Baby's first cake

I cannot believe how quickly a year has gone by but somehow we found ourselves celebrating the boy's first birthday this week.

He loves his wooden Noah's arc set and has taken a particular liking to his zebra and giraffe so I thought it would be nice to put these on his cake. He had a new Zebra T'shirt to wear for the day too!

I kept the colour very pale and baby-like and put his name on the board with the number 1. The giraffe lost his head on the journey between our house and my mum's but we managed to 'glue' it back on with a bit of water! 

To mix it up a bit I did two flavour cakes. A madeira and chocolate cake combination combined with Swiss meringue buttercream icing. Not a huge fan of it to be honest but I'm not going to give up and will give it another go at some point. I am still searching for the recipe for the really smooth soft white buttercream you get in shop bought cakes but until I find it I will keep experimenting. 

I found a new jam (www.thejammycow.co.uk) at our local bakers which I also sandwiched between the layers and it was scrummy.  

Reaching new heights

My brother is an avid rock climber and is taking on Mount Kilimanjaro in November, raising money for Parkinson's UK (well done you!) so when I saw a rock climbing cake on Pinterest, I knew that's what he had to have.

However, I had a bust up with the icing and ended up throwing the whole thing away! I rolled it out about seven times and every time I tried to lift it, it would crack. I put it on top of the cake at one point and the sides just collapsed leaving a circle on top of the cake so I gave up, swore a little bit and then took a deep breath!

I had to rescue the cake by adding an extra layer of ganache and leaving it pretty rustic looking. I also think the climber was a touch too large for the size of the cake. It was a 6 inch four layer chocolate sponge which ended up 7 1/2 inches high.

Happy birthday Jay.

Chocolate Ganache Disaster Averted

I'm making chocolate ganache for the first time which is probably not the best idea when both the cake and I have to be ready for 11am tomorrow morning (it's now 11pm!). But as a working mummy of two, I have to fit my baking in when I can.

So this evening I nervously followed the recipe in my Great British Bake Off ShowStoppers recipe, unsure of what consistency I was looking and what lay in store for the chocolate concoction.

I stirred the mixture well and then left it to cool as directed but when I looked back at it half an hour later, it had separated with an oily residue on the top.

I panicked and did what any decent baker would and googled it! I was saved by this blog http://www.kayahara.ca/2011/01/emulsions-broken-and-repaired/ I followed the tip with the warm milk and my ganache is saved.

So if ever you experience oily or separated ganache and don't know how to save it then look no further than this very useful tip:

"First, try simply re-warming it and stirring. If that fails, add some warm milk, bit by bit, to increase the amount of water in the mix. Slowly, the ganache should come back together."

This actually works!!! 

Just need to worry about the icing and decorating now.