Fruit tart

Dear all,

A few weeks ago I made a simple fruit tart to bring to a friend's house. It had a basic shortbread type base and I made an orange rind custard to go in it. Because I had to travel with the cake I brought the fruit seperately and a little helper put the finished touches to the cake!



Here is my little helper arranging the strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and thingy berries (forgot what they're called) on the cake!! That fruit sure is delicious!



And here is the finished product. Boy does that look good! Almost looks healthy...



I had some pastry and fruit leftover so I made individual tartlets to take to work with me. Pretty cute right? (and in the background the pastry base for the big cake which I messed up haha!).

xoxo Jennifer

Birthday Boy Cake

Dear all,

Today I made a birthday cake for a little boy who will turn 6 years old. I don't know the boy, so I made the cake based on information given to me by his aunt. I'm quite pleased how this cake turned out! It's been a while since I've done such an elaborate cake, it was really fun! I really hope the kid likes it too XD So with no further ado, here is the Disney Cars inspired cake:



The shape of the cake, as you can see, is a number 6. Now you can't just bake a 6 (well I don't have the baking tin for that anyway) so I made it out of two cakes. A round one and a square one. I cut the top part out of the square cake. As you can see I had oven trouble (again) but I did cut that slightly darker part off anyway. All part of evening out the cakes so worked out perfectly. After cutting the cakes to the same height etc. I stuck together and covered the cakes with dark chocolate ganache which I had made 2 days before. The cakes were made 1 day before decorating (yesterday for me).



I had never used ganache before because I never got my act together (has to be made 24 hours in advance, at least). But I LOVED using it. It is so much easier, and nicer, than butter cream icing. I warmed it up in the microwave slightly to soften, and as I was spreading it onto the cakes it started solidifying again. Perfect. Because by the time I had covered the whole cake it was solid enough to start evening out. Smoothing out the ganache makes for a smoother finish with the fondant icing.



And here we have the fondant icing! I started with just white icing. I'm getting better at this fondant icing bit as well, less holes/mishaps! To create the 'Finish Flag' effect I used squares of black icing. Gosh that took forever! (the squares are apprx. 1x1cm). With the same black icing I made a road on top with a roundabout idea.






And here are some pictures of the finished product! Including Lightening McQueen from Cars himself! He passed the finish line and went straight for the winners podium. Well done McQueen!



Happy Birthday Sheayan! I hope you have an amazing 6th birthday!! (and that you enjoy my cake, haha).

xoxo Jennifer

Chocolate Pear

Dear all,

I've not only been trying out new dinner recipes, I've also been looking at different desserts. This was a particularly nice one: chocolate and almond pears. Wowie!



I halved pears, took out the seeds and a bit of the flesh. Mix almond biscuits, flaked almonds and some chocolate, and you have a lovely filling.



Twenty minutes in the oven and there's heaven!



Originally this recipe was meant to be made with peaches. With peaches being out of season, pears were the perfect replacement. In fact, I think I won't bother with the peaches. Pears are the thing!

xoxo Jennifer

Beef Noodle

Dear all,

Lately I've been trying lots of new recipes. This one was particularly yummy:





Omnomnom!

xoxo Jennifer

Apple Pie

Dear all,

Sometimes apple pie and custard is just exactly what you need. And so it shall be!



Made with a lovely light pastry with a bit of lemon zest for a citrussy twist. So good!



xoxo Jennifer