Cake Coated Christening

  

An amazing customer asked me to bake cakes for her daughter's christening, definately my kind of customer, no dilly-dallying around she knew exactly what she wanted, when left to my own devices i usually veer off the pink sugar coated path but on this occasion only a dash of cake-pop persuasion was needed. The brief was cream and purple, a perfect combinatination  that made me think of  the purple foil covered 'Quality Street' in all its royal glamour.

  40 White Chocolate Cake Pops with royal purple sprinkles

40 Vanilla Cupcakes with buttery vanailla icing decorated with 'EM' Innitials

Peace out/Cake out! 

Victoria's Vintage Tea

Ive got a very close friend called Victoria and it was her Birthday way back in July, it was a special birthday so I wanted to throw her a mini vintage tea party, it was my perfect chance to prove Mr Wood wrong and 'actually use' all the vintage crockery I'd been hamstering away over the years. In my perfect daydream world cake should only be eaten off pretty plates with vintage silver forks, washed down with tea drunk from delicate china stirred with a shiny spoon that makes a high 'ding' when tapped (gently) on the side of the cup to prevent any tea drips. This was the kind of elegance i wanted to emulate for Victoria, blow those candles out in style with good company, delicious cakes and a glass of bubbles!

We were utterly lucky with the weather and I managed to lay the table outside, which was rare for this summer. It was surprisingly hard work (forearm aching from holding my hand-mixer for too long, Kitchen Aid desparately still needed!), but i got there in the end.  

                                 

                                                       Vanilla and Chocolate Cupcakes

White and Dark Chocolate Cake Pops

 

        Honouring the Birthday Girl with a Victoria Sponge,

with Strawberries and Meringues

 Blueberry and White Chocolate Cheesecakes

All went to plan (apart from an over excited 2year old pukage, but we wont talk about that!) and most importantly I think Victoria had a lovely afternoon, before the crazy evenings festivities!

Peace out/ Cake out!

Cake Attachment Syndrome

I know I'm completely bonkers and I can admit that, cakes don't have feelings, but if its not mutual why do I towards them? I most definately love it when a cake is eaten, that innitial slice of a knife into a creation makes my mouth water, but if things don't quite go to plan, my bottom lip does wobble ever so slightly thinking of the time and effort of each little crumb.

So on this particular occasion I can definately see the funny side of it.......................now!

Infact its completely and utterly hilarious but dare I confess, that it did take me a while to get there, i think I need to have a word with myself about my serious 'cake attachment syndrome'

A very dear friend, asked me to bake a cake for a Halloween fundraiser, a cake that would be the prize if you guessed its weight. Big cakes still slightly scare me, i think its the fact that its the suspense that you cant try even a tiny morsal, untill the cake is actually finished and  thats assuming you're invited to the party, whereas with a cakepop or cupcake you can have a little try of the one that isn't quite so perfect, all in the name of taste-testing and not my rumbling belly! So I looked on some very elaborate cake websites, and scared myself, alot, hoping there wasnt any great expectations, but i knew my boundaries and settled on a very dark, heavy, fudgy, sickly, yummy (ok i think you get the idea) chocolate cake with chocolate butter icing, decorated with a white chocolate web and spiders on top.

The cake was successfully dropped off at my friends house for the fundraiser the next day, it wasnt perfect or completely out of the ordinary  but sometimes triumphant cake delivery 'intact' is sometimes out of my hands. I had a phone call the next day to say the cake hadn't actually got to the  fundariaser and was unfortunately and maybe embarrassingly eaten by her dogs, its lucky we're such good friends and by the sounds of things Ruby and Chocolate had really enjoyed it! I did have tiny stab of heart ache for the cake that was never enjoyed but definately can see the humour in it now.

There is a lesson to be learnt in this story, no more cake attachment for me, its a leaf to be remebered and put on my tree to sit proudly in my 'Little Wood' and besides i'm sure it will be one of many cake disasters to come.

Peace out / Cake Out! x

Bake me a name

So with a few very amateur ‘cake jobs’ and no poisonings under my belt and a gleaming bowl of family and friends encouragement, I decided I want to be more that just ‘that girl from Boardrider who can make a cake pop.’

Boardrider is the surf shop I very gratefully sold my soul too many years ago, my  adopted baby who has taught and given me so much to be thankful for, kept me from a student loan, prevented me doing more snow seasons and importantly helped to nurture a happy relationship with my gorgeous and very hungry cake loving husband Mr Wood, but all this is another story, another blog!

So ‘that girl from Boardrider’ needs a name for her cakes, a disguise or a flour-power of an umbrella to hide behind. So ‘a name’, why does this feel so hard, like I’m stuck at the airport waiting for lift-off to an amazing chocolatey destination (for those of you that are interested looks like a mixture of a scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the house from Hansel and Gretal with a touch of the vintage crockery from the Madhatter’s tea party), but I’m delayed  in the departure lounge until I make the decision and get a chance to enjoy the ride or the sugar hit, as we all know its all about the journey and not the destination.

 So I’ve been brainstorming a few ideas, playing with words, taking inspiration from my surname, granny’s middle name, where I live and nicknames trying to combine them with a clever blend of me, ‘Mrs Wood’ whisked up with a mouth watering daydream of sweet delights. So here’s a few I’ve dropped in the mix and see what surprise comes out of the oven and see what sticks to the tin! Gertie’s Bakes, The Pink Cake Stand, Benar Wood Bakery, Bumble Bell bakery, The Pink Apron, Poppy Wood’s, The Bell and Wooden Spoon, Kiss my wooden Spoon. But there always seems to be one I keep coming back too, one that I first thought of, one that describes me in a few little words, one that makes me proud of who I am, so here it is sugar-aholics ‘drum roll please’ and yes I am going to shout: ‘THE LITTLE WOOD OVEN’

The Roots of a tree of a very Little Wood

I’m not going to give you a pink fluffy story about how baking is part of my heritage, with butter icing and family receipes running through every generation of my loopy family, no quite the opposite, my amazing mum could burn an apple crumble even when followed the receipe word for word and even with the confession that she has a huge aversion to the feeling of flour and butter under her nails!

 Skip a generation and jump to the other side of the family and yes there was a touch of Mrs Beeton in the form of Granny, Joan Bell Hancox, fond memories of her very British Aga baking, with a very mini-me stood on a chair at the kitchen counter, wearing an oversized ‘pinney’,  getting sore arms using an ancient whurley hand-whisk that made my palms red raw, to get the egg whites fluffy for a melt in the mouth meringue.

Unfortunately a memory blank of  Granny's cakes but I’m definitely putting her on that pedalstall all the same. I’m pretty convinced that at some point Granny was where I am now, very much in the trial and error stage of baking,  with a cloud of icing sugar, a passion for pretty sugary treats, a bit of time to kill and a huge addiction for putting a smile on people’s faces.