Lemon and Lime Sponge cake

Lemon and Lime Sponge Cake

I creamed together butter and sugar before adding 3 eggs. Next I added the zest of 1 lime and ½ a lemon as well as the juice of the lime. After sifting in flour and baking powder I baked it for 25 minutes. When it was golden brown I removed it from the oven and began making the lemon buttercream. I mixed butter, lemon curd and icing sugar together to create stiff peaks before covering the cool cake. To finish, I chopped crystallised lemon rind and sprinkled on top.

Crystallised Lemon Rind

Summer Beach Cupcakes

The summer beach cupcakes

   I began by making a simple cake mixture and adding coconut to give the cakes a summer taste. Whilst the cakes were cooling, I prepared the decorations by rolling out red, white and pink fondant icing. With the red, I rolled it thinly and cut out four rounded rectangles before re-rolling. This time I used a calyx cutter and pressed out 3 fat ‘star’ shapes.  

The starfish!

I then mixed red food colouring with the white icing to make pink before rolling and pressing a veining tool into the icing to create a shell pattern. With a knife I carefully cut out 2 of these shells. Lastly, I used white icing to roll out very thin and small tubes and glued these onto the red rectangles to make flip flops. 

The seaside accessories

 After giving texture to the starfish with a toothpick and sprinkling them in glitter I set about assembling the cakes. I make a sea blue buttercream and covered the top of the cakes with one side thicker than the other. Then I used light muscavado sugar as sand and sprinkled this over half of the cakes. To finish, I laid the fondant shapes onto the cupcakes ready to eat!

Chocolate dipped biscuits

The chocolate dipped biscuits

   I followed a new recipe today and in the creaming process I used icing sugar instead of caster sugar to make the biscuit softer. I then added the flour and vanilla essence before rolling the dough into small balls before flattening. They were baked for 20 minutes until a golden brown on the edges. When they were cool I dipped half of each biscuit in melted white chocolate to finish the biscuits.