We went to see the Wizard.......

.......the wonderful Wizard of Oz. 

Me and my sister went to see The Wizard of Oz on Saturday in London, she was lucky enough to win some tickets and I'm glad she asked me to go along with her.  The show was great, the effects were done well, especially the tornado scene, and there were no mishaps with the wire work when certain characters were flying or with the dog, actually the dog was very well behaved.

We even saw a couple of familiar faces in the audience, Brian May and his wife Anita Dobson.  I'm just glad we weren't sitting behind them, it's quite a hairdo he's got!  The major issue I have about going to the theatre is the lack of leg room, I'm 5'11" so sitting through a show can be rather uncomfortable, thankfully they have intermissions half way through so you can get up and stretch your legs.

I'm always intrigued to see what the set design is like, that must be a good job to have, they come up with such good ideas these days, especially when they have to make things move.  Just imagine the amount of planning involved!
 

Me in a giant rocking chair, plenty of leg room!

While we were up in London we fancied a visit to the Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum, it's full of all sorts of wacky and weird things like portraits made from fluff, shrunken heads, chewed chewing gum wrapper sculptures and loads of information about weird and wonderful things from the past.  We found out about one chap who made an exact sculpture of himself, capturing the tiniest of details and going to the extreme of plucking every single hair on his body to put onto the sculpture, but he didn't stop there, he also added his nails and teeth...............believe it or not!  We also got a bit lost in the mirror maze, funny thing is it's not even very big, just very disorientating!  We had fun though, it was a good day out.

Where's Wally Themed Cupcakes

Where's Wally Cupcakes

You don't need to look very hard to find him on these cakes.  These are vanilla sponge with vanilla buttercream in red and white, topped off with a Wally head made from icing.  I hand made these heads so each one is slightly different, the head is gum paste and the rest of the details have been piped on with royal icing.

The cakes have been baked in blue cases (to represent his trousers), and I've piped the buttercream in alternating red and white stripes, just like his stripey top.  I didn't bother using any piping tubes for the buttercream as I wanted a fairly smooth finish, this sort of tube piping (often used for piping meringue) has become known as the poo pipe in our house, mainly because a nice swirly mound of tube piping resembles something else!  Not the best thing to think about when noshing on a cupcake, I'm just glad Wally doesn't have a brown top!!

New Email Address

We now have a new email address, it should be pretty easy to remember as we've incorporated the company name.  Anything sent to us on our old address will still reach us (thanks to the wonder of email forwarding).  We are now contactable by phone too, please see our Contact Us page for all the ways you can get in touch with us.

Orange & Lemon Loaf Cake

Orange and lemon loaf cake

Loaf cakes are great to make when you only want a small cake, they're quick to knock up and you can create any flavour you like.  Here's our recipe for an orange and lemon loaf cake.

Orange & Lemon Loaf Cake Recipe

Ingredients

• 4oz Stork Margarine
• 4oz Caster Sugar
• 4oz Self Raising Flour
• 2 Medium Eggs
• 1 Small Orange
• 1 Small Lemon
• 2-3oz Icing Sugar

Orange & Lemon Sponge - Method

1. In a bowl, cream together the margarine and the caster sugar.
2. Add the flour and eggs and mix together thoroughly.
3. Mix in some grated orange and lemon rind and some orange and lemon juice (1-2 tbsp).  Leave some grated rind and juice for the topping.
4. Grease and line a small loaf tin and pour in all of the cake mixture.
5. Place the tin on the middle shelf of a pre-heated oven at 180°c/350°f/gas mark 4 and bake for 20-30 minutes, or until cooked.
6. Once cooked, remove the sponge from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Zingy Lemon Icing - Method

1. Sieve 2oz of icing sugar into a bowl and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, mix together until smooth. 
2. Add a few drops of water to the mixture if it's too stiff and dry.  Aim for a thick consistency, add more icing sugar to thicken, add more lemon juice or water to make it runnier.
3. Mix in some grated orange rind.
4. Add more lemon juice for a stronger flavour.
5. Spread the icing over the top of the sponge.

Cut into slices and serve.

HINTS & TIPS

• Add more orange and lemon rind than juice to the cake mixture, the rind holds a lot of the flavour, too much juice will just add extra moisture to the sponge, whilst a little is good to stop the cake being dry, too much will result in a soggy sponge.
• If your icing is too runny it will run off the cake, too thick and it will be hard to spread, add icing sugar or water a little at a time till you reach the right consistency.

Click here for a printable PDF version.

Strawberry & Vanilla Loaf Cake

Strawberry & Vanilla Loaf Cake

This was a quick cake we knocked up last night, we had some left over strawberries that needed eating and also some vanilla buttercream that was going spare.  We only occasionally bake cakes for ourselves (although we'd love to eat cake everyday, it's just not good for the waist line!) and this was a very quick and scrumptious dessert. 

Here's how to make it, it's very easy.  You'll have to excuse the mixture of old school ounces and new age grams, I'm used to ounces for making cakes (I know how much mixture I'll get if I think in ounces) and grams for making buttercream.

Strawberry & Vanilla Loaf Cake Recipe

Ingredients

• 4oz Stork Margarine
• 4oz Caster Sugar
• 4oz Self Raising Flour
• 2 Medium Eggs
• Vanilla Extract
• 100g Butter
• 200g Icing Sugar
• 1 tbsp hot water
• Strawberries

Method - Vanilla Sponge

1. In a bowl, cream together the margarine and the caster sugar.
2. Add the flour and eggs and mix together thoroughly.
3. Add a few drops of vanilla extract and mix together.
4. Grease and line a small loaf tin and pour in all of the cake mixture.
5. Place the tin on the middle shelf of a pre-heated oven at 180° and bake for 20-30 minutes, or until cooked.
6. Once cooked, remove the sponge from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Method - Vanilla Buttercream Topping

1. In a bowl, mix together the butter, icing sugar and hot water until smooth.
2. Add a few drops of vanilla extract and mix together.

Assemble the cake

1. Once the sponge is cool, simply spread the buttercream all over the top of the sponge.
2. Decorate with sliced strawberries.

Told you it was easy, now cut into slices and enjoy!

HINTS & TIPS

• For a lighter sponge, sift the flour, for an extra light sponge double sift the flour (if you can be bothered!).
• To grease and line a tin without using parchment paper, grease the tin with margarine, add some flour and shake and tap the tin till the flour has stuck to the margarine, tip out the excess flour.
• To check the cake is cooked, insert a knife or cocktail stick through the middle of the cake, if it comes out clean it's cooked, if it has cake mix stuck to it, it'll need a bit longer.
• Use whipped cream instead of buttercream for an even lighter dessert - very summery.
• For extra luxury use vanilla pods instead of vanilla extract, but never vanilla flavouring (it's just not that nice, real vanilla will taste so much better). 

Click here for a printable PDF version.

Candy Cupcake Bracelet Giveaway

For your chance to win this lovely bracelet click here.  It's made by Laura Sparling, a fabulous lampwork artist who makes glass beads.  She regularly does giveaways and the latest prize is this wonderful cupcake bracelet.  All you need to do is leave a comment on her blog post, simple as that, and it's open to anyone anywhere.

More chocolate please!

Triple chocolate cake with chocolate roses

Another scrummy chocolate cake.  Again with simple decoration, piped white chocolate scrolls, hearts and message and some chocolate roses.  This cake has been completely covered in chocolate ganache, with chocolate buttercream sandwiched between the sponge.

BAKING TIP

• Try adding a splash of milk to your cake mix if you find your chocolate sponge a tad dry, it's always best to add a bit more liquid to the mix when adding more dry ingredients such as cocoa. 

Triple Chocolate Birthday Cake

Triple chocolate birthday cake

Keeping things simple with this cake.  It's a moist chocolatey sponge with chocolate buttercream filling and topped with a generous helping of chocolate ganache.  It's decorated simply with white chocolate. 

The message has been piped on and the blue chocolate buttons are just melted white chocolate with some food colouring mixed in, piped into button shapes on parchment paper, left to set and then added to the cake.

BAKING TIPS

• When colouring chocolate always use food colouring paste or dusting powders, as liquid colourings will not mix well with the chocolate.  Adding liquid to chocolate will cause the chocolate to seize. 
• Be careful with how much food colouring you use too, the more you put in, the stronger the concentration, which may result in a nice bold shade but your tongue will show the evidence of what you've been eating!!
• Add the colouring a little at a time using a cocktail stick, food colouring pastes are quite strong so a little goes a long way.
• When piping with chocolate, allow the melted chocolate to cool first, that way it won't be quite as runny, you won't burn yourself and it won't melt your cake topping.  Don't worry about it setting before it's cool enough to pipe with, it will take rather a long time to set completely at room temperature. 

Recently Baked

Rose and lily cupcakes

The latest cakes have been cupcakes, some in Waybuloo colours and some scrummy chocolate ones with chocolate roses and calla lilies.  The chocolate roses have been made using modelling chocolate, and the lilies are made using gum paste.



Waybuloo coloured cupcakes



New Website

Our brand spanking new website is now up and running.  I've been working on it all weekend and I'm quite pleased with the look of it.  If you fancy a look go check it out at http://www.sprinklesandcrumbs.co.uk/.