A Week Of Baking

Every year my Mum's work take part in the Macmillan Cancer Support's World's Biggest Coffee Morning. Now, people around the country hold their coffee mornings on the designated day, but not this place of work! No, no, no! They make theirs last an entire week. I think that's genius - a week of cake. Yes. It also means that every year I get to bake to my little heart's content and do my part by baking far too much. I do like to help!

This year I made the following:

Macarons - see previous post as to how they went...Grrr...

Vanilla whoopie pies - got the boyfriend's approval on those

Lemon meringue pie - eaten by employees for breakfast

Chocolate toffee cupcakes - sickly heaven

Red velvet cupcakes - very red, very good!

Vanilla cupcakes with sweetie toppers - sticky mess but looked cute

A giant chocolate cupcake - pleased as punch with it

Cake pops - candy melts make me cry

I'm going to do some bigger posts later about the cake pops and the giant cupcake, but in the meantime here are some pictures of the others. Small side line: I am endeavouring to improve my photographs and the photographic content in the very near future!

 

 

'til next time! x

Done.

Right, that is it. Me and macarons are over. I love them and do everything I can for them and get nothing in return!

I need some serious distance from the little mouthfuls of chewy goodness in order to assess my life.

Yes, I am being over dramatic but I just want them to be perfect!!

I (do not) Love Macarons

Last year in August a lovely friend of mine bought me Hisako Ogita’s book I Love Macarons. It was a very lovely gesture but one year later these little meringues are still the bane of my existence! Seriously. I’m not sure how those little, sugary, pretty pieces of confectionery can cause me so much heartache, but they do!

My main problems were that they either cracked, or those signature macaron ‘feet’ were distinctly absent. I tried every tip I could find in the book and then took to the internet and meticulously studied macaron troubleshooting posts on numerous blogs. But I was still failing miserably.

Luckily, I have lots of people around me who don’t mind devouring what I think to be baking disasters, and none of those had any complaints about how they tasted. So that was at least a plus!

But I was still determined to make them look perfect and I came across this blog: http://bravetart.com/ It was full of really lighthearted and clever posts about macarons with the main theme being not to worry! Not to worry if you chuck all the sugar in at once, or if you haven’t aged the egg whites. So I thought I’d give it a go. 

And the damn things still didn’t look right!!!!

Although this time I wasn’t so worried because they were definitely the best batch I’ve done and, more importantly, I think I know where I went wrong. I still didn’t get my feet and the tops weren’t as shiny as I would have liked but I was so worried about over mixing the batter, I think I under mixed it, meaning I didn’t do enough ‘macaronage’, which was always going to prevent the feet from forming. 

I did want to immediately make another lot and test this theory but I find them so time consuming I refrained. But I feel my luck might be about to change…*

 

The fillings are vanilla, coffee and chocolate buttercream.

(*If it doesn’t change I may decide to pretend macarons don’t exist and cut them completely from my life and perhaps the world.)

 

Right, Blog, let's do this!

It’s my intention to make this blog a place of cakey loveliness, full of things I have baked and created. I promise you now things aren’t always going to go right, and, as a self-proclaimed perfectionist, there are probably going to be a few grumpy moments, but ultimately I want this to be a place I can record what I have learned, show the experiments I have done and to be inspired. 

I want to try and bring out my interests and style in my baking, which include an recent obsession for teacups, teapots and all things afternoon tea; 40s, 50s and pin-up style; florals, and a little bit of alternative style thrown in for good measure.

I am excited to get started and I hope you enjoy what you see!

Vicky x