Almond Butter Loaves

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So it was Sunday evening, and I was having a supposedly therapeutic baking session. I wanted to make a cinnamon teacake and frost it with rainbow sprinkles and baby pink icing. I forgot to add the egg to the mixture until the very end but figured that the little glitch wouldn't have an effect.

BUT IT DID. The cake didn't come out of the tin.. only the top half did, leaving a crater in the cake tin the size of the moon. I'm guessing that was because of the adding-egg-at-the-end-thing but maybe it wasn't. Either way. I turned the cake into dark chocolate cinnamon cake pops and decided to make something else which would turn out successful. So I decided to make almond butter loaves. Sounds great, doesn't it?

Except that the recipe called for 250g of butter and I only had 220g out and softened. I decided to take the big leap and halve the quantities to make a cake of half the size. I had done that once before, in my early baking years, and it had turned out disastrous. Nevertheless, I attempted to try it once more.

So I creamed half the required butter with half the required sugar and then guess what? I added all the eggs. All four of them. I only realized what I had done when my mixture had the consistency of water. After some frustration, I decided to add everything together. And make the entire quantity of cake.. except for the 30g of butter... I made it.. without expecting the cake to be anything spectacular but it turned out WONDERFUL.

Melt in your mouth, buttery, cakey goodness.

Here's my tweaked recipe:

Ingredients:
220g unsalted butter, softened and cubed
1 tsp almond extract
220g granulated sugar
4 eggs
150g self-raising flour
75g plain flour
90g ground almonds
10g unsalted butter, softened
100g icing sugar, sifted
2 tsp milk
25g dark chocolate, chopped

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and flour six mini loaf tins or a 19cm square or round cake tin.
Cream the butter, extract, and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat thoroughly.
Sift the flours and ground almonds directly onto the egg mixture and beat through until just combined.
Spoon into tin(s) and bake for 30 minutes at 180C. Then, reduce the heat to 160C and bake for another 30 minutes or until baked through.
Remove from the oven and allow cake to cool in tins for 10 minutes before placing on a wire rack to cool thoroughly.
Simmer water in a small saucepan and in a heatproof bowl that fits above, stir together the butter and icing sugar till a paste forms. Add the milk and stir until the glaze is smooth.
Drizzle over the cake and allow to set.
Then, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over the same pan of simmering water. Once the chocolate is melted and smooth, place in a sandwich bag and make a VERY, VERY small incision at the base of the sandwich bag.
Drizzle the melted chocolate over the glaze diagonally.

Serve these cut into slices and with a cup of tea- it's perfect! 

Eid Mubarak! & a Spiced Caramel Cake recipe!

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My centerpiece

Eid Mubarak everyone!!
Yesterday was the first day of Eid al Adha here in the UAE.
Eid is a major religious holiday just like Christmas and Diwali except that we have it twice a year. The first Eid for this year was in early September and the second one was yesterday. It runs for three days each.
Eid's dates on the solar calendar change according to the moon so next year Eid Al Fitr (the first eid) will be in mid August and the second one will be in late October.
I love Eid and all the preparations that go along with it. With any event, I think half the fun is in preparing for it.

For Eid, Muslims are religiously obligated to shop for a new outfit (amazing, huh!) or wear the best outfit that they have. Women obviously take this shopping task much more seriously than men and there is a lot of talk on what outfits each person has bought, where to find the best ones, and what colours they're wearing.

I, for one, designed my own outfit this Eid. It was somewhat Grecian inspired and had a creamy jersey bodice with a tight gold, silk, and high-waisted skirt. Everyone thought I had bought it from somewhere, so I gather that it was a success then! I personally really liked it.

Eid is all about reconnecting with one's friends and family. It is an occasion to take time off from your daily routine and catch up on everyone you haven't seen in a while. Eid is also a time to pamper children where instead of receiving gifts, they receive money which they can then use to buy whatever they want. So during Eid, you have people visiting you and then you visiting other people. And with all that visiting comes lots and lots of eating. Eating sweet things, to be precise.

The Eidiya for the neighborhood children

I had a dessert overdose yesterday and I think it's going to take 26 hours of running to burn it all of.

Each family has their own Eid routine and ours go something like this:

I start baking for Eid two days before it starts. A whole mix of biscuits and cookies and everything of the sort. I always have a few "classics" that I make every Eid, these mainly being lemon cake, vanilla cupcakes, chocolate shortbread drops, and vanilla and chocolate cookies among many other things. This time though, I decided to go on a complete revamp and the only "classic" thing I stuck to were the chocolate shortbread drops.

This time, I made vanilla biscuits, chocolate shortbread drops, spiced Belgian biscuits with raspberry jam, maple syrup butter whirls, vanilla kisses, cherry and almond loaf, spiced caramel cake (which I am sharing today!), marble cake, mini triple chocolate cakes, and lavender cupcakes.

Bread for breakfast!

The night before Eid, I package them in cute boxes and send them to some relatives and friends. The rest I keep for Eid breakfast at our place.

I love planning for Eid breakfast at our place because that's when I get to be all creative with a table setting and give out presents to family members and friends who come over. Our breakfast also includes doorbell rings from neighborhood children asking for Eidiya (eid money that you give children). We package these in cute little pouches with candy and hand it out to them.



At Eid, women also get elaborate henna designs done and the henna salons are packed with hundreds of people the nights leading up to Eid. Sometimes you have a wait of 8 hours (yikes! I know!) They hand out numbered coupons like counter tickets and if I'm getting henna done at a salon I pick up a ticket at 1PM and return at 9PM (which is inevitably when my number is called!). Most times, I have a henna lady come over to the house. It's so much better that way since I prepare for bed, wear my pyjamas and then get Henna done. It takes a while to dry and if you wash your hands soon after it dries off, chances are the color won't turn out as deep as it could. That's why I prefer getting Henna done at the end of the day and at home. It also gives me a chance to prepare for breakfast until the last possible minute.

Here's the recipe for the spiced caramel cake which is extremely easy and quick to make!

125g butter, chopped
200g dark brown soft sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp golden syrup
225g self raising flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
125ml milk
240g sifted icing sugar
30g softened butter
2 tbsp milk
50g dark chocolate, chopped 


Grease deep 20cm round cake pan, cover base and side with baking paper.
Combine all ingredients in medium bowl of electric mixer, beat on low speed until ingredients are combined. Then, beat on medium speed until mixture is just smooth and changed in color; do not overbeat. Spoon mixture into prepared pan. Bake in moderate oven about 55 minutes. Stand 5 minutes before turning onto wire rack to cool.
Mix together the icing sugar, butter and milk until fluffy, smooth, and spreadable. Spread over the cake.
Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water and spoon into a sandwich bag.
Make a tiny incision at the base of the sandwich bag and draw lines over the cake with the melted chocolate. First draw vertical lines, then horizontal ones, then diagonal ones.
Eat and enjoy!

spiced caramel cake

Triple Chocolate Party Cake

You know when you walk past a restaurant that seems really nice and you think "I'm definitely going to try this some day" or when you see a book you really want to read and say to yourself: "I'm going to start reading this as soon as work slows down a bit"? Inevitably, you don't manage to eat at that restaurant or read that book for a VERY long time, no matter how much you want to. That was the case with me and the We Should Cocoa Blog Challenge. Every month, the challenges seemed so interesting and mouth-watering. And every month, either I had papers to write, exams to study for, work to go, events to manage, or some odd amalgamation of all of the previous (which was most likely what happened). Anyways, I never got to participate in the We Should Cocoa blog challenges even though I really, really, really wanted to but this month, I did. This month's challenge is hosted by the lovely Chele of the The Chocolate Pot.

I think what really pushed me to make this was that the theme was "chocolate masterpiece".
"Masterpiece!" I thought. Oooh yess, time to spin toffee and melt fondant and create a wonderful chocolate swan in a stainless steel kitchen with my chef's hat and whites. I got all sorts of ideas (I always do). Alas, attempting to be creative is what drives me more often than not.

And a masterpiece automatically means that it has to be presented with some pomp and show does it not? Masterpieces, after all, fit in perfectly with celebrations. And so, I decided to make a chocolate 'masterpiece' cake for the first birthday of our food bloggers group.

Famished in Arabia, or TableTalk as it is now known, was formed a year ago by Arwa @ I Live in a Frying Pan and Sally @ My Custard Pie . They decided to collaborate and form a UAE-based food bloggers group.  The group has now grown to over 60 members and is such a wonderful network between all of us who love to love to share our love of food. I have made some wonderful friends this past year thanks to our group and have created some lovely memories. We constantly share our posts with one another and always have one fun event or another coming up. I'll always remember when we made gingerbread biscuits at Sally's, or had a picnic in the park, or Iftar at Sukaina's, or took a Thai cooking class, or had a mini chocolate fest at my place. And now I'll remember our epic first birthday celebration.

We raided the first floor of the wonderful Tea Junction today and had our cake-a-thon celebrating our first birthday. Each one of us was supposed to bring a cake (which resulted in some two dozen cakes!). And so, quite aptly, I decided to make this triple chocolate cake. Another reason I made this cake is because I wanted to tie a bow around it this time. I made a similar cake two weeks ago (topped with berries instead) as a birthday cake for a friend who absolutely refused that I add a ribbon. But I had to have my ribbon. And so I made this cake again albeit slightly differently.

The last one was a 9" double layered chocolate cake with milk chocolate finger biscuits around it. The topping was a mixture of heavy cream and whipping cream and was topped with berries. This one, in contrast was a 5" single-layered chocolate cake, with chocolate buttercream, milk and dark chocolate fingers, and semisweet chocolate chips.

I am not joking when I tell you that the decoration part of this cake took exactly 10 minutes. It is SO much easier than simply coating a cake with frosting. SO MUCH EASIER!

I started making the cake at 1PM and by 3PM everything was ready (and yes, I did other stuff in those two hours!)

Recipe
Ingredients
100g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
140g caster sugar
1.5 tsp baking powder
40g butter
1 egg
120ml milk
0.5 tsp vanilla essence
1 packet Cadbury Milk Chocolate Fingers
1 packet Cadbury Dark Chocolate Fingers
Semisweet chocolate chips
300g icing sugar, sifted
40g cocoa powder, sifted
100g butter
40ml milk
1 yard satin ribbon, color of your choice

Procedure


Preheat the oven to 170C and grease and base-line a 5" cake tin.
Place together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, and butter in a large bowl. Mix until well combined. In a small jug, beat together the egg, milk, and vanilla extract. Pour half of the milk mixture into the flour mixture and mix until well combined. Add the other half and beat for two minutes until all mixed together.
Bake in the middle rack of the oven for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Allow to cool.
Meanwhile make the frosting by mixing together the icing sugar, cocoa powder, and butter until it reaches a sandy consistency. Gradually add the milk and beat for 5 minutes until buttercream is fluffy.
Place the cake on an icing turntable and with a spatula, apply frosting only around the sides of the cake. Apply just enough so that the fingers can stick on comfortably. Once the sides of the cake have been coated with the buttercream, carefully place the chocolate fingers all around alternating between the milk and dark chocolate fingers.
Once that's complete, place the remaining chocolate frosting in a piping bag fitted with a Wilton 98 nozzle and pipe around the edges of the inside of the cake. Complete by filling the middle of the cake with the piped frosting. The best way to achieve this look is by arbitrarily piping across the center of the cake. Sprinkle the top of the cake with the semisweet chocolate chips. Refrigerate the cake for 20 minutes until relatively hardened before tying the bow across the cake. Try to make the bow look neater than mine.

Two Tiered Wedding Cake with Fondant Roses (TUTORIAL)

I've been dreaming of making tiered cakes for sooo long.. And I've had a few experiences doing so but never really professionally. But ever since I've started looking through pictures of tiered party cakes I've began to daydream. And daydream. And daydream. And get this unrelenting urge to sit (or potter around) in the kitchen for hours creating one of these beauties.

I made the following cake over three days although if you wanted to, it's quite possible to make it in one day. I baked the bottom tier cakes on Thursday, the top tier cakes on Friday morning, did the dowelling, stacking, rolling fondant, and roses on Friday night and put the final touches with the pearls and royal icing Saturday afternoon.

I am by no means an expert at this and being an amateur baker, I want to show that these kind of cakes aren't difficult to create at all. They're challenging, and that makes it all the sweeter once you get the results you want. I wanted to make a cake which was entirely my idea and not copied from any of the books and so I came up with this. I also wanted to start off making two tiered cakes because I wanted to take it slow.. and gradually build up skill and also because.. I mean, seriously, I have no idea how I'd manage to get a four tiered cake eaten up (not by myself.. obviously...)

This is the first time I'm writing up a detailed tutorial so please bear with me if anything doesn't make sense (ask if you're confused).. obviously by saying this I'm assuming all my readers are going to get this wonderful streak of inspiration and go off to the kitchen.. but I don't think that's going to be the case..

And so here's the tutorial:

Equipment
A cake board
Measuring cups and spoons
Two bowls
A whisk
Four cake tins (two 6" ones and two 8" ones)
Baking paper
A cake leveller
An icing turntable
An offset spatula
A rolling pin
A sharp knife
3 dowel rods
Sandwich bags
A cake fondant smoother
Toothpicks
Ribbon of your choice
Piping bag
1.5 icing tip/nozzle
Sifter
Strainer
Pastry brush
Unused makeup blusher brush


Ingredients
For the bottom tier: 
1.5 cups self raising flour
1.25 cups plain flour
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups caster sugar
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract


For the top tier: (identical.. and you'll have enough leftover batter to make one batch of cupcakes)

1.5 cups self raising flour
1.25 cups plain flour
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups caster sugar
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract


For the buttercream
50g unsalted butter, softened
300g icing sugar
3 tablespoons milk
Pink gel food colouring

For the coating and roses
1/2 cup apricot jam, boiled, strained, and cooled
1.5kg marzipan
1.5kg white fondant (ready to roll icing)
Light pink gel food colouring
Rose gel food coloring
500g icing sugar

For the royal icing and pearls
1 egg white
200g icing sugar
Juice of one lemon
One packet edible pearls (preferably white)


Procedure


For the bottom tier: 
-Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line two 8" cake tins. Put the flour together in a bowl and mix well together.
-In a separate bowl, beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Gradually add the sugar a quarter cup at a time and beat well between each addition until sugar dissolves and mixture becomes fluffier and paler.
-Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add a third of the flour mixture and beat well, followed by a third of the combined milk and vanilla extract mixture. Repeat until all flour and milk has been incorporated into batter.
-Spoon into cake tins and bake for 30 minutes on the middle rack of the oven until a wooden skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

For the top tier


-Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line two 6" cake tins. Put the flour together in a bowl and mix well together.
-In a separate bowl, beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Gradually add the sugar a quarter cup at a time and beat well between each addition until sugar dissolves and mixture becomes fluffier and paler.
-Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add a third of the flour mixture and beat well, followed by a third of the combined milk and vanilla extract mixture. Repeat until all flour and milk has been incorporated into batter.
-Spoon into cake tins and bake for 30 minutes on the middle rack of the oven until a wooden skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

For the buttercream
-Beat the butter until smooth. Add the icing sugar and beat until mixture is of a sandy consistency. Add the milk and beat until incorporated.
-Add the coloring and keep on beating for five minutes until mixture gets fluffy.

Assembling and coating the cake
-Refrigerate the cakes for around half an hour before assembling them. Refrigerating cakes makes them harder and much easier to handle.
-Split each cake into half so you get a total of four layers for the bottom tier and a total of four tiers for the top tier.

-for the bottom tier
-Place the bottom-most layer of the bottom tier on an icing turntable and with an offset spatula, spread the top with buttercream.
-Place a second layer on top and repeat until you reach the last top-most layer for the bottom tier. Do not put buttercream on top of the topmost layer of the bottom tier.
-Brush the cake with the boiled, strained, and cooled apricot jam.
-Knead half the marzipan until soft and pliable and then roll out onto a surface liberally dusted with icing sugar (trust me when I say you're going to need  a collective of 500g of icing sugar just to dust the surface- don't underestimate it! you don't want fondant sticking to the surface after you've wonderfully rolled it out). Remember to roll out marzipan to cover a slightly larger cake than the one you're actually covering. Having extra-long marzipan or fondant on your cake prevents it from folding over each other and skirting and makes for a smooth, straight finish. You can always trim the excess off with a knife (and then you have excess marzipan/fondant to make roses with!).
-Gently lift the marzipan using both hands and rest the marzipan on your wrists. and lower forearm.
-Place the center of the rolled out marzipan onto the center of the cake. Smooth down over the edges with your hands and then trim off the excess with a sharp knife. Smooth with an icing smoother.
-Brush the marzipan-coated cake with boiled, cooled water.
-Knead the fondant until pliable. With a toothpick, add streaks of the baby pink food coloring and continue kneading until color is even throughout. Roll out on a surface VERY LIBERALLY dusted with icing sugar until, again, slightly larger than the size of the cake.
-Gently lift up and place on top of the cake. Smooth with the icing smoothener. Trim off the excess and smooth again.

-for the top tier
-Repeat the steps of the layering and coating the bottom tier.

-stacking the cakes.
-Place three wooden or plastic dowel rods into the center of the bottom tier cake. Measure the height of the cake on the dowel rod with a pencil. Remove the dowel rods and trim to the size of the cake.
-Do that with all three dowel rods and place in the center of the cake forming a triangular shape.
-Lift the top tier and gently place it on top of the bottom tier.

-"ribboning the cakes"
-Take the ribbon and place it around the base of bottom tier, measuring how long it should be. Cut out the required length.
-Dab a little royal icing or buttercream on the cake where the ribbon will be placed.
-Place the ribbon around the base of the cake and make the end of the ribbon slightly overlap with the start of it. Dab in place with a little more buttercream.
-Do the same for the top tier.
-Take the makeup blush brush and dust the cake off any icing sugar.

-for the roses
-Color the leftover marzipan rose pink and shape a little bit of it into a 4mm diameter sausage. Keep the rest in a plastic bag or tightly wrapped in foil to prevent it from drying out.
- Take the sausage and cut off the ends. Then cut the remaining sausage into six slices with a 3mm width each.
-Take a plastic ziplock or sandwich bag and open the sides to make it into a foldable plastic folder. Place the six slices evenly spaced out inside the sandwich bags, with the rounded sides facing away from you and the flat sides facing towards you.
-Place the top half of the sandwich bag over the bottom half and press down and flatten each slice with the base of your thumb (no, that isn't the part of your thumb right under your nail but the base of the thumb by the wrist).
-Then run your actual thumb around each piece to smoothen the edges.
-Take the smallest petal and roll it around on itself so it curls.
-Then, take the next smallest petal and place it around the rosebud. Keep on working your way outwards using slightly larger petals each time until you use up the six.
-Repeat to make five more roses.
Place around the cake as you see fit. Or do it like I did: two on top, one in the middle, and two at the bottom.

-for the royal icing and pearls
-Beat the egg whites till the soft peak consistency, add the sifted icing sugar and beat in until incorporated. - --Add the strained juice of half a lemon and beat in.
-Add the color with a toothpick and beat in until smooth and not too runny.
-Prepare a piping bag with the 1.5 nozzle and spoon in the royal icing. Secure the piping bag.
-Holding the piping bag at a 60 degree angle to the cake, pipe around 5 or 6 round pearls onto the top of the cake in front of the roses.
-Don't pull the piping bag away as soon as the icing starts coming out of it otherwise you'll end up with sharp studs instead of pearls. Instead, wait till the pearl is formed and then gently release.
-Once you finish the pearls on the top tier, ice the top of the bottom tier (you'll only be able to have access to the outer edges of it due to the top tier placed above it).
-Once that's done, with your fingers, gently add the edible pearls on top of each pink royal icing pearl. You'll have to work fairly quickly because the royal icing hardens fairly quickly and crusts if you apply too much pressure.

And you're done! As you can tell from the pictures, I'm having issues getting the icing completely clean and smooth without cracking a bit. First, I need to knead the colour in a lot more so little white streaks don't show. Plus, I also need to not put SO much icing sugar on TOP of the fondant when I'm rolling it out. It's important for it to be under but not on top. But I had to re-knead the fondant around three times before I could lift it without it breaking. I had to keep adding more icing sugar for that.

Chocolate Raspberry Cake

So the two things which make up the title of the cake are actually in its topping. But it's still a chocolate and raspberry cake. You know how people say rice or pasta are like these somewhat flavourless dishes which means you can experiment a lot with them? I think the same way about vanilla cake. Well obviously it's sweet, you putting ketchup as frosting won't really work, but it's quite a good base if you want to get creative on the sweet side of the tastes spectrum.

I found this wonderful chocolate and raspberry jam from Cocomaya in London and ever since I bought it a couple of weeks back, I've been dreaming of using it as frosting on a nice bundt cake. I love the way icing/glaze just drizzles down in a bundt cake. I've never had mine look that professional but I'm hoping to get there. I used a spoon and then an offset spatula when I frosted mine. I think if you're using a runny glaze simply pouring it down the cake will achieve a nice old-fashioned look but my topping was more of a thick frosting so I had to apply it using a spoon.

Recipe:
Ingredients
230g unsalted butter, softened
230g caster sugar
4 eggs
230g self-raising flour, sifted
4 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
-for the frosting
70g heavy cream
1/2 cup fresh raspberries
1/2 cup raspberry and chocolate jam (if you can't find the jam I think you can achieve something similar by mixing equal parts nutella and raspberries and whisking it together with around 2-3 tablespoons of heavy cream)

Procedure:
Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and lightly flour a bundt cake pan.
Beat together butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs one by one, whisking well after each addition. Add the sifted flour and fold in using a metal spoon. Add the milk and vanilla and mix well together. Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for 25 minutes. Once baked, allow to cool completely before frosting.

for the frosting: 
take the chocolate/raspberry jam and whisk until smooth. Add the cream and beat until color has lightened and mixture has become fluffier. Gently spread over top of cooled cake. Arrange raspberries around center and in the middle of cake.

Chocolate Cheesecake/Ice Cream Cake

A two-in-one! Which is fabulous? Sometimes I really do believe that making mistakes has its benefits- Such as this time when the mixture curdled (and the dish ended up becoming an ice-cream cake almost magically!)

So this is actually a cheesecake which works as an icecream cake if you just tweak a couple of the steps around..

The basic recipe is here:

Ingredients
115g digestive biscuits, crushed
4tbsp melted unsalted butter
2tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
800g mascarpone cheese
200g sifted icing sugar
175 plain milk chocolate, melted and slightly cooled
Juice and rind of one orange

Procedure
Grease a 8" cake tin.
Place the crushed biscuits, cocoa powder, and melted butter in a bowl and stir until well combined. Line the base of the cake tin with biscuit mixture and press with the back of a wooden spoon to flatten.
Mix the icing sugar and mascarpone in a bowl with the melted chocolate (the heat from the chocolate will melt  the mascarpone and make mixture smooth and runny). Mix until just combined to avoid mixture from curdling.

If you're making the cheesecake:
Place the chocolate mixture in the cake tin and refrigerate for at least 5-6 hours.

If you're making the ice cream cake:
Place the chocolate mixture in a heatproof bowl (in stages if bowl doesn't hold entire mixture) and set over a pan of simmering water till mixture melts and becomes liquidy and runny. Wait for it to slightly cool and then place it in the cake tin. Place in fridge till chilled and then in freezer for 3 hours.

Yes, it's starting to melt but doesn't it look soo good?

The Cake Decorating Weekend

This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity of taking cake decorating classes with both Eric Lanlard and Mich Turner who are, in today's words, epic cakemakers. I have books by both of them and whenever university work gets a little more stressful than usual, I plonk myself in bed and flip through the books whilst daydreaming. I'd rather be making cakes than taking politics notes that make no sense, really. (No, I still love my major.)

Eric, Mich, and Peggy Porschen have been the three people who have inspired me to create tiered cakes and glamourous/couture-y cakes like these mini rose cakes, this three-tiered cake, and the first one of them all- the one I decided to make one midnight: a simple two tiered imprinted cake. Their creations are the prime example of eye-candy and are awe-inspiring in their level of detail, elegance, and beauty.

The class that I took with Eric was the Cupcake Masterclass (Info for classes can be found here.) We learned how to work with gumpaste (Which I had never done before!- Gumpaste is slightly different from sugarpaste/fondant in its texture- it hardens fairly quickly), we used the gumpaste on silicon moulds to get desired shapes and then learned to how to color the figures and use glitter. Eric also showed us three lovely techniques to ice cupcakes (a wonderful swirl, petals, and one that was absolutely gorgeous and sort of looked like petals and leaves) Sadly I didn't manage to the last one really well. It was great since I tried a lot of things I hadn't tried before. The session was followed by a wonderful afternoon tea. Each of the sandwiches and pastries were presented soo beautifully that all of us gasped everytime they were brought out.  Only after I took the pictures did I realize that they were blurry- I was so excited to eat all of the goodies haha.

The class with Mich was a crowncakes and cookies master class at the beautiful Langham hotel on Regent Street. We learned how to ice and flood a cookie (I FINALLY learned how to flood a cookie- now I can use all my cutters to their full potential!) and then learned four wonderful designs for the crowncakes. I was quite proud of them- they looked so pretty I didn't want to eat them! But, also in this case, there was one technique I didn't quite master which was the candy striped cake. My lines were really squiggly and shakey :( But it was the design I loved best. The one I was happiest with though was the monochrome lace with pink icing in sashes and bows and drops. It was a great class ALSO followed by a wonderful afternoon tea. I hope I can recreate something like this on my own because my main issues seem to be getting the royal icing the right consistency and covering the cake neatly with fondant. More info on the classes here.

the squiggly cake.... but I made the rose myself!

I'm extremely glad I got to take both these classes and the icing on the cake (pun not intended) was that they were on consecutive days. I conquered my fears of gumpaste and royal icing and I'm ready to work with both of these mediums a lot more extensively than I previously had.