Colourful Cupcakes for a Brilliant Wedding!

The weekend that I went on holiday this year was extra special, I love travelling and so i’m always really excited to be going on holiday; but I was also super excited this year because the day before I flew to Switzerland was the wedding of one of one of our closest family friends! The wedding was amazing, it was such a laid back and fun day (we’re talking a bride in shorts, and a BBQ and Bouncy Castle reception!) and I made a few cupcakes to put on the food table. These were all vanilla cupcakes (a pretty safe bet for a crowd usually!) decorated with glitter and very brightly coloured sugar flowers. I made the flowers in lime green and orange, bride Heather’s favourite colours when she was younger, and I made lots of different styles of flowers to make sure the display was varied and colourful. The cupcakes were on my 36-cupcake stand.

I was quite happy with how they turned out, and they went down quite well, I was informed that many of them were finished off at breakfast time the next day! However, they weren’t really needed at the wedding, as Heather, the bride and also another keen baker; had created her own stunning wedding cake, with the theme of sea, land and sky. The cake was absolutely gorgeous; I had a slice of the chocolate-with-nutella-ganache bottom tier, which was rich and super chocolaty- as lovely on the inside as it was on the outside J

The day was incredible, but I did discover one thing- bouncy castles are hard work when you aren’t a little kid any more, we were all exhausted!

Hayley x

Apple Pie

As I said in my last (very brief) post, I recently went to Switzerland for a couple of weeks. Before we went away, we had a glut of apples (we don’t have a tree, just a tendency to over-buy on fruit and veg!) that I decided needed turning into a pie. I love baking pies, it’s such a 50s housewife/Snow White thing to do and so so yummy! I made a basic (all butter- I swear that the apples even out the unhealthiness of the butter :-S) shortcrust pastry, then made the filling by slicing the apples and coating them with: caster sugar, muscovado sugar, orange juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, a little salt and a couple of tbsp of cornflour to thicken up the juice released by the apples. I filled the pie (very very generously- those apples needed using up!) with the apple slices and the sugar and spice coating.  

After putting the lid on the pie (the most Snow White-esque part of the process for me) I decided it needed some sprucing up, so it was time to whack out the blossom plunger cutters and make it a more fairytale-pie, I covered the top with pastry flowers before glazing with milk and baking.

I probably should have cooked the apples down before baking to get some of the juices out, but I went for the quick option and filled the pie with the raw apple filling, the pastry was still baked through properly and had a crisp base, but as soon as I cut out a slice the tin was flooded with appley sauce! It was yummy and syrupy but there sure was a lot of juice! We weren’t complaining though, especially when it mixed in with a little of the double cream we ate it with ;-)

The pie also made for a pretty good rushed breakfast the next morning, you’ll get to find out what the rush was all about in the next post!  

Hayley x

Be back soon!

Sorry it's been all quiet on the cake front for a few weeks, but be assured that there will be lots of posting going on next week! In the meantime, enjoy this picture of the Matterhorn, one of the most gorgeous and imposing mountains I've seen, wish I could be back on holiday, Switzerland has great cake as well as great scenery!!
Hayley x