A Cake for the Parliamentary Princess

Last week there was a birthday in the office - it was the lovely Amy's birthday. Amy is generally known as the Parliamentary Princess because she is a whizz at managing all of the Parliamentary briefs and papers, and we all depend very much on her.

When it came to making a cake, obviously it had to be a cake fit for a princess... so I made a crown cake!

This design is borrowed from the amazing Paris Cutler of Planet Cake. Her original design was for a circular cake, and the increased space gave room for the letters 'PRINCESS' to be spelt out underneath the crown. However, because I wanted to go with a gluten free, dairy free orange syrup cake that tends to sink in the middle, I went for a loaf shape that would be easier to reverse top to bottom to get a flat top.

Instead of chocolate ganache as a base for the icing, I used very dark (70%) chocolate, melted and poured straight onto the cooled cake. I fiddled with it as little as possible, just leaving it to find its level. It took about an hour to firm up in the fridge. The chocolate tasted really lovely as a coating for the cake, but it made the cake really hard to cut!

Meanwhile I prepared the fondant by kneading in some pink gel colouring.

 

When I started on the crown, I made it in white and planned to coat it in some food-grade gold leaf flakes that I had in the cupboard but had never used. (Paris's design called for gold shimmer dust but I didn't have any.)

But when I tried to apply the gold flakes it was a bit of a disaster. They wouldn't stick on, and when I tried to moisten the surface of the icing to help the adherence, the flakes just rolled up into sticky chunks.

I abandoned the effort and remade the crown in yellow fondant, which worked quite well. The crown was hand cut and hand shaped - I didn't use a stencil, but you could if you wanted.

In the pic you can see the gold leaf experiment in the background and the new yellow crown in the foreground. 

I also made some little stars with a small cutter as additional decoration.

After rolling out the pink fondant and covering the entire top and sides of the cake, I rolled out some thin strips of white fondant, and created 'frills' by running a balling tool down one side (this thins out the fondant on that side and stretches it slightly so it is both thinner and more curvy).

Then, using a little water, I stuck these ribbons in a looped formation around the edges of the top, and finished them off by fixing a flat 'ribbon' at their edges, to hide the messy edge where they joined the pink icing.

I stuck the crown and stars on with a little water, and hey presto! Happy birthday Parliamentary Princess!!

Macaroon disasters, disorganisation and a rather nice orange syrup cake

Dr Cupcake has moved house!!

This may sound joyful and exciting, but the effect on Dr Cupcake's cakey experiments has been less exciting. Regrettably I have been too busy packing boxes to make many sweet things. Some may be interested to know that my baking, icing and decorating equipment took about 5 boxes to transport, not including a very large box which arrived from Mum with a vintage Kenwood Chef (like a Kitchen Aid Mixer), which was duly polished and is now on the new kitchen bench. 

Coincidentally, I received this image in an email full of vintage 'inappropriate' ads the same week my vintage Kenwood arrived. Joy!



The Raspberry Macaroon Disaster
The week before I moved, I somehow thought that it would be a good idea, in amongst the chaos, to try making raspberry macaroons for the first time. I blame my cousin David who saw my blog on coffee macaroons and asked for directions on raspberry. I can never resist a challenge and being a bit OVER confident by now (after making lots of coffee and chocolate and even pistachio macaroons), I decided to 'throw a few things together' and come up with my own raspberry macaroon recipe.


Turns out over confidence and inexperience is a bad mix. Who knew?

raspberry 'granita' added to the tant pour tant mix

I used frozen raspberries because they are not in season and decided to simply process them in a blender when they were still frozen, to make a kind of raspberry granita. In my ignorance I assumed that this would blend seamlessly into the base mixture of ground almonds, sugar and italian meringue (see my previous posts for a how-to). And indeed as you can see from this pic, it looked like it would work.

I was very grumpy.

In an early sign that things would not proceed to plan, Mr Plums jumped up on the table and somehow managed to flick a tray of just-piped macaroon circles onto himself. 

Having dumped the feline-affected tray, I put the two remaining trays into the oven to bake.

so far they looked normal...

Things now seemed to be going ok...

...right up until I removed them from the oven.

... And what I saw was horrible. Instead of smooth, glossy meringues with a hard surface and a little rough 'foot', I had created nasty, dusty pink circles which were sticky, foamy and not set at all.

 'Maybe,' I thought hopefully, 'they will taste a lot nicer than they look.' But you know, they didn't. They were glutinous, stodgy and dull, with a strongish, too-sweet, raspberry jam flavour.

I do know when to call it a day, so they all went straight into the bin. However by that time I had already started on the filling - a white chocolate and raspberry ganache.

raspberry puree added to white choc ganache

Ironically this turned out quite well. I had a white chocolate ganache which I melted down, and added pureed raspberries.

I thought (especially after the day I'd had) that the raspberries would make the ganache seize, as chocolate usually does when exposed to water based substances, but no - the ganache tolerated the raspberries well and I was able to stir them in to create a smooth, pink, slightly speckled mixture.











Sadly I had no use for it, so I consigned it to the freezer, which caused me no end of problems when I moved. I had to somehow keep it frozen through defrosting my old fridge and two hours in the car to get it into the fridge at the new house. When I have recovered a little from the galling disappointment of my raspberry macaroon experiment I will look up a recipe, make better raspberry macaroons and I'll have a ready made filling.

The Coffee Macaroon Disaster
At the new house the kitchen is not yet organised and we have the happy problem of having too many appliances to work with. The new/old Kenwood Chef made me all excited so I whipped up a batch of my favorite coffee macaroons, using the Kenwood instead of my usual electric hand held beater.

You'll notice there are no pics in this section? I was too depressed to take any pics, for reasons that will become all too clear. 

Carpe Kenwoodem! (beware of the Kenwood) Not being used to this newfangled all-in-one thing, I did not scrape down the sides and base of the bowl enough, and my egg whites foamed unevenly - some bits were stiff peak, some were not even soft peak and a big scrape and stir at the very end did not fix it.

In addition to that, instead of using my trusty food processor to whizz the ground almonds and icing sugar in, to make them absolutely smooth, I firstly forgot to whizz them at all and went straight to sieving them - only remembering I'd left out a step when I noticed how rough they looked. Then I discovered that my food processor was still in a box somewhere, so I pulled out Mr Cupcake's blender thingy, which I have never used before, and used that instead... but again I didn't quite have the knack, and ended with a rougher texture.

Their appearance upon leaving the oven was ... well, not disastrous exactly, but not great. Their surfaces were a bit bumply and pimply, and they were not well risen - their little feet were very small and they were flatter than they should have been.

I then proceeded to make them worse by absentmindedly using salted butter, instead of unsalted, in the buttercream filling.

WHY OH WHY?!??!

Let's leave the coffee macaroons there and reflect on the wisdom of FOLLOWING RECIPES.

A slightly better experience with poached pears
I feel a bit better about bringing poached pears in to work two weeks ago.

These particular pears were picked fresh from the garden and brought to work by the generous Liz. A big bag of them sat in the work kitchen for a few days. They were such a lovely size, about the size of a golf ball, and I thought they would look pretty if poached in red wine.

 I got a bottle of The Accomplice for six bucks, and poured it into a small saucepan, heating it to simmering with a cinnamon stick, some whole cloves and about four big spoonsful of castor sugar. Then I peeled the pears, keeping them whole, and slid them into the poaching mixture.












They simmered for about half an hour, after which I took them out and passed the poaching liquid through a sieve, then returned it to the pan and added more sugar, turning the heat to high until it reduced by about two thirds. Be careful because it tends to boil up dramatically.

This syrup can then be poured over the pears when serving. Because I was taking them to work, I rested each pear on a cupcake bed and poured the syrup over in advance. But these are best when served warm on a plate with a big dollop of pure cream. Yum!

Orange Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

I make this orange cake a lot because it's really easy, quick and keeps well in the fridge. I admit I have been known to eat a slice for breakfast, but please don't tell Mr Cupcake that because he would disown me.

The annoying thing about this cake is that it sinks dramatically in the middle during baking. You can do nothing to prevent this, so the best way around it is to reverse the cake once out of the oven, and use the bottom as the top. Once decorated with a thick swathe of icing it looks quite passable.

You can also make this as cupcakes, and either put something on the top of the cupcakes to hide the dip (like the pears I described above which fitted neatly into the dip) or reverse the cupcakes too and ice the 'bottom'. To do this you need to make them without paper cases - just grease the tin, and line the bottoms of the cupcake moulds with a small circle of greased baking paper to aid in getting the cakes out cleanly.










(Quantity for one loaf cake or 10-12 cupcakes)

3 eggs
100 g ground almonds
50 g castor sugar
1 tsp baking powder
175g orange marmalade
Icing:
100g (more or less) cream cheese (I use the Philadelphia tub variety)
Juice of half a lemon
150g icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180 C.
Beat the eggs on high speed for five minutes or so - they should be pale and creamy, and form the ribbon. Mix all the dry ingredients together and stir into the eggs until well combined, then stir in the marmalade. Pour the mixture into the tin/s - it will be foamy and sloppy.
Bake for 30 mins (15 mins for cupcakes) - the cake will rise, then sink.
To check if it's cooked, insert a long skewer into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is ready.
For the icing: Put the icing sugar into a bowl and add about 100g of cream cheese, then beat to combine. Add the lemon juice and test for flavour and consistency. For a stiffer icing, add more icing sugar. Spread onto the cake when cake is cold.

Making Easter Cupcakes with Sally Alps

My Easter present to myself was a cupcake decorating class with Sally Alps of Alps & Amici in Launceston... yum yum yum.

Sally does an awesome job of keeping Tasmania supplied with the most intricate, imaginative and brilliant cupcakes. She is also a great teacher and runs regular courses on how to decorate fondant cakes and cupcakes. Pictured on the left are the three patterns we learnt to make in the Easter cupcake course.

Sally demonstrated each technique first....

... Then we sat down at our places and had a look through everything that was laid out for us: full instructions, ready-coloured fondant, three cupcakes which were already ganached, and equipment including a rolling pin, knife and spatula.

First up we made an Easter basket. The cupcake is covered in a pastel shade - I chose blue, but green and pink were also popular choices.

Then we cut a small circle of brown fondant for the base of the Easter basket, and rolled a very very long roll of brown fondant to make the basket weave. It was nearly as hard as actually weaving a real bloody basket.
'Yeah right' you're thinking, 'how difficult can it be to make a sausage roll shape?' ... okay, YOU try making one that's 30cm long and the same smooth diameter at every point. :-(

After passing the 'sausage challenge', we used the roll to make the sides and handle of the basket.

When the handle was stuck in place it started to look okay!

Next, using a dab of royal icing, we stuck a few little eggs in the basket. These were pre-made for us from fondant but you could also use small candy eggs.

Using a little roll of bright green fondant snipped with scissors, we made tufts of grass to nestle against the basket.

To finish off, Sally provided some pre-made flowers. These needed to be pre-made because they take a while to dry - however, when Sally demonstrated the technique she used to make them, they were so logical and so quick that I am keen to make a stack myself and store them.

This is my finished Easter basket yay!

Everyone had different results - all looked great. It's interesting to see the extent to which one pattern can be interpreted in so many different ways and come out looking quite different.

This is another student's basket.

Next we started on the Easter Bunny cupcake. His ears needed to be made first because they required drying time. We rolled and hand cut two oblongs of white fondant and two smaller pink fondant oblongs. These were ten stuck together and pierced with florist's wire to about two thirds of the way up, and one ear was bent over in a flopsy bunny kind of way.

There were plenty of boob jokes flying around at the next stage. We rolled two small balls of fondant and stuck them directly on the top of the cupcake, then rolled and cut out a large circle and stuck it on the top. Although it definitely looks booby at this stage, this is actually the bunny's chubby cheeks. You'll see.

We smoothed the fondant down very carefully - this was the first time I had covered unusual shapes and I was really pleased with how elastic the fondant covering was, so it was quite easy to get a really smooth finish.
Then we cut two small white circles and two smaller black circles for the eyes, taking a little half moon off each so that they could sit right into the 'chubby cheeks'.
We hand-cut the teeth - sort of a V shape so they could sit right up into the cheeks as well.

We dusted the cheeks with a little rose petal dust (see my previous posts for this magical stuff that puts a beautiful blush in fondant cheeks), and used some cake flower stamens as whiskers.

Then all that was left was to stick the ears on, using the end of the florist's wire, and hoppy hoppy, there's the bunny!!

*Trap for young players: I always feel a bit nervous using non-edible equipment in cakes. These have wire in the ears and whiskers - take care if gifting to children!

It would be fair to say that everybody was pretty happy with their bunnies.

The third pattern we did was hatching chickens in eggs, but I am going to write about that separately.

By the time it got to the end of the class, there were intricately-decorated cupcakes just about everywhere.

It was fantastic to be part of a group who were all totally focused on cupcaking. I will say that every member of this group was female. What, boys don't like cupcakes or something??

At the end of the class we proudly gazed at our decorated cupcakes and took them home to be guzzled by (hopefully grateful) spouses, children, flatmates etc.


Thanks Sally for a fantastic Easter experience!

Hatching chicken cupcakes for Easter

Little chicks bursting out of white 'egg' cupcakes... Yes, Easter is here and Dr Cupcake is celebrating!

These little chicks have a cheeky look to them and they're full of character, but surprisingly simple to make, Sitting on top of a chocolate mud cupcake, they make for a festive Easter.

Thanks to Sally Alps of Alps & Amici for this lovely design.

To start, ganache your cupcake so that you have a flat smooth surface (see previous posts). Then roll and cut a small white fondant circle and stick it in the middle of your cupcake, using a drop of water to fix it in place. It doesn't matter if the edges aren't perfect, because these will be covered. Coat the top of the circle with cornflour - you can see a thick sprinkle of cornflour in this pic.

Then cut a larger circle out of white fondant and lay it on top of the cupcake, pressing down gently around the double-thickness circle in the middle, and burnishing the edges carefully with a piece of hard plastic (see previous posts). You will end up with a white fondant-topped cupcake which looks smooth but has a raised circular shape in the centre due to the double thickness of the fondant.

Now take a small sharp knife and make a straight cut through the double thickness circle in the middle.

Then make another cut at right angles to it, so that you have cut a cross.

Using the edge of the knife blade, gently prise the corners of the top layer of fondant up and fold them back a little so that they stick up into the air. This is your 'cracked eggshell'.

If the white base underneath is cut or marked don't panic because the chicken will be sitting on that bit so you won't see it.

Next roll a ball of yellow fondant and cut one side of it off with a sharp knife so that you have a flat surface at the base. Stick this into the 'egg' with a drop of water. This is the chicken's body.















Roll a smaller ball of yellow fondant for the chicken's head and stick it to the body with a drop of water. Be careful not to use too much water or you'll end up with a very sticky chicken.

Get a tiny piece of orange fondant and roll a little cone shape between your thumb and forefinger. Cut the cone off at its base with a small knife - it should be about 2mm long.

Then take a slightly larger piece of orange fondant and make a comb for the chicken's head. This starts off as a flattish sort of oblong shape. Stand the oblong up horizontally, so that one of its sides flattens out to form a base. Then use a small pair of scissors (sterilised nail scissors or barber's scissors are good) to snip into the other side of the oblong, like in this pic. When finished, carefully position the comb on the chicken's head and fix with a very tiny drop of water.

Paint two tiny black dots for eyes, using black food colouring or an edible food pen in Jet Black (available from cake decorating stores).
In this pic, I have done the eyes of the front chicken but he has not yet got his comb on. The chickens at the back have obviously been distracted by something happening off camera to the left.

Hey presto Easter chickens hatching out of pure white eggs!

A small tip, it helps if your cupcakes are quite domed on top - mostly I aim for flat topped cupcakes, but these seem more 'eggy' if they are rounded.

You could have all sorts of creatures hatching from these eggs (if it wasn't Easter of course). I've seen some awesome Paris Cutler designs of baby dinosaurs hatching.

 As we know, it's not all about fondant. Sometimes there's room for old fashioned glace icing (especially when you're doing gluten free orange and almond cakes that sink in the middle and don't give you a flat surface).

These little cakes are iced with a lemon glace icing (lemon juice and icing sugar stirred to a stiff paste) with a little yellow colouring added.

The icing was piped on using a star nozzle to get a slightly 'nestlike' shape, and the eggs pressed into the icing while it was still soft.

I used some pretty little milk chocolate eggs that were a quick purchase from the supermarket. I loved the speckles and the soft eggshell like colours.

Happy Easter, may the Easter Bunny be generous and not lead you on too exhausting an Easter Egg Hunt. :-)