Gallery

Birthday present for a friend, the theme was Musicals and I came as Willy Wonka. Naturally I had to make him some chocolates...

The left ones were dark chocolate truffles coated in cocoa powder, and the right ones were white chocolate and frangipane with fudge pieces

I can't take responsibility entirely for this as my Mum baked the Christmas cake, but I iced it :) 

So this was the start of the great Wedding Cake Project. I made cupcakes of the three different flavours the bride and groom requested, and iced them in the style of the wedding cake so they could taste them and get an idea what the cake would look like. These ones were the chocolate orange, plain chocolate sponge with an orange syrup.

These are all 12 cupcakes (4 each of Lemon, Chocolate Orange and Ginger). They're covered in ivory royal icing and painted with silver shimmer powder, decorated with ivory sugar draguees. 

Close up of the cakes

This is a lemon and blackcurrant tart. Got a bit creative here. A group of us were meeting up for a bring and share dinner and it all had to be gluten free. The gluten free pastry was a bit dry and powdery but the filling (made of lemon curd and almonds) was very moist.

Rainbow cake batters for Alex and Carl's joint birthday party - first time using colouring pastes to get really deep colours without destabilising the batter. 

I chose to add all the batters as one single cake as opposed to doing it in multiple layers. No time for that!

Mini disaster here. Covered the cake in vanilla cream cheese frosting and covered in smarties, but overnight they melted into the frosting!

So bright. So many E numbers. But nom.

Was approached by some friends to cater a charity casino night. The budget was quite low but by making a lot of the components myself I think it all looked pretty classy :) Here we've got Spanish tortilla bites and crostini with pate and caramelised red onion marmalade. 

More from the same evening, these are potato cakes with sour cream and crispy bacon, and red pepper, spinach and feta filo parcels.

Smoked salmon blinis and little shots of gazpacho with basil leaf

The full table

I made two identical boxes of chocolates, one for my mum's birthday and one as a little on the day wedding gift for some friends from uni. 

A little guide to the chocolate selection

Bit of a special project here. Birthday cake for a friend who's a big fan of drag culture. This is based on the old "Dolly  Varden" cakes, traditionally made with a Barbie stuck into a sponge baked in a basin and iced to look like a ballgown. I made this one with a Ken Doll and iced him to look like a fierce queen. Got some odd looks on the tube. Her name is Miss Frangelica Candycake :)

Playing around with the cake tins to see what the dimensions of Project Wedding Cake would actually look like

First cake is baked! The largest single cake I've ever made, the tin is enormous. This was the bottom layer, sticky ginger cake.

So icing cakes (especially large ones like these) is very nerve wracking! There were a few tiny splits in the icing, but these were just covered in the small discs to hide them.

The cake fully iced. Each of the ivory draguees were glued on with glace icing by hand. The bride is an up and coming author and I joked that there was a draguee for every page she's had published. It may be true, who knows?

I think I would have preferred it to be a little bit taller, but still very happy with it.

The bride and groom wanted the little flags and blackboard, think it gives it a really nice touch.

A little more rustic, this is French onion soup with gruyere and baguette. The baguette is a little too dark but it was fine :)

Birthday cake for my housemate in October. Chocolate fudge cake with chocolate fudge frosting. He's a man of simple tastes.

This is the same chocolate fudge cake base, with whipped cream and Oreos. Made this for my sister for her birthday in October.

Decided to build up my experience with yeast cookery as it's not something I've done that much of. This is a plain white country loaf, glazed with milk and beaten egg.

Pizza baked on a pizza stone. I was away for a day back home to see my mum and had this dough left in the fridge. It had a really sourdough taste to it when cooked. The topping is cream cheese, mushroom and ham with tomato and mozzarella.

All that was left of a chocolate cake I made for a colleague after she finished fasting for Ramadan. This was a rich chocolate cake thickened with pear instead of flour. The topping is dark chocolate ganache and fresh cherries.

Can't take all the credit for these little guys as they were a joint project with my sister Laura for my Mum's birthday.