Chestnut christmas cake

Here is our christmas cake from this year (well, last year to be technical about it)  I went with the Nigella chestnut puree one, and it sure is lovely.  Very tasty, moist, fruity and nutty without being too boring and grownup (fruit cake always strikes me as something of an old lady of the cake world)

Rather than being marzipanned and royally iced (as Handsome husband can't eat the marzipan and no-one likes the royal icing (apart from Darling bout who will eat the entire cakes worth of it if left unchecked) This beauty is glazed in jam and covered in glade cherries.  Yum.

Perfect with a hot cuppa.  Quite fancy a slice now actually, shame its all gone.

Stir up Sunday

Ok, so Stir up Sunday was a few weeks back, and is actually for the christmas pudding, not the cake- but what is christmas if not a chance to break from tradition (actually, thats the opposite of what christmas is,  where it seems everything from the ancient decorations on the tree, to the order in which the days events should unfold, should be the same every year for complete seasonal family happiness all round, but anyhoo)

So, this year I opted for a Nigella cake as it is both nut free (for Handsome husband who is an almond dodger) and also contains the magical chestnut puree stuff which is beyond delicious and has the most beautiful packaging.  You wrap it like a traditional christmas cake homage to the Sound of Music (a brown paper package, tied up with string) pour the goodness in and bake in a lowish oven.  Once its out, you can feed it with booze each week as you like, then glaze the top with fruits, stand back and admire.

It went with a swing.

What a lovely evening- the jazz concert was a warm and toasty success.  A nice big audience and the band and singers were all great.  The church looked really pretty with holly and candles and fairy lights everywhere.  The mulled wine and mince pies went down a storm.  Pictured here is Dave the postman's famous shortbread. I truly believe that if you didn't feel all warm and snuggly and christmassy when Mike Long sang White christmas than you must be a robot, from planet Grinch.  Mike's voice was velvety rich and evocative and his version could easily stand next to Nat King Cole's anytime.  It was a lush evening.  I'm already daydreaming about organising another one- bigger and better, next year.  Next time I'm thinking of finding a brass section from somewhere- we all need trumpets in our lives after all.  We raised a lovely amount of dosh for the feel restoration fund too- brilliant.

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, how lovely are your branches

My mother in law kindly volunteered me to make the 'Guess the weight of the cake' cake for the local village Christmas Craft fete.  Always happy to help out a good cause, and flex the creative muscle I agreed and racked my brains for a christmassy themed cake.  I came up with this bad boy.  The tree is made from a vanilla sponge with a chocolate buttercream filing, topped with vanilla buttercream.  The trunk and pot are made from chocolate cake truffle, with the trunk coated in cake crumbs to make it look tree-like, and copper gold edible glitter to make it look all sparkly, innit.  The star is made from dark chocolate with a layer of white chocolate on top, and then more gold glitter.  There is no such think as too much glitter.

The guesses were from the tiny to the ridiculous.  A local farmer, complete with tweedy jacket and rouge cheeks guessed the nearest weight and was the lucky recipient of the cake and the glory.

Happy christmas

Happy christmas one and all x

Christmas party cupcakes

It was Darling boy's pre-school christmas party at the local village hall and the guest of honor was to be Father Christmas himself, resplendent in his twinkly grotto, with presents for all.

Christmas parties are a source of undeniable joy and excitement and the kids could barely cram enough sausage rolls and crisps (toddler party food of choice) in their faces, before much chasing around was to be done.  Called back to the table by the promise of cake, I have never seen a group of kids respond so quickly- but thats the magic of sugar.

For the grown- ups, yours truly had baked a batch of chocolate cupcakes.  Too rich (and delicious) for toddlers. These sparkly cupcakes disappeared pretty quickly.

Oh, and for the record, Little brother was dressed as a christmas elf, complete with stripy leggings and a droopy christmas hat.  Beyond cute.  Happy days.

The beauty that never was to be...

Before Christmas, one of my favourite customers had put in an order for a special giant cupcake to be delivered on Christmas eve.

It took ages and was a total beauty...chocolate sponge, with a rich chocolate butter icing. It was made, iced, decorated, packaged and ready to roll.  When unfortunately that was exactly what I did when I came out the door.  It had been so freezing our drive was an ice-rink and I'm neither Torvil or Dean...I slipped, and the cake bought it.

I am posting the photos here in tribute to a beauty that never got to shine.  I took it indoors and through a blur of tears I tried to save it in a variety of ways, but it was never going to work.

Instead I called and explained and insisted that I bring them a stand and 24 vanilla-cupcakes as a replacement.  It was the best I could do.

My lovely customers were totally charming and wonderful about it.  They were so understanding, I was just so sad they never got to eat and enjoy the original.

Christmas highlights

This year was our first year hosting christmas- and it was mostly on Nigella.

 Safe to say we had a really lovely time. I totally love Christmas.

Family, food and being together. Its all good.

Snowalicious

I will post about the Adventures in Cake christmas soon, but since we have been snowed in for 6 days now I thought I would share this photo.  Its taken from before it really started snowing a lot.

Christmas special

This week I had an order for a giant chocolate cupcake, with chocolate butter-cream icing with ‘festive decorations’ requested. The client was someone I met at the Cruwys Morchard Village Christmas market. She is a totally charming woman and when she came to collect the cupcake on Thursday she seemed very pleased with it. It’s always lovely when things I make get a good reception.

As this was a giant cupcake, the holly leaves and berries also needed to be up-scaled from the ones I make for the regular sized cupcakes, so Wednesday saw me stamping out holly leaves and rolling red berries, and then coating them all in glitter. God I love the glitter! Once the cake was made and decorated, I carefully iced it, then went to with the gold glitter first, then topped it with the new berries and leaves and very festive it looked too.

I’ve got a similar order for Christmas eve, from the lovely people who asked me for Firework party cupcakes, only this giant cupcake is also going to feature purple stars- at the clients request. I have also recently bought in some purple glitter, so this might be making an appearance too.

Baby cupcakes for the grown-ups

At last weekend's market I met a new customer, and picked up a special order for tonight, which I have just delivered.  A very nice lady from Halberton, a sweet village outside Tivvy, asked for brandy butter chocolate cupcakes and a pile of sticky date and cranberry slices for an event she is hosting tomorrow.

I made up the baby cupcakes and was struck by their total cuteness!  I have been making these in a large size for the market stall, and they have been going down really well, but hadn't made them in a baby size, and look at how adorable they are...and definitely one for the grown-ups as the amount of brandy in the icing is not child-friendly- but I wonder if any amount of hard spirits is?

Either way, they are scrumptious and cute as pie at the same time.

Christmas snowflakes

Here are my christmas vanilla cupcakes.

The snowflakes are really tricky to make as they are so delicate, but its very fun to play with the colour pastes to make up pretty icy shades of baby blue.

These also sold out, hooray!

Brown paper packages tied up with string

I'm not usually a fan of christmas cake, or indeed any fruit cake, but the recipe I found here I thought looked like something out of the ordinary and worth trying this year.

I am hosting christmas for the first time, and wanted to make sure all the bases were covered, lovely tree, family gathered around, presents, big turkey and cake, etc

The recipe is from another blog I enjoy reading.  Not being a fan of fondant icing, but loving marzipan this seemed like just the ticket- the marzipan is baked inside the cake- yum.  I'm looking forward to cutting it open (hoping to god its cooked properly) and finding little golden nuggets of marzipan hidden inside.

We will probably start eating the cake before the big day itself, I think a slab of cake, cuppa tea and a relax on the sofa admiring the twinkling lights of our christmas tree (as yet not bought!) sounds like a lovely christmas eve afternoon activity.

As handsome husband is allergic to almonds, I will be baking an alternative cake just for him too- a fine excuse to have more than one cake I think.