Novelty Cake Tips

As some of you may know, I am part-way through moving out at the moment and so all my baking gear has been packed away in boxes for the last couple of weeks.

This makes me very sad. What am I supposed to do to destress? Without my piping bags, cake lifter, icing nozzles, spatula and madeleine tray I am nothing.

By way of compensation, I'm going to write a blog post I've been promising to do for a while. You may have noticed that although I sometimes make novelty cakes, I rarely blog about them. That's because when I construct one of these marvels of confectionery, my process is less a meticulously planned operation than a panicked, buttercream-spattered flurry of activity.

By the end, I won't know what quantities of ingredients I used, because I'll have run out and had to go to the shops so many times I've lost count. I’ll also be a nervous wreck and will have to go and lie down in a darkened room for a while.

It’s worth it though, because it results in cakes like this:

So as I don't tend to record individual recipes I'm going to lay out a series of tips to help you make your own novelty cakes. Because after all, the best novelty cakes are unique.

Design

• I always sketch my novelty cakes before I start trying to make them. It helps me work out what ingredients I'll need to get hold of, which types of techniques I might have to use, how I might decorate the cake and what shape baking tin is closest to the final shape of the cake.
• Have a Google around and look at cakes similar to what you want to make. Chances are, someone will have made something similar before. That's how I found out that ice cream cones covered in sprinkles made perfect turrets for a castle cake.

Sponge

• Don't get over-ambitious with the kind of sponge you're going to use as the basis of your novelty cake. Just like a building, your cake must be structurally sound. Use a simple recipe, something that is easy to slice and has a consistent texture - try not to add anything like fruit, nuts or chocolate chips that could change the texture. Victoria sponge is a good bet, as is pound cake.
• If you're making a cake in a novelty shape you may want to carve it out of a larger cake. Use a deep baking tin and fill it with sponge mixture to bake a large rectangular cake. Pop it into the freezer until needed and start to carve it carefully into shape with a knife while it's still cold.

Additional materials

• You may not be able to make all your cake out of sponge. In the above picture, the dragon's neck is made of rice-crispy cake, while its legs and tail are cake pop mixture, which I also used to round out the shape of the body. 
• For cake pop mixture, blend an equal amount of buttercream icing and sponge together to make a paste which can then be moulded into shape. 
• Rice-crispy cake is great option in cases where sponge won't be strong enough. Melt 45g butter and 300g marshmallows and mix in 180g rice crispies then mould into desired shape and pop in the fridge to set. 

Icing

• Choose your icing to suit your cake. If you're making an animal cake, like this orangutan, use buttercream and fluff it up with a fork for fur. If you're making something with a smooth texture, ready made sugarpaste (sometimes called regal icing) or royal icing might be better. For a scaly texture roll out sugarpaste and cut out tiny circles.
• If using sugarpaste you will need to stick it to the cake with a thin layer of buttercream spread underneath. If you are sticking one piece of sugarpaste onto another, for instance in overlapping scales like the dragon cake, you will need to use edible glue or make an adhesive out of water icing or similar.

Finishing touches

• Attention to detail can make a novelty cake really special. This cake I made for my friend Sophie looked a bit rubbish until I piped buttercream clouds onto it and covered it in edible silver stars and glitter. For all my animal cakes' eyes I use white chocolate chips with a tiny bit of dark chocolate piped on for pupils. The squares of sponge with peppermint icing grass and white chocolate fence-posts, complete with smears of mud, make the sheep cake into a proper little scene in a field. The dragon cake comes with a hoard of chocolate money - need I go on?

Above all, don't be afraid to experiment, adapt others' recipes and buy way way more ingredients than you think you need - you almost certainly will run out. Unless you're going to have about 2 days to make your cake, make what you can in advance. Sponge and buttercream icing will both freeze well as long as they are kept separate. Do not store either in the fridge - trust me on this!

And don't make your life harder than it needs to be. Sometimes a plain old cylinder is the right shape for your novelty cake. 

And a novelty cake doesn't have to be a montrously huge confection either. Sometimes a few little touches can transform cupcakes into magical creations.

Go forth and bake, my pretties.

Ellie

xxx

Dinky Dunking Doughnuts

This week I made another foray into the world of baked doughnuts. I've made doughnuts about four times, with varying degrees of success. They've always tasted good, but size, shape and texture haven't always been quite right.

On my first attempt, I made yeasted doughnuts and put them in my mini doughnut pan and they ballooned to massive proportions. So I covered them in sugar and pretended they were never meant to be ring doughnuts.

Another time I managed to make glazed ring doughnuts of perfect size and shape, but the texture was a bit tight and I can't for the life of me remember how I made them. And I've also made yeasted filled doughnuts, which were very nice but also very hard to fill.

This time I decided to use the cake doughnut method, using baking powder or bicarbonate of soda as a raising agent. The rationale for this was that the batter produced would be runny enough so that I could pipe my doughnuts into the pan. They were perfect - fluffy inside, round and flavoured lightly with nutmeg.

But I decided they needed something more. If you have ever been to Spain, you may have eaten churros. These are long, piped doughnuts, fried until crisp and golden on the outside, dunked in sugar and handed to you in a rolled paper cone like chips. They're divine. I've eaten them for breakfast at a cafe in Madrid, wolfed them down at funfair and even had them here in London, at Mexican restaurant Wahaca.

Churros are often served with a hot chocolate dipping sauce. It's so thick you have to eat it with a spoon if you have any left over, so rich that you'll probably regret it if you do. So I decided to make a similarly thick, chocolatey sauce, flavouring it slightly with coffee because coffee and doughnuts is one of my favourite clichés.

I prefer my doughnuts dusted with cinnamon and sugar, but you could easily whip up a glaze for these, using icing sugar and a little water. Maybe also a little cocoa if you like chocolate glazed doughnuts.

The only unfortunate thing about this recipe is you really do have to have a doughnut pan to make ring doughnuts. There's no other way it will work. If you don't, they will be just as delicious in cupcake cases, especially if you brush the tops with butter and then dunk them in your bowl of cinnamon sugar.

You will need:

For the doughnuts:
150g plain flour
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp lemon juice
75g caster sugar plus enough to dust all the doughnuts
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp butter, cubed, plus extra to brush over
65ml milk, heated until small bubbles appear
65ml plain yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 beaten egg
a piping bag

For the sauce:
200ml double cream
200g dark chocolate
2 tsp instant espresso or strong coffee powder (I used Azera)
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and grease your doughnut tin with butter.

2. Sift together the flour, sugar, salt, bicarbonate of soda and nutmeg. Add the cubed butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

3. Make a well in the middle of the mixture and add the wet ingredients. Fold until just combined.

4. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag and fill each doughnut hole about two thirds full, then bake for eight to ten minutes until risen and light golden brown.

5. While the doughnuts are baking, set the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Give a stir every now and then until the chocolate melts and the mixture is uniform in colour, then remove from the heat and set aside.

6. Put your cinnamon and extra caster sugar in a small bowl and mix well to combine. Melt your extra butter, brush a doughnut all over with it, then dunk it in the cinnamon sugar - first one side then the other - and place on a cooling rack or sheet of greaseproof paper. Repeat this process with each doughnut, pausing to reheat the butter if it solidifies.

7. Serve the doughnuts with the chocolate dipping sauce (and some napkins, it might get messy).

Really, really good. And small enough to be a little bit of what you fancy without being as calorie and fat-laden as your average Krispy Kreme.

Unless, you know, you eat the whole batch yourself. I won't judge you.

Happy baking!

Ellie
xxx

Swirly Vanilla and Jam Cupcakes

Cupcakes are how I got into baking. It crept up on me - my parents bought me a cupcake recipe book and all of a sudden I was "the girl who makes all the cakes". That became my thing.

An afternoon on a cupcake decorating course and I was unstoppable. I made coffee cupcakes, vanilla cupcakes, chocolate and mint cupcakes, even banoffee cupcakes. And then, suddenly, I hit a wall.

If you're an athlete, you might know how it feels. You feel that you can't go on. Your legs are leaden, your muscles are jelly. You simply cannot lift another whisk or fill another piping bag.

I'm exaggerating. A bit. But I was sick of the sight of cupcakes, sick of the taste of buttercream and most of all, sick of baking them.

Luckily, by now I was into all things baking, so I turned my attention to bread and other things for a while. By the time I returned to cupcakes, I was able to make them without totally freaking out and crying because I'd run out of icing sugar. I still don't eat them very often because they are very very sweet and sometimes make me feel sick and give me a cake headache. It feels much like a hangover.

But cupcakes are trendy, cupcakes are pretty and they are not that difficult either. Put them in a white cardboard box (easily obtainable from eBay), tie some colourful ribbon around and they make a perfect present.

I've been dying to use my duo icing set (thank you, Lakeland) so a friend's birthday gave me the perfect opportunity to crack out my cupcake skills to make something both tasty and decorative.

It's easy, you can do it to. Come on, I'll show you how. This recipe makes a batch of 12 jam-filled vanilla cupcakes.

You will need:

For the cakes:
250g caster sugar
250g butter
250g plain flour
3 medium eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 jar seedless jam in your favourite flavour (fruit curd would also work)
12 cupcake cases
12-hole cupcake or muffin tray

For the icing:

3 large egg whites

250g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

300g softened butter

1 tbsp jam or fruit curd from the jar you are using for the cakes
duo icing set (optional)
OR
normal piping bag fitted with star nozzle
OR
palette knife or baking spatula

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and put the cupcake cases in the baking tray. Beat together the butter and caster sugar for the cakes until light and fluffy.

2. Weigh out the flour for the cakes and beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a tbsp of flour with each one to ensure the mixture does not curdle.

3. Add the vanilla, baking powder and mix in, then fold in the rest of the flour.

4. Distribute the mixture evenly between the cases and bake for 10-15 minutes until risen and golden brown. Take out of the baking tray and leave to cool.

5. Prepare the icing by setting a large bowl above a pan of barely simmering water and whisking the egg whites and caster sugar until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and whisk to stiff peaks (I often use a handheld electric whisk or even my standing mixer to do this).

6. Add the softened butter, a bit at a time to the bowl whilst continuing to whisk. When the mixture reaches a point of being stiff enough to pipe, stop and if you're using a duo icing set, divide icing into two equal halves.

7. If you are using a duo icing set add a tbsp of jam to one half of the icing and beat until uniform in colour. Then fill your icing bag with the jammy icing on one side and normal on the other. If you are not using a duo icing set add a tbsp of jam to the icing and swirl through so the mixture is streaky rather than uniform in colour. Then put in your icing bag.

8. When your cupcakes have cooled, cut a hole in the middle with an apple corer or small, sharp knife. Warm the remainder of your jam gently in the microwave or in a saucepan over a low heat until it is runnier in consistency. Spoon jam into the holes in your cupcakes with a teaspoon until they are all filled.

9. When the jam in your cupcakes has cooled and set, pipe a little splodge of icing in the middle. Then, starting from the inner edge of your cupcake case, pipe a spiral of icing. You should pipe inwards and upwards and just lower your nozzle slightly before lifting it away from the peak of the cake to break the icing away from the nozzle.

You're done! Step 10 is to have a nice sit down and bask in the reflected glory of your cupcakes.

Mmm, glory.

More baking soon,

Ellie
xxx

Fluffy Scotch Pancakes

This recipe isn't quite baking. Like the crumpets I made a few weeks ago, it involves making a batter, using bicarbonate of soda as a raising agent and then cooking said batter in a frying pan.

"But this is supposed to be a baking blog," is what you're saying now, in a rather whiny tone. Look at my face. Is this the face of a woman who cares about your narrow definition of the word 'baking'? No, this is the face of a woman who wants to eat pancakes.

Usually on Pancake Day I would go for the humble crepe, no questions asked. A French style pancake, crisp round the edges and dressed in lemon and sugar is still my favourite. But it's also what I have every year, so I decided to make scotch pancakes this year. I'm glad I did, even if it means I didn't get to showcase my skills as a champion tosser.

A tosser of pancakes, that is.

There are the last of my batch of pancakes, which I finished Friday morning with a drizzle of honey, blueberries and my daily americano. They very nearly made up for getting up at 6:30 to do the early shift at work. Nearly.

Like crumpets, scotch pancakes are something you can either eat warm from the pan or keep and refresh in the toaster before serving. I'd recommend eating them with maple or golden syrup, honey, fruit or just butter. This recipe makes 6 and is based on a recipe by Nigella Lawson.

You will need:
110g plain flour
150ml milk
half a tsp white wine vinegar or lemon juice
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 egg
1 tbsp olive oil

1. Put the milk and vinegar into a jug and whisk in the egg and oil.

2. Weigh out the flour and whisk into the wet ingredients along with the bicarbonate of soda.

3. Leave uncovered for 20-30 minutes, then whisk again.

4. Heat a large frying pan over a medium flame without oil and use a ladle and the jug to ladle large dollops of batter into the pan, spreading them quickly into 6-8cm circles with the back of the ladle.

5. When bubbles appear in the pancakes and the undersides are golden brown, flip them with a spatula and cook until the other side is the same golden brown.

6. Serve.

Easy, quick and results in pancakes that are crisp on the outside with a warm fluffy centre. Lovely!

I will bake 'properly' again soon, promise.

Ellie
xxx

Raspberry Mousse Heart Cakes

I rather think I aired my grievances about Valentine's Day a couple of years ago on this same blog, so I won't go into it now.

Let's just say I never pass up an opportunity to make cake. There's a charity bake sale at work tomorrow so I have dutifully churned out nearly 20 of these little cakes.

Aren't they cute? You know they are. And surprisingly easy to make. You may in fact recognise some of this recipe from my raspberry and chocolate entremets, which I made for French patisserie week of the Great British Bake Off. Bake smart, not hard.

I ended up with a lot of raspberry mousse left over - it is lovely by itself or with the remaining cake bits after you've cut out your heart-shaped sponges.

You will need:

For the sponge:

250g softened butter

250g caster sugar

4 medium eggs

200g plain flour

50g cocoa

1 tsp baking powder

A splash of milk, if needed

2 shallow rectangular baking trays, lined

small heart-shaped biscuit cutter

For the mousse:

225g raspberries

1 sachet gelatine or vege-gel

500ml double cream

70g icing sugar

1 piping bag or cone of greaseproof paper

To decorate:

handful of raspberries

icing sugar, to dust

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream together the butter and caster sugar with a wooden spoon.

2. Weigh out the cocoa, flour and mix together with the baking powder. Begin beating the eggs in one at a time, adding a tablespoon of dry ingredients with each egg to stop the mixture from curdling.

3. Fold in the remaining flour and if the mixture is slightly stiff (it should ribbon off the spatula or spoon) beat in a little milk to loosen the mixture.

4. Split the batter across the two baking trays and spread it evenly with a spatula or palette knife. The mixture will look thin but don't panic - we want that.

5. Bake the sponge for 8-10 minutes until risen and cooked through (check the middle particularly carefully) and leave to cool.

6. While the sponge is cooling, mix together the raspberries, gelling agent and icing sugar for the mousse together in a own and leave to simmer for 10 minutes over a medium heat.

7. When the mixture has simmered down to a fruity red liquid, force it through a sieve to remove all the pips.

8. Meanwhile, whip the cream for the mousse to soft peaks.

9. Once the raspberry mixture is lukewarm, fold it into the cream until fully combined.

10. By now the sponge should be cold. Use the biscuit cutter to cut heart shaped sponge layers out of it. 

11. Place the biscuit cutter on top of a sponge heart and use the piping bag or greaseproof paper to fill the space with mousse, then smooth it down with the back of a teaspoon and carefully lift off the cutter. Repeat until half the sponge hearts are topped with mousse.

12. Put the remaining sponge hearts on top of the mousse layers on the other sponge hearts, forming sandwiches with mousse as the filling. Scatter around some raspberries on the serving plate and dust with icing sugar.

There you have it. A perfect romantic treat and if you're single, all that means is there's no one to judge you when you scoff three in a row.

As this recipe contains fresh cream, remember to refrigerate your cakes if you're not eating them straight away and eat within a couple of days. If they hang around that long. 

Happy Valentine's Day,

Ellie

xxx

Orange Blossom and Pistachio Madeleines

Those of you who know me well will know that I have a weakness for baking equipment. Is that cake tin an inch smaller/bigger than all my others? I want it. Did I see that spatula on the Great British Bake Off? Gimme. Does that implement fill a need I never knew I had? Mine.

So when I went into Lakeland with a £5 voucher that required me to spend £30 to use it, there was only one way it was going to end.

Expensively.

I bought a duo icing set, which allows you to pipe 2 colours at once (2! There is a God!), a small cake tin, a cake lifter (don't ask), some posh flavourings, a madeleine tin and some other bits and pieces.

I won't tell you how much it all cost, but rest assured it was too much. Reeling out of the shop in slight shock, I decided I'd better start making use of my new equipment straight away. I promptly went home and made a batch of madeleines.

They were a great success - light, fluffy with the distinctive shell shape of a classic madeleine.

But I love to meddle with things that already work. My motto is less "if it ain't broke don't fix it" than "if it ain't broke cover it in icing. It is broke? Cover it in more icing!"

So I have meddled around a bit in the kitchen and this is what I came up with - orange blossom and pistachio madeleines. That's the recipe I'm giving you, if you want to make plain madeleines I used Michel Roux Jr's recipe. If you aren't lucky enough to own a madeleine tray then use a muffin tray.

Quick tip for skinning the pistachios - cover them in boiling water, leave for 2 minutes then drain and rub with kitchen towel - the skins should slip off. If your madeleine tray is the same as mine this will make around 30 madeleines.

You will need:
150g butter, melted and then cooled slightly (still fully liquid) plus extra to grease
100g plain flour plus extra to dust
100g caster sugar
100g pistachio nuts, skinned and chopped finely
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp orange blossom essence
2 medium eggs
icing sugar, to dust

1. Prepare your tray by greasing it with melted butter and dusting liberally with flour, tilting the tray to get flour into all the corners.

2. Whisk together the caster sugar and eggs until frothy.

3. Whisk in the remaining ingredients (except icing sugar) and leave to stand for 20 minutes. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 200C.

4. Whisk the mixture again then drop a heaped teaspoon of the mixture into each madeleine mould.

5. Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown and risen. Dust liberally with icing sugar and serve.

How easy was that? I'll show you the other side of the madeleines too, which should have a little peak in the centre.

Apart from their elegance, simplicity and tastiness there is another reason I enjoy madeleines. The eating of madeleines allows me to make a literary allusion. In his book "In Search of Lost Time" Marcel Proust refers to an incident when the sensory experience of eating a madeleine dipped in tea suddenly and involuntarily makes him remember doing the same thing during his childhood.

I had to read this book for my English literature undergraduate and although I found it pretty boring, I have since always enjoyed referring to eating a madeleine as a Proustian moment, when I know full well that a Proustian moment is actually a moment of involuntary memory. It allows me to show off about being well read while wilfully using a well known phrase for my own, wicked, cakey means.

And now, I am off to have a Proustian moment with one of these madeleines and a cup of tea.

Au revoir,

Ellie
xxx