

Take one half of the cake and make sure that the flat bottom is facing up. Then take out all the icing from the tub and smoothly spread it around evenly. Then take the other half and place it on top with the flat bottom facing down (towards the icing). Then smooth the icing around until it is all nice and tidy. Your Oreo Cake is now ready to eat.

GENEPOOL

Chocolate Cake

Chocolate Cake is one of the easiest recipes to do and does not come with extra surprises that you may find in a coffee shop Chocolate Cake (like Jam). This recipe tells you how to make a Simple Chocolate Cake that is just Chocolate and no hidden extras (like Jam).

Ingredients:

6 oz. Self-Raising Flour   6 oz. Margarine                

1 oz. Cocoa         6 oz. Caster Sugar           

3 Eggs

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 4/5 I usually put it in the middle (if you don’t have a Gas Mark Oven……….). Weigh out your ingredients into a large-ish bowl, you can sieve your flower into the bowl but I usually don’t.  Then using an electric whisk mix the ingredients together, start on a slow speed and then go at Full Speed. Then when the ingredients are mixed together stop the whisk and then using a knife scrape off the mixture from the walls of the bowl and into the main mixture. Then use your whisk again at Full Speed (Muhahahaha) and make sure that all the mixture is completely mixed in.

Put the mixture to one side and Grease 2 cake tins (short in Height but wide in Diameter). I prefer to use margarine, put a dollop of margarine in the tins and then use some kitchen roll to spread it around the tin until the whole tin is covered (LIGHTLY), and then repeat for the second tin. Then pour the mixture evenly into both tins, then spread out with a knife. Put your tins on the top shelf of your oven and cook for 30 Minutes, and then lick the bowl.

After 30 Minutes take the tins out of the oven and use a skewer to test if they are ready. Basically put the skewer in the cake and take it out, if it comes out clean your cake is ready, if it is not clean it is not ready, put it back in the oven for a few more minutes then test it again. When your cake is ready give it a few minutes to cool down and then remove the cakes from the tins and put them on a cooling rack to cool down (obviously). Your cake is now ready for some icing.

Icing

Ingredients:

4 oz. Margarine                 8 oz. Icing Sugar

1 oz. Cocoa

Method:

Weigh out your icing sugar and cocoa into a jug (it helps when mixing the sugar), put no more than 1 oz. of Cocoa in the mixture (if you put in 0.4/0.5 oz. you can make it look nice and light – almost like coffee). Separately weigh out you margarine and put it into a (different) mixing bowl. Mash up your margarine with a fork until it is nice and soft. Then pour some (not all) of your icing sugar and cocoa into your margarine bowl and mix it round with a wooden spoon. Continue to do this until all the icing sugar is mixed in.

Then take one cake (one tin) of your two-part cake and put a big dollop of icing on it and then spread it around with a knife or spoon. The put the other cake and put that cake on top of the cake with icing. Then add the remaining icing to that cake remembering to spread it around evenly. Once that is done tidy the cake edges by removing excess icing from the edges just so it does not drip all over the place and then lick the icing bowl.

Finally you can either leave the cake alone or decorate it with Chocolate Sweets, Hundreds and Thousands, Coconut (not a whole one) or with just Icing Sugar through a sieve like I did. Your cake is now ready to eat.

GENEPOOL