Monday 29 April 2013

So apparently Spring has Sprung ☀

In short, the last few weeks have been rather crappy.  If I'm not revising I'm working and if I'm not working or revising I'm doing assigments or wondering what in the world possessed me to choose a degree which included a statistics exam. With that said, theres been no time to make cakes, le sigh.  HOWEVER, I woke up on Sunday morning determined to put aside all the rubbish that was stressing me out, just for one afternoon, and do a spot of baking.  Sunday is my favourite day of the week, and that combined with the loooverly 'spring-ish' weather, just put me in a stupendously good mood. It's been ages since I've make a cake just for me, so I pretty much just chucked stuff in a bowl with minimal accurate measuring and hoped for the best*. 


I was aiming to make the kind of cake you would eat at a garden tea party in the sunshine, maybe whilst wearing a fancy hat.  I used the sponge cake recipe from my orange cake (because it was literally the softest cake in the universe, like eating clouds), but substituted the ground almonds for extra self raising flour.  I also added a sizeable blob of Sugarflair 'pink' food colouring gel and baked for around 20 minutes.  The buttercream (which apparently "tastes like ice cream") is a mixture of unsalted butter, icing sugar, vanilla extract and milk.  I was aiming for a bright white coloured buttercream, which is apparently almost impossible, since the yellow of the butter always gives that off-white tinge.  Anyway, I found this, you only need to add a small amount and the results are pretty impressive, if you're into making things white-er. erm.

 
1) Purdy 2) My dressing table 3) THE SUN IS OUT QUICK GET YOUR FLIP FLOPS ON BEFORE IT SNOWS AGAIN 4) The first sponge cake layer with a generous dollop of buttercream 5)one for me one for the cake 6) It's hard to cope with the pink and red clash 7) This is always the point where my cakes look their worst and i have to go sit in the bath to calm myself down 8) can't think of a caption 9) bacon.
 

 

 I took myself and my fancy lady cake to Katie's house and Katie, Martina and I painted our nails, braided each others hair, drank knock off Disaronno and watched the entire internet.  I guess it's all aboard the productivity train (cringe) now until the end of May, but it was lovely to have a day off from life and be in my own little world. 

p.s Less that 1 month until summer ☀.

*OBVIOUSLY i dont do this when i'm being paid, jeeez.

Louise xxx