Happy Birthday Rob!

I always get mega excited about Robs birthday, mainly because it means that my birthday is just 2 more days away. So, last night whilst Rob was still at work I set about baking him a birthday cake. Now, I have pretty much mastered muffins so think I was lulled into a bit of a false sense of security and stated 'no, I'll bake a cake!' when Rob suggested we get a nice shop bought cake. I really wish I'd listened. So, I attempted a Vanilla sponge sandwich cake, I've made Vanilla cup cakes and they were delicious so I was pretty sure it would be a breeze. It was not a breeze.

All was going well with the first sponge:

I felt excited.

I made the second sponge and popped it in the oven and went to put my feet up, when I returned to the kitchen my first sponge had taken a bad turn:

A crater had appeared! 

I didn't panic because I thought I'd just fill the crater with jam and butter icing and then plonk the second sponge on top. I removed the second sponge from the oven and all looked well so I left them to cool. On my return I discovered that the second sponge was nowhere near baked and under the cooked surface lay a mass of uncooked cake. Oh God. So I had to bin the second sponge. The problem I faced now was that Rob was due home in 20 minutes so I whipped up some vanilla frosting and smothered the top of the cake in jam and frosting. You can imagine how much there needed to be to fill the enormous hole! Rich. 

Once decorated it looked totally fine. I haven't mentioned the chaos that lies beneath  and hopefully Rob will be polite enough not to mention it, tehe. 

Another cake bites the dust. 

xo.

Cake baking disaster...

I bought the Hummingbird Bakery book from The Book People this week and have been super excited about giving one particular recipe a go: the Chocolate Guinness Cake, mainly because we've had four cans of Guinness in the fridge for the last six months following a phase Rob went through. I'm a hoarder, there's also a jar of pickled onions that has set up camp in our fridge. So, back to the baking. It started really well, it was relatively easy, I was feeling pretty confident, it smelt amazing and I started to feel a bit like how I imagine Nigella feels when she's shimmying around her fairy light lit kitchen.

At this point I was feeling pretty smug, it looks fabulous, not bad for a first Chocolate Guinness cake baking attempt....unfortunately from there it was a slippery slope. The problem was my lack of patience, I whipped the tin surround off and gazed adoringly at my creation....and then when I couldn't wait any longer I tried to remove the bottom of the tin by flipping the cake onto a plate, this is when half the top of my cake fell off! I tried to stick it back on and then the side collapsed! Not ideal, but I'm going to plough on (tomorrow, because I can't stay up all night watching it cool) and I'm going to frost it and then I'm going to eat it and despite it looking a bit of a mess underneath once it's frosted I'm sure it'll look great. Will post a picture of the finished product tomorrow.

Baking Hint 1: Patience is a virtue.

xo.