First of all – Happy Birthday!! I have had orders for Birthday Cakes since the beginning of the year and over the next week I have two quite bespoke cakes which I am really looking forward to making. Apart from being rather bespoke (not something you could buy in a shop) I think I may be biased as I don’t think you can beat a homebaked cake which is a one off – never to be repeated as I never decorate a cake the same as a one which I have decorated previously – or I try not to! My favourite part of the making a birthday cake is the decorating as that is when the design in my head finally starts to take shape. 🙂 I still class myself as a novice when it comes to birthday cakes but I love having a go at them and this next week I have one cake to make for my daughter, who has drawn the design and written down the details of flavours, etc, that she would like. The other cake is for a more bespoke request which I am not going to say anything further about as I want it to be a total surprise.!!!
My first cake in the birthday orders was for a Chocolate Cake with a love of all thing chocolate (a true chocolate lover). I had free reign with this cake and I was undecided as to whether to make a Fault Line Cake or a Chocolate Drip Cake. The latter won out and I set about baking the sponge, making the chocolate buttercream and the chocolate ganache. The week before I spent my time shopping (when I went to the shop) for different chocolates to use as decoration for the cake. Armed with lots of chocolates and the perfect sponge the cake started to take shape. In between, lots of trips to the coldest room in my house – the front porch – to help the buttercream crumb coat and outer coat to set before adding the ganache I managed to homeschool my son. I couldn’t fit the cake in my fridge so I’m really glad that the front porch was freezing cold. I was so happy with the end result and loved when my son commented on the cake saying how much he would like to eat it!
It is the second cake this week that is giving me nightmares and I feel like I have persuaded myself that it is not going to work out how I want it too? My brain is playing overtime trying to determine how it will work before I make it. Maybe I should have a trial attempt before the delivery day?
Mini Corned Beef Pies 
Blondie Flapjack
In between all the birthday orders I have been baking Mini Corned Beef Pies for collection and some trial bakes for my children to enjoy. The trial bakes included a tray of Blondie/Flapjack combination which went down very well with my family and a regular customer so it may well be added to the webshop soon. I still want to experiment with a few flavour ideas for this bake so it is still work in progress. I have seen a lot of other bakers making these new slices so I thought I would give it a try myself as they seem quite popular but I really am trying to put my own twist on it rather than follow the trend.
The other trial bake was really just to use up the leftover chocolate buttercream from the birthday cake on Friday, rather than allowing my son to eat it straight from the bowl. It was used to decorate a Cookie Bar Slice which my family are slowly making there way through as I speak. 🙂
Tomorrow, my plans are to homeschool and get it all out of the way before lunch time which is what I did today. Both my son and myself were much happier knowing the school work was complete and handed in for the day. My son disappeared into his room on his computer as a reward for doing his work with no nonsense and I had more time to myself – which was a bonus!
Also, I have to bake my daughter’s cake ready to be iced on Wednesday so that on Thursday I can stock check the ingredients for the birthday cake order which I have for Friday.
It is all go, go, go here but it has taken my mind of the imminent house move which we are nearly at the end of as we are waiting for the contracts to be sent to us so that we have the go ahead to move house. Fingers crossed, I am hoping this will happen this week as we need more space and the children need their own rooms to study in (hope the internet is as good where we are moving to as it is here???) There is nothing like piling the pressure on is there in the middle of a lockdown.??