Say Happy Mothers Day The Baker Days Way

Posted on March 9, 2013 by clairelouise82

If like myself your not the best at baking cakes, or simply can’t find the time, then you’ll love Baker Days Cakes.

Baker Days offer the ‘Letterbox Cake’ a perfectly formed personalised cake, packed with TLC in a pretty little keepsake tin, that easily fits through the standard letterbox, meaning the lucky recipient doesn’t even need to be home to receive it.

With hundreds of designs to choose from, Baker Days offer a unique idea for a Mother’s Day gift. Each cake can be personalised with your own message and there is also the option to add your very own photo to your cake.

I sent my mum a pretty Baker Days Letterbox Cake for Mother’s Day, which arrived a few days backs. This certainly put a smile on my mums face and I was invited round for a piece with a cuppa.

For Mum I had chosen the cutest little heart and flower design. The centre of the cake sports a pretty vibrant heart surrounded by flowers. The message reads “Best Mum, Love from Claire” Its then finished of with a pretty floral design in the same vibrant pink around the sides of the cake.

I was presented with a range of flavours and cake base ingredients, when choosing my cake. Although we opted for a simple sponge that was still moist and delicious, also on offer were fruit, carrot, double chocolate or even gluten and wheat free. Some involved a very small additional charge that was most reasonable at no more than £2.

Mums cake arrived carefully packaged in a snug fitting box. The cake is perfectly presented in the cute keepsake tin with the added touch of a packet of love heart sweeties.

Mum was most impressed with the gift and so was I.

Letterbox cakes from Baker Days cost from as little as £14.99 with free delivery and a next day option if ordered before 2pm.

Baker Days also make larger party cakes and even cupcakes for all occasions.

Checkout the Baker Days Website for more information.

Disclaimer: We were supplied with a Baker Days Letterbox cake free of charge for the purpose of this review. All opinions are honest and that of my own.

Tutorial – Handmade Sweets for Valentines Day

Posted on February 7, 2013 by clairelouise82

Its fun to make your own sweets, especially with the children.

My toddler had equally as much fun making these with me as he did eating them.

I’ve included 3 types of sweets that we made, each very easy make.

All would be greatly appreciated by anyone this Valentines day.

Chocolate Dipped Peppermints

Ingredients…

200g Icing Sugar
1 Egg White
Plain or Milk Chocolate
Peppermint Flavouring
Green Food Colouring

Equipment…

Foil
Mini Sweet Cases
Mixing Bowl
Bowl (to melt chocolate)
Knife
Board
Tray/Plate
Spoon (for mixing)
Microwave (optional)

1: Add around 100g of your icing sugar to the mixing bowl, followed by one egg white, 5 drops of peppermint flavouring and 10 drops of green food colouring. Mix together well.

2: slowly add the remaining icing sugar to the mixture and keep stirring until you see the wetness/stickiness disappearing. The mixture should be thickening up into a dough like consistency that you are able to knead into a smooth ball. You may not require the whole 100g of icing sugar you have remaining or you may need to add a little extra.

3: Now make your mixture into a log shape and cut into disks. If you want the sweets smaller you can break each disk in half, roll into 2 smooth balls and slightly flatten with your thumb.

4: Now break up your chocolate and add to a non metallic bowl. Melt your chocolate in the microwave for around 30 seconds (adjust the timings if your chocolate is very hard or unrefrigerated). If you don’t have a microwave, then place your bowl in a pan of boiled water and stir till melted.

5: Lay down some foil on a board. Take each peppermint disk and half dip it into the melted chocolate. Lay it down on the foil.

6: Once all are done, cover a plate in a new sheet of foil and transfer your disks to the plate. Place the plate in the fridge for an hour.

7: Once your disks are set transfer them to your mini sweet cases. They will be firm but still mouldable so squash & mould a little if they don’t fit.

8: Place back in the fridge for 20 minutes and they are then ready to eat.

For gifts place Peppermints directly into a jar, place cases in a cute homemade box or bag them up with pretty heart cellophane bags tied with ribbon

Chocolate & Coconut Cherries

Ingredients…

Tube of Glacé Cherries
Packet of Grated Coconut
Bar Of Plain or Milk Chocolate

Tools…
Mini Heart Foil Sweet Cases
2x Bowls
Mixing Spoon
Cocktail Sticks or Fork
Microwave (optional)

1: Add some coconut to a bowl

2: Add Chocolate to a bowl & melt the chocolate as I did above.

3: I used my meat fork as didn’t have any cocktail sticks. First pick up your cherry with your stick, roll it in the chocolate and then the coconut.

4: Gently remove from stick and place in your heart foil case.

5: Do the same for all your cherries and then pop them in the fridge for an hour.

Half eaten yummy sweet

Chocolate Coconut Hearts

Ingredients…

Plain or Milk Chocolate
Coconut

Equipment….
Bowl to melt chocolate
Mini foil heart cases
Microwave (optional)
Spoon to mix chocolate

1: Melt chocolate as above.

2: Add coconut to the melted chocolate and mix well.

3: Spoon mixture into heart foil cases.

4: Sprinkle with coconut.

5: Place in the fridge for 1 hour.

Mini Bakers – Halloween Cupcakes

Posted on October 18, 2012 by clairelouise82

The kids love baking cakes especially the type that involve lots of decorating. Our Halloween cupcakes certainly did.

I actually won a halloween edition packet of Renshaw my bakes modelling icing in a retweet competition last week, So, I had no excuse but to get baking with the kids.

We used the Renshaw My Bakes Icing to model a number of spooky cupcake toppers. The pack consists of black, white, orange and purple (though green would have been better than the purple, it was an excellent kit all the same)!

My very creative 9 year old daughter Alice-Sara made a fantastic pumpkin with a black and white snake wrapped around it…

Fantastic, wouldn’t you agree?

Harley the toddler is the biggest baking fan ever and at 2 years old his already displaying some great skills in the kitchen…

What We Used…

We started off with your everyday sponge mix ingredients and just added some spooky green food colouring…

60g caster sugar
60g brown sugar
125g self raising flour
2 eggs
220g butter
10g white chocolate chips
10g mike chocolate chips
5 splashes of green food colouring

Everything was mixed together with the chocolate chips and food colouring going in last.

Once complete we spooned the mixture into some cake cases. Note, we doubled these up as to keep them strong. This was because we added an reasonable amount of mixture to each case so they would be big enough for us to cut through the middle.

We let these bake in a Pre-heated over gas mark 5 for around 15-20 minutes.

Decoration…

The decorated of our spooky cupcakes were made up from…

Renshaw My Bakes Halloween Modelling Kit
Candy Worms
225g Icing Sugar
Green Food Colouring
Black Food Colouring

Harley did an awesome job at mixing all the icing where Alice did fantastic with her spooky toppers.

Once the cakes were baked and cooled I sliced them in half covering both in green or black icing. I then sandwiched them together before adding our decorations and a sprinkle of icing sugar to finish.

We covered them and sat them in the fridge for a while.

Personally I think they looked better without the sprinkled icing sugar, but this was the children’s project after all and what they say goes!

Checkout the inside… These were some chunky cupcakes that should only be eaten on a full moon (that is unless you are aiming to put your kids on a sugar high everyday).