Jam Biscuits

Dear all,

There's been rather a lot of cake going around lately, so this week I would like to share these cute biscuits I made with you. I call them: Jam Biscuits (how original, ey?).

Using special shape cutters I made the bottom and the top layer of these double decker biscuits.


Once baked and cooled, I dusted them with icing sugar.



The result? Super cute, sweet and sticky Jam Biscuits. Tadaa!



xoxo Jennifer

Appreciation

Dear all,

Some people have said I should go into baking as a profession (although I'm nowhere near good enough) but for me it will always be a happy. Baking makes me haphttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifpy and watching other people enjoy what I make, makes me even happier. And what made me extra super duper happy is a little token of appreciation from my friend Roxy. This is why I do what I do:





xoxo Jennifer

Guinness cake

Dear all,

A while ago my brother came to see my new house. Of course the kitchen etc. had to be tested, and what better way than a Nigella Lawson Guinness Cake? I mention Nigella, because she is awesome, and everyone should know about it. This Guinness cake is the best chocolate cake I have ever had. By far. And so I must share it with you!

For all you Guinness lovers out there, this may hurt a little. Blasphemy number 1: heating the Guinness. Number two, adding butter!



Blasphemy number 3 and 4: adding sugar and then mixing it in with all the other ingredients.



All is forgiven, for here is the cake. There are not enough superlatives to describe this cake, I promise. It is topped off with a thick layer of cream cheese icing, reminiscent of the thick layer of foam on a real pint.




To make it a real Guinness cake, I did my best to draw the Guinness logo in the cream cheese icing, just like you sometimes see on the drink itself!




And then here it is: if that doesn't look like a cake shaped pit of Guinness then I don't know what to think anymore! The hue of the cake is exactly that of Guinness (though of course it doesn't taste like Guinness anymore, the only clue is the slightly malty after taste to this cake). Bravo Nigella, and bravo me (of course!).



Don't believe me? Try it yourself: GUINNESS CAKE

xoxo Jennifer

Coconut-Lemon cake

Dear all,

This week I would like to show you a runner-up for the 80th birthday cake competition. This coconut and lemon cake unfortunately did not make it to the final cut, I couldn't get the balance right I felt, but I couldn't dismiss it completely. Here it is:

Getting my (new!) kitchen ready:









Then mixing the eggs etc until the lot doubles in size:



Tadaa 2 lemon coconuts cake cooling down! Time to make the lemon custard and lemon/coconut icing to fill and cover the cake:






Finally time to put the whole thing together, starting to look good.







And there it is, all done. I wasn't too happy about the density of the cake, or how the lemon custard etc turned out. I will have to have a few more go's at this cake to get it right, because in essence I think it's a great cake. Especially as it was a bit different to what I normally do (chocolaaatteee). Better luck next time!

xoxo Jennifer

80th Birthday Cake pt. 2

Dear all,

Last week I promised to show you the four-layer chocolate cake, so here it is! Putting this cake together is quite a trick, so I'll try to show you how I did it:

First up of course: getting things ready! I got a greaty recipe stand a while ago which is extremely handy. Now this cake requires baking 4 different cakes, in 2 batches.





Next is putting the lot together. The cake goes from vanilla to chocolate, so to get the right effect I needed to stick them togehter (with chocolate spread) in the right order.





Last, but certainly not least, covering the whole thing in chocolate! I made a kind of chocolate ganache with milk and dark chocolate (which to start off with was a little runny - the day I made the cake for Steve the ganache worked out better; the pictures above are from my test run at home ;) )



Although this towering chocolate cake is already pretty impressive in itself, I added some decorations (chocolate mocca beans and tiny gold balls) to finish it off for the day itself. Here is the result (With Steve cutting the cake after his speech)



Now, you are of course all wondering what this four layer business is. Feast your chocolate-loving eyes on this:



Pretty impressive I think! This cake looks great and isn't hard to make. It's all a bit time consuming, but SO worthwhile. Loved it (and so did everyone else. I even converted a couple non-chocolate-cake-believers!).

See you again next week for Coconut-Lemon cake, yum!

xoxo Jennifer