Cake 14 - Chocolate Celebration Cake

Hello, and welcome to a very very tired edition of ‘What Bridie Baked.’ This week’s blog is just a short one, on the basis that I am absolutely shattered from a bike ride in the sun. I am currently melting on the sofa with a towel on my head, feeling like sleep is imminent! Tobey has just made me a coffee, and I am hoping I can muster up the energy to put a brush through my barnet before my hair dries and I look like Russell Brand.

I may be tired, but there was no way I could refrain from telling you about my fabulous chocolate cake, which was a belated father’s day gift for Tobey’s Dad. The sponge was rich and choclately, and I covered the top, sides, and centre of the cake with chocolate butter cream. I was pleased with the swirly design, which I did with my new Ikea piping bag.

I managed to save the cake from the jaws of Tobey, and it made it all the way to his parents house on Tuesday evening, before he managed to wangle a piece off his Dad.

I’ll try to be wittier next week, when I have regained my strength!

Don’t forget to rate my apron if you haven’t already done so! Just leave your mark out of 10 on here, or on facebook.

Rate My Apron - Apron 2

Welcome to the much anticipated return of 'Rate My Apron.'

This week I marked the heat wave with a floral apron in the garden. It features another classic print from the 60's or 70's.

Is it better than the last? Could this be the winner? Please give me your marks out of 10 for the apron in the comments section.

Cake 13 - Korvapuusti from Finland

This week I put the ball in your court, and asked my followers via the medium of facebook “What should Bridie bake?” The response was overwhelming, and gave me a lot of food for thought.

Chris certainly wins points for the originality of his ‘4 and 20 blackbirds’ suggestion, but for health and safety reasons I won’t be climbing into hedge rows to deplete the local area’s bird population. I would also like to offer free counselling to anyone who has been affected by John’s suggestion of cottage cheese cake -it was acceptable in the 70’s.

In the end I decided to pick one that was a complete mystery to me – the Korvapuusti, suggested by my friend Marjo in Finland. Behold Finland! The country that brought us Eurovision 2006 winners ‘Lordi’, now brings us the Korvapuusti!

If you had asked me a week ago what I thought a Korvapuusti was, I probably would have guessed incorrectly that it was a small woodland animal. However, it turns out that a Korvapuusti is the tastiest roll you’ve never heard of. They’re also known as ‘Slapped Ears’, but I’m not going to go tell people I gave my boyfriend slapped ears, so for the sake of decency we’ll call them by their true Finnish name.

The only recipe I found for Korvapuusti on the internet was in American ‘cup’ format, which always confuses me. Do you use tea cups, coffee cups, or bra cups? To avoid disaster, I printed out the recipe and converted all the cup amounts into metric. Better safe than sorry I always say.

A Korvapuusti consists of bread dough flavoured with melted butter and cardamom. You roll out a sheet of the dough and then spread a filling of melted butter, sugar, and ground cinnamon on top. After this is done, you roll up the pastry like a swiss roll, cut into triangles, and put onto a baking tray so that the two dough spirals at each end face upwards. They look like a cross between a croissant and a cinnamon roll, but the taste is really quite unique.

The cardamom especially makes a Korvapuusti seem more Middle Eastern than European. It would be interesting to swap the cinnamon filling for pistachio for a real taste of the Middle East.

There is a lot of time spent waiting for the dough to rise in this recipe, but that is most often the case when cooking with yeast. This waiting game is torture for an impatient cook such as myself, but it did give me chance to hang the washing out. Once it’s in the oven it only takes 10 minutes to cook, and the result was delicious! I would be tempted to freeze them for future breakfasts if I made them again.

Join me tomorrow for ‘Rate My Apron.’ I warn you, bring sunglasses.

Cake 12 - Victoria Sponge Cake

On Saturday we went to Caerwys country fair for a fun filled day out. Although many of you may think of me as the glamorous cake baker with a jazzy apron, there is another side of me that loves getting up to my knees mud looking at old tractors and prize winning cattle, and I just can't resist the smell of an old steam engine. Oh yes, my name is Bridie and I am a steamoholic. This blog could just have easily been 'Bridie's life in Steam.' I'm just one flat cap away from owning my own steam engine. Well, maybe not.

Caerwys country show was an educational experience in many respects. The first thing we learnt was that if you own a Shetland pony you have to be under 5ft tall. The second thing we learnt was that being in a tent with 500 chickens and pigeons is a very claustrophobic and smelly experience. The third thing we learnt was that the competition for prize winning sponge cakes is very below par these days. Imagine my horror when I saw just four sorry looking sponge cakes through the plastic window of a 'closed for judging' cake marquee. If I'd have entered there's a chance I could have won first prize!

I'm going to make it my mission to enter one of these competitions and see if I can take home a red rosette! With this is mind, I thought I'd better get formulating my prize winning sponge cake recipe. No corners will be cut, tins will be lined, and doilies will be used. I'm sure that the Women’s Institute are quaking in their Scholl sandals.

As it happens, I have a small amount of experience in these type of competitions. Back in 1995 I entered my guinea pig in the Cheshire show. It was an ingenious way to get a day off school at poor Squiggler’s expense, and despite him spending the day hiding behind a piece of hay, pooping on the judge, and making an escape attempt that would make Houdini look like a Britain’s got Talent reject - he won first prize! I got 53p in prize money.

I'm hoping I can repeat this success with my Victoria sponge cake.
This week’s first attempt at a prize winning sponge was a valiant effort. The below picture may look like a rack on a cooling rack so to speak, but it is in fact my light fluffy sponge just out of the oven.

My top tip for sponge of epic proportions is extra egg white, and a lot of whisking! This week I filled the sponge with raspberry jam and fresh cream. For future competition purposes I might make my own raspberry jam, but for a Sunday night post-ironing treat, Harley’s will do just fine.

Rate My Apron - Apron 1

Hello and welcome to a fabulous new feature on 'What Bridie Baked' called, 'Rate my Apron.'

'Rate my Apron' is simple. I pose in one of my many Aprons, and you mark it out of ten. One being horrifyingly bad, and ten being the best apron of all time.

The mark you give is entirely your choice, and of course 'What Bridie Baked' promotes democracy. However, you don't want to give your 10's out willy nilly because the winning apron will be featured in my blog’s opening photo. There's everything to play for!

The first in the 'Rate My Apron' series is this fabulous orange and flowery number. The front of the apron has two deep pockets for keeping your wooden spoon, rolling pin, spatula, hip flask...whatever gets you through day. I'm guessing it's circa 1960. I'm no antique fabric expert, but maybe you are and you're thinking "That's a 1967" print. If so, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Please feel free to leave comments, and if you have an apron you would like me to model then please get in touch!

WBB Bonus - Macaroons and Cupcakes!

Welcome to a bonus edition of What Bridie Baked. I will be posting again on Sunday, but I decided to do an extra blog post this week, so I can tell you about my mid week macaroons and cupcakes.

On Wednesday, Tobey's mum invited me to a Strawberry Tea event at her golf club, and asked me if I could provide cake for the occasion. Of course I was happy for an excuse to bake something, and relished the prospect of showing off my cakes to the ladies of Harwarden Golf club. Tobey shudders at the very mention of golf clubs, but I think I could quite get into tartan trousers and plaid socks without much encouragement at all. My background is crazy golf; but I've had a go at putting a few balls on the 9th, and I can tell you that I now have The Open firmly in my sights.

I have never attempted to make meringue before, but I thought that macaroons were as good place to start as any. Using the whisk attachment of my ‘daddy’ of food mixers, I whipped egg white and caster sugar until I had fluffy peaks, and then stirred in the other ingredients. When I spooned the meringue on the baking tray, they looked more like scotch pancakes, but upon licking the spoon they definitely didn't taste like them.

They only took minutes in the oven, and looked quite spectacular when they came out - as you can see from the before and after pictures. I sandwiched white chocolate in the middle, and placed in the fridge to set. The cupcakes were very simple to make, but I experimented by icing them yellow and cutting out daisy's courtesy of my Mum's daisy cutter.

When I arrived at the golf club, I took my cakes across the sea of tartan carpet to the stall area at the back. The scones were all laid out ready to go, the strawberries were sugared, and the past Captains since 1971 looked on from their portraits in approval.

There were a selection of cakes on the table including coffee cake, chocolate cake, and some kind of cherry tray bake. I was chuffed that my cakes were deemed the 'high end' items, and therefore sold for the grand old price of 30p each. I looked around for a suitable plate to display them on, and found some nice silver ones in a cabinet. Unfortunately I was told these plates were competition prizes, and for display purposes only.

It was a great event, and my cakes were first to sell out which I was pleased about. I ate scones and strawberries, and won a bottle of sherry in the tombola that I suspect had been in someone’s liquor cabinet since 1975. I also had a unique opportunity to compare bunion surgery scars, and swapped scone secrets with a lady called Carol.

That’s all for now. Join me tomorrow for the new ‘Rate My Apron’ feature.

Cake 11 - Mint Choc Muffins

Hello, and welcome! This week I will be telling you the story of my delicious and delectable mint choc muffins. This recipe of my own creation was developed to raise money for the Parkinson’s Disease Society, and caused quite a sensation.

On 29th May 2010 the Parkinson’s Disease Society held an attic sale in the quaint village of Gwernaffield; North Wales, where even the constant drizzle couldn't stop hordes of people descending on the church hall. This day out provided much excitement for me given that my social life has been non-existent since my foot operation, and anyone who knows me knows I can't resist a bargain!

Like all attic sales, it proved to be an Aladdin’s cave of old tea pots, rejected teddy bears, Jilly Cooper novels, and once cherished Julie Andrews records. As well as the usual ‘bric a brac’ and the obligatory raffle, there was also a fabulous cake sale...which is where my mint choc muffins came in.

I was quietly confident that they would be a hit, as my taste panel of one (Tobey) had expressed that the mint aero pieces incorporated in the rich chocolate sponge, was a winning combination. Well, he didn’t use those words exactly, but you never hear them saying “Well nice” on Masterchef do you?

We arrived at the attic sale at half past ten. An ideal time to arrive at any destination with cake, as the Weetabix are wearing off and people are starting to think ‘elevenses’. I cut an odd figure with a flip flop on one foot and an ugly ass velcro shoe on the other, but I didn't let this hinder me in networking. I dropped off two bin bags of old clothes at one stall, greeted Tobey's Mum at another, and then used my crutch to part the crowds like Moses and the Red Sea, in order to get the shortest route back to the cake stall. Being an invalid does have its advantages.

I greeted the old lady who was in charge of cake selling, and gave her my muffins to arrange. She was a lovely old lady who reminded me of my own Grandma, but I eyed her with suspicion….I could tell it was going to be a case of cupcakes at dawn.

Ten minutes later, a scrum ensued around the cake table. At first I thought that a fight had broken out, but as I managed to force my way through the crumb cloud, I could see that my mint chocolate muffins had sold out, while the raisin shortbread and fairy cakes were still sitting there with jealous looks on their faces. My heart practically burst with pride.

This week a special thank you goes out to Lisa, for providing me with a variety of retro aprons. I am going to start modelling a different one each week, and you can rate them. I'm sure it wont be long now before the offers of merchandise deals start coming in!

Join me next week for a jazzy apron and yet more cake to go with it.