Cakes: Peppa Pig

I have three little nieces and they are the cutest things in the world, the can also be a pain I love them to pieces. So anyway every year I ask the oldest who's now 5 what she would like for her birthday cake, I figured she has about 10 aunts and uncles so a novelty cake is a perfect present for her.

Last year she asked for Peppa Pig, Woody and Buzz Lightyear and Fireman Sam in the corner, so I explained that she would have to pick one. After much deliberating she came up with Peppa Pig so here's how I did it.


Step one (Left), a vanilla tray bake with a strawberry jam filling.



Step two or three.. (Right) this is the part that takes the most time, I created tones of buttercream icing as that's her favorite and coloured it accordingly. I had to do this a few times to get the right colours and so no cake showed. Once done I chilled the cake overnight.

To finish I piped on the the finishing details  and made a sugar paste wand, with the extra icing I piped some 'oink's around her just to finish.

The bottom photo is lopsided but there is what remained after me nieces go to the cake. It went down brilliantly.

Alot easier than I thought.

Markets, Macaroons and Bake Off...

Right so seconds post, albeit a little bit later than I planned but the last two weeks ran away from me. The biggest thing I’ve learnt must be that turning something you do because you love it into a way to make money is pretty difficult.

So, I had my first four markets last week all over western Cornwall and I think I’ve final found a routine that works. Again Chelsea buns were big on the menu and also my Saffron buns that are improving with every day, I also had Tiffin (fridge cake for anyone born post 1990’s) a huge seller when people know what it is. This astounded me as it’s so easy to make (there’s no actual baking involved) but people seem to flock to it, there were also Spinach and Feta Filo pies, some of the rare savories I make.

And on a wonderful note I've finally conquered macaroons, much harder than I thought when I first found the recipe for them and after 6 times I've got the hang of them.

Now any Great British Bake Off fans here? It too me almost a week to get around to finally watching the final and I have to say Frances deserved to win and her wedding cake was amazing! I want to make one now....

So after watching the technical I wanted to try to make pretzels and they are easier than I thought, if you have a chance try them! Oh and if you're having trouble finding malt extract don't worry, I never used it and didn't have any trouble.

Me again...

I want to say it's going to be a third time lucky with me and a blog however that's not quite true as this must be my fourth or dare I say fifth attempt at writing and posting on a blog. This time I don't feel as if I have half as many distractions and I feel optimistic that I'll stick with this one.

So where to begin.

I'm Jordan (or J depending on what you like) and being a baker has been on my to do list since I was about 10, in-between then and now I've wanted to be a doctor, a paramedic, a graphic designer and many other things but I've always come back to being a baker. So finally after about 5 years working in kitchens doing various jobs and two years of college studying nothing to do with baking my mum told me to 'just pull you're finger out and go and do it, you've been talking about it for years.' Here I am, 18, not too many commitments, as far west as you can get in England (Cornwall) and the pipe dream to one day own my own bakery/coffee house all to myself, (and a few nerves but I'm ignoring them...)

I'm not quit sure why I'm writing the blog, I don't necessarily think it's going to effect my business much but there's something nice about sitting down and taking a minuet to think about what I've done and ponder....

Things that I bake:

Well that list has most definitely grown in the past month let alone the last year but my basics are obviously cakes, sweet breads like Chelsea buns, Saffron buns and many others, gluten-free cakes and I have a not so secret obsession with cupcakes. I've been learning to tame this obsession slowly but the way I see it there's nothing better than a perfectly proportioned piece of cake that hasn't been cut and is all yours. But then that's just me, this past summer I worked in a coffee shop and the varying size of cake slices were astonishing.

So as this is a first post I'm not going to go too crazy with the cakes and photos -I didn't think I would write this much when I started, but here's a photo of my most recent batch of chelsea buns, definitely a family favorite in my house.

The uniformity of my spirals lost to towards the end there....Still they tasted good.