Category : Cakes

Cake Club (Client Services vs Creative)

April 22nd 2011 Posted at Agency Republic, Baking, Cake Club, Cakes, Photography
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Well… I don’t know how to say this. But it appears I may have competition in Cake Club at Republic. This is a ridiculous story here and I still can’t get over it. It started last Friday when Nicole, who was supposed to bake something to represent Client Services, said that she wouldn’t have time to bake anything that weekend as she was going flying with some friends in Essex. She said she was probably just going to buy a cake. And so, I said, “I’ll bake you a cake!” I wasn’t serious, but she handed me £20 and the next thing I knew, I was asking what she wanted me to bake. A tart, she said.

A tart. I said to her I don’t usually make tarts. I have more experience with cakes. To be fair, Nicole said that I could do that if I wanted, but I wanted to please, so I went for tart. And that’s why I was baking 3 apple frangipane tarts on Sunday during the London Marathon. I only brought 2 to work on Monday, as me and Katie ate half of a tart that Sunday.

I was going to go in early and put them in the fridge so no one would realise that I’d baked instead of Nicole, but there were a few already at the office when I got there and Phoebe and Fran found out. Now, I’ve got to say that my intentions were not to get Nicole to the next round. I figured that if she wasn’t going to bake, then Nick, who was representing the Creative department would automatically go through, and he’d already got through the last round because no one in the Creative department had bothered to bake anything. So I thought I’d just take the opportunity to bake and at least make Nick think he had to compete with another entry before getting through again. Someone offered me an opportunity to do what I love and I took it. Simple as that.

Anyway, Nicole and I thought we’d still have some fun with it and only let people know after the voting. Long story short, my/Nicole’s apple frangipane tart lost against Nick’s blueberry cake! I was well-gutted even though it really wasn’t my round. And technically, it means that Nick has already beaten me. Which is just… Grand.

One of my apple tarts:

Nick’s winning blueberry cake:

To be fair, his cake was good, and that’s a good photo of it, if I may say so myself. But I also took that photo, so umm yeah.. Of course I try to make all my food shots look half decent. ;)

Anyway, needless to say I got a lot of stick, firstly for baking for someone else and supposedly “cheating” and then losing, regardless. All in good fun though. I have a feeling they’re going to make fun of me everytime I bring in a cake now. But I’m not taking any chances and will do a proper cake for my next round (one that I’m actually supposed to be in). Any recommendations for a show-stopping cake, anyone?

Hampstead Heath

April 10th 2011 Posted at Baking, Cakes, Cooking, Food, General, Photography
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You know when you’ve had a rough couple of weeks and the whole world seems like nothing but doom and gloom? You hate people, you hate what you do and you want nothing else but to hide under the covers? Then the sun decides to show up and all of a sudden, everything seems like it’s not so bad? It’s funny what a little bit of sunshine can do. That and having good friends that you can talk to.

Dominique came up to London from Falmouth last weekend and we decided to have a picnic in the park. I had bought a quirky little picnic rug last year, but never really used it. So I made some ciabatta sandwiches and a lemon drizzle cake, packed some sugarsnap peas, hummus, berries and set out to put the picnic rug to good use. I’d also never been to Hampstead Heath despite the many recommendations from friends, so I decided that we should go there.

After a bit of walking, trying to find a good spot, we ended up opposite the ponds, underneath the trees, with the sun shining beautifully through the leaves. I’m quite pleased with our picnic, the food was good, the lemon cake especially! The picnic rug, the plates and napkins, even the food was nicely colour-coordinated. I’d give myself a high-five if I could. :)

We spent a couple of hours munching, talking and enjoying the sunshine. A friend at work had suggested and lent me The Decision Book to read. There’s an interesting section about happiness/flow, based on the research that a sociologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi had done. Dom and I spent a good chunk of time discussing happiness and roads in life. I don’t think any decisions were made that day, but it’s still good to talk to someone about your worries.

At some point, we had to use the loo and stumbled upon the public toilets near Hampstead Heath overground station. Firstly, we nearly went into the gents, which for some reason had two entrances and only showed signs from one side. Luckily, I decided to double check the sign before going down the stairs and managed to stop Dom before any shocking encounters had the chance to occur.

When we did find the ladies, we were worried that the toilets were going to be really dodgy, but it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t the cleanest, but it definitely had a lot of character to it. Which is why I didn’t feel too strange taking photos of the toilets.

Then we walked up to Parliament Hill, where we ate some more cake and berries. The bees took a liking to me, circling around me and resting on my hands several times. One even decided to chill out on my lip and in my confusion I thought it had gone into my mouth, so I opened it wide, hoping it would fly out. Dom ordered me to close my mouth and it finally flew off from my lip.

Parliament Hill is allegedly the site from where Guy Fawkes and Robert Catesby had planned to watch the destruction of Parliament in the Gunpowder Plot on 5 November 1605. It has a spectacular view of London and is a popular place for flying kites. And of course, an excellent place to while your time away, eating cake with friends. Preferably cakes that you baked yourself. :)

3 cakes

April 3rd 2011 Posted at Baking, Cakes, Desserts
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3 cakes this weekend. Just because. Black forest gâteau. Gluten-free lemon yogurt cake. Orange chiffon cake. As usual, I try and do more than what I can handle, genoise batter for the black forest was not properly folded in, resulting in lumps of white flour, which I only realised after cutting the layers of the cake. Orange chiffon cake was looking good, no cracks, cooled it upside down on a bottle, only to realise that the bit near the middle was still a bit wet after cooling and loosening the sides. It went back in the oven for another 15 minutes and I decided it was a good idea to try and cool it upside down on a bottle the second time around, despite me having loosen the sides before. It stayed in the tin for about 10 minutes before crashing onto the counter top. Still, it tasted good, although I like the taste of pandan chiffon cake better.

Not sure how the black forest gâteau and lemon cake will taste, will have to wait and see tomorrow at work.

I heart Kernow: Day 1

March 4th 2011 Posted at Baking, Cakes, General, Photography
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I went down to Falmouth for Adéla’s birthday last weekend. As much as I resisted, I can never really say no to a trip down to Fal, much less if it’s for a good friend’s birthday. Po and I took the midnight train down on Friday, after work and got there early the next morning. Adéla cooked us some scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast, after which her flatmate Zoe generously cooked us a big batch of pancakes.

Adéla was preparing for a cake sale at the Falmouth Vintage Flea Market that morning, so we helped her set up (and sampled some of her delicious cakes) and then headed into town and the beach. We stopped to get some fish and chips to eat on the beach (as you do) and spent a good while soaking up the sun. Zoe joined us not long after and then we decided to talk a walk around Pendennis Castle.

The typical Cornish weather was messing with us, it was sunny, then it rained during our walk around the castle, but then it was sunny again. We finished with an ice cream and after packing up at the cake sale, headed back to A’s again. I wanted to bake her a genoise with cream for her birthday cake, but A’s not a big fan of creamy cakes. She preferred a chocolate cake or cheesecake. Fair enough.

I found a recipe for cheesecake soufflé so I ended up making that. We were all pretty knackered that night, Po and Adéla even fell asleep while we were watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I went to bed after the film ended and left the cake, still in its tin, untouched. The next morning, I took it out of the tin and realised that some water had seeped through while it was baking in a bain-marie in the oven the previous night. I wanted to give myself a kick for not putting some layers of foil outside of the tin before baking.

I turned it upside down into the tin again and put it back in the oven to dry it up a little bit and then found that the top of the cheesecake (the brown top) was stuck to the tin. It tore and needless to say, that added to my frustration. Still, it tasted really good and we certainly had no problem finishing it that day itself.

Kernow: Day 2 to follow.

Cake Club (design department)

February 14th 2011 Posted at Agency Republic, Baking, Cake Club, Cakes, Cooking, Desserts, General
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So we had a bake-off at work today, much to my surprise. The bake-off mentioned in the last post, which I thought was postponed to next week, wasn’t postponed after all. It was a bloody good thing I came to work with a cake! And it was the cake that I originally wanted to make for my entry anyway, so it all worked out good in the end.

Here is Heiko’s chocolate & red wine cake (his 1st baking attempt, so big props goes to him):

Andy’s self-named “intensely rich, moist torte of Roasted Hazelnut and Belgian Chocolate awesomeness” (which he couldn’t get out of the tin, as the bottom was stuck to it, amusingly):

Funny how we all decided to make chocolate cakes. I hardly ever make chocolate cakes. Not a massive fan of chocolatey cakes, chocolate fudge, brownies, etc. Chocolate itself, I love. But not fudgy chocolatey cakes. Strange.

Anyway, I loved the reaction that my cake got from everyone. 1 or 2 people recognised it from Baking Made Easy (which I was hoping nobody would, lest they be not so impressed, after watching how easy it was to make it). But overall, there was a lot of ooh-ing and ahh-ing. Everyone just kind of stood around for a minute or two, as if the cake would just collapse if they touched it. Finally, I had to cut it for them, and into really small slices as well, to make sure everyone got to taste it.


And after cutting my cake and serving everyone a slice, I finally had the chance to photograph a slice. And I also won this round. Really chuffed. Nuff said. Bring on the next round. :)

‘I can’t believe you made that’ cake

February 13th 2011 Posted at Baking, Cakes, Desserts, General, Photography
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It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow. I don’t celebrate it, nor do I have any reason to celebrate it (what a shame). But I thought it would be nice to bring a special cake to work. Lorraine Pascale‘s ‘I can’t believe you made that’ cake seemed perfect for the occasion. Chocolate sponge, surrounded by chocolate cigarellos and topped with raspberries, the rich colours of the chocolate and red raspberries, surely quite apt for V day.

We were supposed to have our bake-off in the design department tomorrow, but one of the guys is away this weekend, so we’re postponing ours to the week after, I think. I was planning to make this cake for my entry, but I’ll have to find another cake to make now. Might be a bit difficult to make a cake that’ll look even more impressive than this one. You’ll have to watch Baking Made Easy, (it’s available on BBC iPlayer) if you haven’t already, it’s got some good recipes and tips.

This recipe was from the first episode, I modified it slightly by making a chocolate genoise sponge instead of following the cake recipe and added an extra touch, tying a ribbon and bow (well, my flatmate helped me out as I’m a bit useless with tying ribbons) around the cake. I also arranged the raspberries neatly instead of just tossing them into the middle like in the show, mostly because of my flatmate’s suggestion.

Chocolate genoise sponge (9-in round cake)

5 large eggs
1 cup sugar
⅓ cup cocoa powder
⅔ cup plain flour
pinch of salt
57g melted butter

Grease and line a 9-in round tin. Melt the butter and let it cool. Using an hand-held mixer, beat the eggs and sugar in a bowl over simmering water for 5 minutes, till the mixture is lukewarm. Take it off the heat and beat for 5-7 minutes longer, till the mixture has cooled down, has tripled in volume and is shiny. In three batches, sift the cocoa powder+plain flour+salt over the mixture and gently fold into it. When everything is incorporated, add a bit of the mixture to the cool melted butter and then fold it back into the mixture. Fill the tin with the mixture and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool slightly before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For the buttercream

300g butter, softened
550g icing sugar
120g dark chocolate, melted and slightly cooled

Put the butter and icing sugar in a bowl and whisk together until the mixture goes fluffy. Add the cooled, melted chocolate and whisk for a further two minutes.

When the cake has cooled, slice the cake horizontally into half. Sandwich the two layers with the buttercream and then spread half of the remaining buttercream all over the top and sides of the cake. Put it in the fridge to set before doing another layer. After you’re done with the second layer, surround the cake with the cigarellos and then top with raspberries in the middle of the cake. And there you have it, an amazing-looking cake.

I was making some macarons to go along with it as well, but they were an epic fail, probably because I didn’t use aged egg whites, I’d been working late these past few days and had no time to pop to the store before the weekend. I used the quick blast in the microwave method, but I probably also over-folded the mixture, I was terribly disorganised this time, I forgot what I was doing a lot and lost count of the strokes while folding. I can’t believe I managed to get it right the first time and totally failed this time. Surely you’re supposed to get better with each try? Mmmm, never mind, there’s always next time.

To everyone who’s celebrating Valentine’s Day, have a wonderful day with your loved ones. I look forward to sharing this beautiful cake with everyone at Agency Republic tomorrow.

Coffee cream cake

February 7th 2011 Posted at Baking, Cakes, Desserts, General
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Whew, we managed to get through Monday at work, with the help of two cakes that I baked over the weekend. I had a bake-off against myself with my lemon drizzle cake and coffee cream cake. Which one won? Not really sure if it was a fair fight, as I only brought in half of the lemon drizzle cake, so it vanished pretty quickly. Technique-wise, I think the coffee cream cake would have won hands down, it was a 4-layer génoise sponge, covered with cream and the decorating took a lot more effort than the lemon drizzle cake.

I found this recipe on Deeba’s blog at Passionate About Baking. Now, while you’re checking out her blog, of course her cake looks better than mine. I can’t even compare my newbie self to her. Hope she doesn’t mind my substandard attempt at her trademark chocolate scrolls.

Even though my cake didn’t look as good as Deeba’s, it still tasted really good and everyone at work was still impressed. I have to say, it makes me really happy when people at work enjoy my cakes. It’s such a nice feeling. It put me in such a good mood that I was even smiling on the tube, while on my way back home.

If that design malarkey doesn’t work out for you… as heard from Al at work…

Lemon drizzle cake

February 5th 2011 Posted at Baking, Cakes, Cooking, General, Photography
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I’m quite knackered today. Woke up earlier than usual for a Saturday, although I didn’t actually start cooking till 4pm. Made a rosemary and sea salt focaccia (which looks amazing, I’ll put it up in the next post), spaghetti alla puttanesca and a rocket salad for dinner. And also a lemon drizzle cake for dessert. It’s been a while since I cooked a complete meal, so I’m really chuffed with myself. By the way, did you know spaghetti alla puttanesca translates to “whore’s style spaghetti” in Italian? Classy!

I have a soft spot for lemon drizzle cake. I think it all started in a small cafe in Falmouth, where I was having lunch with some friends. I shared a slice of lemon drizzle cake with my friend, Dominique and it was truly divine. And I think it’s become sort of a ritual for the two of us. Whenever we meet up, there always seems to be lemon drizzle cake involved. After that first experience, I wanted find a similar recipe so I could make it myself. I don’t think I’ve found it yet, but so far I’ve tried Jamie Oliver’s poppy seed lemon drizzle cake, Waitrose’s recipe and a four-layer lemon cake from America’s Test Kitchen (ATK). The four-layer lemon cake was an epic disaster, after I baked the cake in two tins that were slightly different in size, screwed up the meringue frosting and then ended up with a slippery cake that fell on its side. Needless to say, it ended up in the bin. But the lemon curd for that particular recipe was probably the best I’ve ever tasted.

Anyway, this one’s using the recipe from Waitrose, which is not bad at all, but think I prefer the lemon curd recipe from the ATK.

The filling is lemon curd mascarpone and any cake with a mascarpone filling is a winner, in my mind. Lush.

Off to check out a car boot sale in Pimlico tomorrow, in search of more vintage crockery and linens that won’t break the bank!

Chocolate soufflé

January 28th 2011 Posted at Baking, Cakes, Cooking, Desserts, General
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Just made chocolate soufflé (Gordon Ramsay’s recipe) with my flatmates. Twas good.

Also, it’s friday tomorrow. I think my 2-in-1 black & white umbrella has been delivered and is waiting for me at the porter’s, meaning I’ll get to play with my complete lighting setup on the weekend. And it’s pay day tomorrow too. :)

Vanilla bundt cake

January 23rd 2011 Posted at Baking, Cakes, Cooking, Desserts
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My lighting setup is almost complete. So far, I’ve purchased a Canon Speedlite 580EX II, a Canon Speedlite 430EX II, 3 cheap wireless flash triggers (and 2 PocketWizard Plus II transceivers as a backup in case I’m in a situation where I need something more reliable), a 60x60cm strobist softbox, 2 light stands and flash brackets. I’m just waiting for my 2-in-1, white/black reflective umbrella to arrive. Photos are already looking much better compared to those taken under tungsten light. Will need lots of practice to get used to the lighting system, but this will hopefully allow for more creativity and more importantly, I’ll be able to take more food photos without worrying about the lack of natural light, since it gets dark about 4pm these days.

Anyway, I made Nigella Lawson’s Spruced-up Vanilla Cake last night. I sent this recipe to an ex-tutor for Christmas and just yesterday she sent me an email, mentioning my “beautiful cake tin”, but I was thinking, I sent her a drawing of it, not actual photos. An illustration simply doesn’t do this cake justice (unless it’s a really good illustration, but mine was just a simple line drawing). I wanted to send her some photos of it, so I decided to make this cake again and use the opportunity to play with my light setup too.

Had quite a bit of fun taking photos of the icing sugar being sifted onto the cake. The cake itself turned out okay, but I think it was a bit better the last time I made it, this time it was a bit too dense. Oh well. The recipe is available on the BBC website if you want to give it a try.

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