Birthday cakes for a baker

A lot of people assume that I must be sick of cake by now, that I no longer appreciate cake and that the last thing I want for my birthday is my own cake. But you know what, they'd be wrong! I LOVE cake and even though I work with (or around it) every day, I never cease to crave a piece of sweet cakey goodness at the end of a long day.

I do have a dark secret about cake though. I loved boxed cake mix! As an USA ex-pat, every year I treat myself to some American treats which include a box of my favourite Funfetti cake mix. My Mum always baked from scratch so I have no idea where this craving comes from but these cake mixes are my own secret love. I'd never use them for client orders but for family treats - pass the box!

It was my birthday last week and I had grand plans about making a highly styled cake for myself but as usual, time got away from me and whilst I did bake the cake with my son, I left the decorating to him! I gave him free reign with my sprinkles box and he produced his usual masterpiece...

Sprinkled laden cake!

I love getting my kids involved with baking. I've started to try and search out kiddie friendly recipes and Fin even knows how to use my Kitchen Aid mixer (could I be prouder?!) so I think I have a helper in the making.

I noticed the other day that Tesco's have started to sell a 'ready to bake' cake mix selection in the fridge section of my local store. I wanted to buy something to try out but I was a little taken aback by the prices - £3.50 for some vanilla cupcakes? Yes, I appreciate you're paying for the convenience but once you've added the cost of frosting then it might have been cheaper to make them from scratch!

I'd imagine that'd be great for the fact that your counter tops would remain intact but a lot of the classic cake recipes are easy to follow and the weighing/measuring side of baking has a whole new significance now Fin's SAT's are approaching as I try to incorporate adding/taking away into our baking escapades.

The proud creator shows off his masterpiece!

What about you? Are you a baker who bakes their own birthday cake or is that the one time of the year when you get a bought treat from your family?

Glittergate!

I love my cake glitter. When I first started my business I pretty much bought a pot of it in every colour! If it stays still in my house, I'll cover it in glitter.

Until late last year that is. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) have issued guidance about the use of 'edible' glitters and have decided that the way these products are packaged might lead consumers to think they are safe to be consumed - when they are not.

Now, as someone who has purchased glitters labelled as 'edible' or 'non toxic' (and coupled with the fact they are sold widely in cake decorating shops) I am aghast to think I might have been misusing a product! But alas, the guidance is clear and all of my lovely cake glitters have been stashed away with my sons art supplies ready for the next school project...

Interestingly I note that there are still cakes on sale drenched in this glitter, and I suspect that it won't be long before a food safe version is on the market, so the question is how will the consumer know what they're eating is safe? I've produced one cake that had a topper coated in glitter but I had to give the client strict instructions about removing it before eating and get signed off consent - far too much worry on my part, pass my the lustre spray instead!

So what are your thoughts on this debate? Most bakers I know have chosen to ditch the glitters all together whilst some only use it on items that can be removed from cakes. Both decisions are right, which makes it all the more confusing!

Rediscovering my love of baking

Phew- what a busy week! I've just come out of one of my busiest caking weeks in months and whilst I loved every minute of it, I'm overdue a little rest now. And how do I rest? By baking of course!

One of the perks of this job is working from home. Yes, I've looked into getting a little cake shop or opening an outlet somewhere but my fantastic clients keep me more than busy as it is and right now I want to focus on enjoying my children and having a good work/life balance whilst they're still young. It is tempting to take on every order that comes my way but for the first time I feel that my prices reflect my high standard of work and this means I get to choose my hours whilst making an acceptable wage. Yay for cakey empowerment!

So this weekend I actually managed to have a DAY OFF! Can you believe it? All cakes were done and delivered and just as I was about to relax and put my pinny away my eldest son asks me if we can make Rocky Road. Who am I to deny such a yummy request? And with that, I got out my favourite Rocky Road recipe (from my idol Nigella Lawson - I want to be like her when I grow up) and we set to work...

We substituted Rich Tea biscuits for digestives and this recipe is great for kids as they get to bash up the biccies whilst you do the microwave work with the chocolate.

The bars turned out great and more importantly I finally feel as thought I'm starting to rediscover my love of home baking. This might sound odd coming from a professional baker but cakes = work in my eyes and sometimes I have to remember to slow down and have fun. My love of cakes came from my family I want my kids to remember the fun stuff - not me snapping at them because I only got 3hrs sleep due to a last minute cake order...

ps don't forget you can check out our latest creations on our Flickr stream!

"Sprinkles R Us"

I like to take pictures of my baked creations. Lots of 'em. I don't have a fancy camera so I figure the more I take, the more chance I have of getting a good shot.

Last year, I went on a fab photography course run by Lyndsey James. She if a fab photographer and does a lot of work with small businesses to encourage them to use good quality photos to sell your products. She'll also teach you how to use your own camera and believe me when I say that it's worth putting aside money to do this! My photography has improved so much since meeting Lyndsey and I'd really recommend taking one of her courses or paying to have some cool product shots done - there's nothing worse then a beautiful cake photo ruined by a plug socket or kitchen clutter in the background.

With that in mind, late last year I was contacted by Knightsbridge PME asking if they'd like to use one of my photos for a trade fair display. Ummmmm? YES YES YES. It's a standard photo of some cake pops I made and as I used PME sprinkles to make the pops, they asked if they could use the photo to showcase one of the ways you can use sprinkles. Fast forward many months later and this is how my photo looked at the fair...

How cool is that?? They also sent me a big box filled with colours, sprinkles and all sorts of fun cakey items. It was like Christmas day opening that box! Some of the items will go towards a Cake Eaters Anonymous raffle prize and some will go straight onto my cakes...

So far I've only used the sprinkles and one food colour. The food colouring is cool as its a dropper style bottle so it provides a measured drop of liquid with no mess. It's not as strong as the gel colours but the range of colours is pretty good and I've only tried it in buttercream so I'll have to report back later on how it colours with fondant and cake batter.

Cupcakes and lace

As a working Mum, I get very little time on my own and working from home does nothing to aid my social life. Thankfully, since starting Star Bakery I have met some fab cakey-ladies online who are in similar positions to me across the country and we use online forums and resources to vent/share business etc etc (thank you Flickr forums!!) Being a member of an online community is like working in an office, except I can wear pyjamas to work. And I don't have to brush my hair.

We recently noticed that the Cake Decorating Company were running a cupcake course and whilst we're all cake makers by trade, we thought it'd be a great opportunity to meet up with one and other and more importantly, check out sugarveil aka edible lace!

So last week we attended the vintage cupcake course run by a lady called Claire Bowman and on her course we got to use silicone moulds, try our hand at hand painting with food colourings and more excitingly we also got to see a short Sugarveil demo. For those of you who don't know what this is then I urge you to check it out here.

We had a lovely day at CDC and the staff there were as attentive as ever and even gave us a sneak peak of some new edible glitter! The FSA recently reiterated that glitter labelled as 'non toxic' cannot be used on any cake decorations for consumption so the bakery world is eagerly waiting a replacement! Cue CDC!

They have lots of courses over at CDC now and I'd definitely recommend them if you're looking for a cupcake course in Nottingham. I would advise to go with a friend as there was a few ladies on our course whose partners bought them tickets etc and I think their experience would have been much more enjoyable if they had a buddy to chat to throughout the day. Instead they had to put up with us cackling away and cooing over edible lace...poor things!

Cake Eaters Anonymous

Last May, myself and 3 other lovely cake lovers I met via Twitter decided that drooling over cake pictures was no longer enough so we baked cakes, got together and ate them.

Ok, so that's a simplified version of events but 10mths later and we're now knee deep in one of Nottingham's most successful cake clubs. If you haven't heard of us then you can find out more here. And you too can drool over lovely cake images by checking out our Facebook page here.

I try not to bake things I'd make in the bakery as I like to try out new things but this month I was swamped with work so I made some Double chocolate cupcakes filled with cherries and some plain-jane vanilla cupcakes topped with a simple buttercream rose.

We're hoping to roll out the Cake Club format in coming weeks so don't forget to 'Like' our Facebook page if you'd like to start your very own cake club in your part of the world :)

Perfecting my cheesecake recipe

My Mum used to make the world's best cheesecake. Hands down. Don't even argue with me. But it's an expensive dessert to make so we wouldn't have it often and now it's become synonymous with me for special occasions, so I think of it as a real treat.

My beloved Mum passed away in 2003 and although she left me a book of her handwritten recipes, this one isn't included, so whilst I've tried to make cheesecake before they've always ended up missing the mark or not being quite right.

And then, whilst browsing one of my favourite baking websites I came across a recipe for New York baked cheesecake. When I read the ingredients list I realised that this was very similar to Mum's recipe and as I specifically remembered her 'tweaks' (a baker lives by their own recipe tweaks) and I knew I had to give it a go.

So last weekend I made a proper cheesecake. And it was amazing! I use the term 'was' loosely as I'm still enjoying a mouthful as we speak...but it's so creamy and the additional vanilla bean flecks I added were especially delightful as they gave the cheesecake a whole new depth. I didn't make the sour cream topping in the recipe, I'm more of a naked cheesecake fan but you could team this with seasonal berries, oreo crust, dark chocolate sauce etc etc.

I did get the dreaded 'crack' in the cheesecake once it was cooled but I figure homebaking isn't homebaking without the authentic look now is it?