Tiger Who Came to Tea

I was asked to make a cake for my nephew last week. He loves the story the tiger who came to tea so I decided to base his cake on this. It was a relatively small cake, an 6" Ginger cake. I filled and covered it in vanilla butter icing and then coated it in white sugar paste. The cake was going to form the table. 

Since the cake was so white I decided to do an effect on the board to make it look like wood flooring. So I did a wood effect on the floor, marked out the planks and allowed it to dry. It was almost a shame to put the cake on it!! 

Wooden Floor

I rolled out some modelling paste, used an impression mat, and then covered then draped the cake with it to form a table cloth. 

I modelled a tiger and Sophie out of modelling paste and placed these on some icing so they were the right height for the table. 

Food on the table

 I also modelled some food for their tea, the idea was this was the start of the tea so there was still plenty left. I also decided to put a sign on the cake so the tiger came for Thomas's birthday tea. 

Finished Cake

Overall I was pleased with the cake. It was quite a white cake without much on it but if you look at the books illiustrations they actually look like this too. Thomas identified the tiger and wolfed down his slice. As long as he and his parents were happy that's all that matters. 

3 Tiered Flower Cake

For my sister's 30th birthday I decided to make a 3 tiered cake with flowers on it. She asked me to make lemon, chocolate and ginger cake. So I did. 

8" Lemon Cake

400g Butter

400g Self Raising Flour

400g Caster Sugar

8 Eggs

2tbsp Lemon Juice

6" Chocolate Cake

160g Butter

160g Plain Chocolate

25ml Coffee

1tsp Vanilla Essence

160g Plain Flour

1tsp baking powder

1tsp bicarbonate

240g Light soft brown sugar

3 eggs

150ml Soured Cream

4" Ginger Cake

50g Butter

50g Caster Sugar

50g Self Raising Flour

1tsp Baking Powder

1tsp Ginger

1 Egg

1tsp Golden Syrup

Once all of the cakes were baked I left them to cool and then cut them, using cocktail sticks as guides, at an angle. If I did this again I would cut the cakes at a much more of an angle. I then covered each of the cakes in butter icing and then sugar paste. 

I didn't have dowels, next time I'd use them, so I placed the cakes on boards and then put them on top of each other. The cakes sunk slightly but managed to hold pretty well considering there was no support. 

I cut out flowers and placed them on the side of the cake. I also rolled out a 30 for the top of the cake. Finally I made a Gerbera flower for the side of the cake.  

Gerbera Flower

Slightly Wonky Cake

Balanced Layers

Overall, considering the time restraints and lack of certain items, I was quite pleased with how this cake turned out. If I was to make it again I'd change certain elements and give myself more time to focus on it. I hope that my sister liked the cake and enjoyed the left overs. 

Ginger Snaps P477

Whilst having a baking day, I attempted to make these ginger snaps from Mary Berry's complete cooking book. My husband is very good at making ginger biscuits so I was curious to see how this recipe compares to his famous ones. 

The recipe requires melting butter and golden syrup together and then add this to the dry ingredients. The final mix should be a dough that is "soft but not sticky", unfortunately mine couldn't even be described as a dough but a lovely smooth batter, like a cake mixture.

Cake like batter

I added several more spoonfuls of flour to try and make it more dough like. I didn't succeed in achieving a dough firm enough to handle but it was more a dough. I used a spoon to place spoonfuls on the tray, with plenty of space between them to spread out. 

These were baked in the oven for 15 minutes, the recipe didn't tell me what these should look like when you get them out of the oven so I wasn't really sure what I was looking for. I got them out and hoped they'd be ok. When they first came out these were very soft but cooling down they gradually harden up to create a lovely crunch on the biscuits. 

Ginger snaps ready to eat

The verdict, once cooled these had a lovely crunch. I added slightly more ginger than the recipe stated but I liked the extra kick this gave the biscuits. My mum tried these biscuits for me and she says that she can't think of any way of improving them and they were very good. The marks.. I gave the biscuits 8/10, I think having to alter the recipe as much as I did to make it a dough this means I have to knock some marks off, however the final product were very nice. My mum mark is 10/10.. this is the first recipe that has achieved full marks out of anyone!!