Cherry Blossom Cake

I was asked to make some unusual cakes for a local coffee shop and one idea I found was a cherry blossom cake. I wasn't happy with the original recipe so I adapted it until I came up with something I was happy with, and here is the result. 

Ingredients: 

285g Self Raising Flour

70g Plain Flour

285g Stork

285g Caster Sugar

5 Large Eggs

1 tsp Orange blossom water

Grated rind of 1 Orange

100g Cherries, stoned and chopped up

Preheat your oven to 180oC and line an 8" round cake tin. 

Cream together the stork and sugar until very light and fluffy. Add in the blossom water and orange rind. Gradually beat in the eggs one at a time. 

Add in the flour and mix together slowly until combined. Be careful not to over beat at this point and only use the slowest speed on the mixer. Stir in the chopped cherries. 

Pour into the cake tin and bake until the cake is springy to touch and a skewer comes out clean. Mine takes around 1hour30mins but check it before this point. 

Leave the cake to cool completely then decorate. 

I filled this cake with a vanilla buttericing and cherries stirred in: 

250g Softened Butter

500g Icing Sugar

100g Chopped cherries

Beat together the butter and icing sugar until soft and then stir in the cherries. 

Ready to go to the coffee shop

If you try this cake please let me know how you get on. I'm very interested in photos and stories. 

To order this cake direct from me for wholesale or one off purchases please just get in touch.

90th Birthday Cake

I was asked to make a birthday cake for a 90th birthday lady. My brief was nothing too fancy so I kept it simple with this design. 

To give the cake a little design I crimped around the edge of the cake and board. 

The sugar flowers are carnations, sweet peas, and roses. This is just a simple little bunch to give the cake something a little special. Sugar flowers always lift a cake. 

Sugar Flowers

To finish off the cake I piped a message and used ribbon to create a bow on the front. 

I hope the family liked the cake and enjoyed it. 

Finished Cake

Shortbread

I added a few new items to my collection and shortbread was one of them. These are part of my wholesale/tea rooms range. 

Shortbread is an incredibly simple recipe and very quick to make. This is the recipe that I used: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/shortbread_1290

In order to get the shortbread uniform I made these in a loaf tin which gave a lovely shape to each of them. 

These were enjoyed by my work colleagues and I received lots of compliments so I'm sure they were tasty. :).

Shortbread