Christening Cakes

Today was my little Niece, Leah's, Christening. I've been really looking forward to it for ages now as I love an excuse to dress up
(well, more importantly the excuse to wear a hat without being mocked!)

It was a lovely day and Leah was a very good girl, happy and smiling throughout despite how overwhelming it all must have been for her.

As you will all know by now, where there is an opportunity to bake, I jump at the chance!
I really wanted to make something a bit more involved that my usual cupcakes, so I offered to take care of the main christening cake.
This was my first large project, and for an important occasion so I wanted to keep it simple to avoid tripping myself up by trying to be flash!

I made 2 simple, 9 inch, round Madeira cakes using Nigella's Mother in Law's recipe click here to try it for yourself.
The recipe really easy and quick to make and produced perfect results (which is always a relief!)
One cool, the cakes were sandwiched together using raspberry jam and butter cream, covered in white Regal Ice and the fun began!

I had already made icing butterflies and a set of 'building blocks' to spell her name and attached these to the cake with royal icing.
I then really impressed myself by managing to pipe out the date of the christening (my first attempt at piping writing!).
While the date was still wet I covered it with lilac edible glitter to make it stand out.
Once all the icing was dry I brushed the wings of the butterflies and the letters on the blocks with lustre powder and gave the whole lot a dose of iridescent glitter. Unfortunately this didn't photograph well, so take it from me the stuff that looks like dust is glitter!
I am really pleased and proud of my first attempt at a 'proper cake' and everyone was very complementary, which was nice because I always see the flaws in my own work!

I couldn't get away without making cupcakes as well, so by popular demand there were vanilla, chocolate and carrot cake cupcakes
The carrot cake cupcakes are ultra easy and give brilliant results. They are my absolute favourites and if you like carrot cake you really should try these. Click here for the recipe.
The Vanilla cupcake and Chocolate cupcake recipes were from Martha Stewart living and as per most of her recipes (as long as you follow the instructions to the letter!) were very successful. click here for the vanilla recipe and here for the chocolate.


That's all for now, as usual I am impatient to see what the rest of you lovely people in blog land have been up to!

Lots of Love xxx

Banns and Baking

Hello again! Hope you have all had great weekends doing all the things you love.

Today was a very special day for Mr D and I as it was the first time our banns of marriage were read at church. We are getting married at High Beech and I thought you might like to see a picture. It really is a lovely church, pretty and more importantly full of kind and friendly people.

I was extremely pleased that some of my family were able to join us and am really looking forward to next week when Victoria and Ben will be coming. We will, of course, be setting of to a nearby boot sale afterwards to find some bargains!

After Church I couldn't resist having a little bake, I have loads of recipes I want to try so thought I should make something yummy as a treat for Mr D. As he is a big chocolate fan I made him some chocolate cupcakes from a recipe I found on Martha Stewart Living (my favourite website I can always find what I want on there!)

The recipe was really easy and gave good results, some of the comments on the recipe were from ladies who said their cakes sunk a little but mine came out fine. The only thing I would say is to be careful not to overfill the cases as these cakes rise dramatically. If you want to try these yourself click here for the recipe.

I topped them off with piped buttercream icing (coffee flavoured, at Mr D's request) and a chocolate star. I think they came out pretty well. I'll let you know the results of Mr D's taste test when he tries one!

Well I'd better be signing off now as I'm impatient to see what the rest of you have been up to this weekend!

Love