Easy But Effective

Looking through recipe books I've found that the method to making a simple plain/vanilla cake tends to be rather time consuming and long winded. A cake is something I want to be able to make quickly and easily without the fuss of combining certain ingredients first, then the next. Blah, blah, blah. 

No, I want a recipe that is simple. Success! I've found just the one! :D Thanks to the amazing baker, Mary Berry the all-in-one recipe is simple with the quantities and is adaptable, so any flavours or additional ingredients can be incorporated. 

This recipe makes a large sandwich cake or, how I usually use it, around seventeen cupcakes (I know what an awkward number). It's so simple because all the quantities are easy to remember!

8oz self raising flour

8oz margarine 

8oz caster sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp baking powder 
Splash of vanilla essence/extract

And that's it, just bung it all in a mix and within a few minutes you've got a lovely light cake mix. 

You should bake it at around 180 degreesC for around 20-25 mintues. When the cake is golden brown and springs back when pressed lightly you know it cooked. 

All the vanilla cupcakes and Victoria sponge cakes I make are all made using this recipe. It's a fool proof method! So if you're a new baker or simply looking for a different way to bake cakes, I would definitely recommend you give this one a try! 

X

My One True Baking Love

My greatest love in the world of baked goods has to be the good old cupcake.

They are simply delicious and allow you to be as creative as you want. The combinations of flavours and colours are endless so there is always an excuse to bake them. Trying out new combinations and ideas is great fun - and even more so for my friends and family who get to eat them ;) 

I love it when birthdays and celebrations come around as I get the chance to bake something special for them which they can enjoy with everyone. That's the joy about cupcake, the individual cakes means that everyone cake have their own cake - so no fuss of having to cut pieces! But don't get me wrong I love big cakes as well :) 

This is kind of just a little warning that a lot of my blog post will most likely be about cupcakes! I just love them! And decorating them is so much fun as each one turns out slightly different.  

Take this for example - seventy cupcakes all hand decorated individually! Yes this was very time consuming but A LOT of fun :D especially as it was a groups effort. What could be more fun for a novice baker? Friends. Cakes. And decorating. Brilliant! 

So if you like cupcakes, who doesn't, you might just enjoy my blog and the posts to come :) 

X

Starting Simple

I'll start off with a simple Victoria Sponge. 

This simple yet delicious sponge is easy to make and a great starter for an amateur baker, like myself :) 

The great thing about a simple cake like this one, is that you can easily adapt and change it to your preferred taste. 

With this cake, I used a simple all-in-one victoria sandwich cake recipe, so there was no messing around for creaming the butter first, blah blah blah... I find these quick, easy and simple recipes are so much better because they taste as good as the long winded ones but are so much for efficient to make :) 

Then once the cake is done, its all down to your choice. We decided to ad both whipped cream and strawberry jam. So they both went in the middle as the sandwich then the extra cream went on the top with the lovely fresh strawberry decoration. 

Of course, you could in fact use any other type of jam to create different flavours, for example raspberries or even citrus fruits. With citrus fruits I would recommend adding some of the juice into the cake mix and maybe even the cream, just to enhance the flavour even more. 

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Decisions. Decisions...

Starting a blog is pretty simple, but the main difficulty is choosing a topic to blog about. So it's that time for me, deciding what to blog about.

This is where you find out a little bit about me.

I LOVE baking, its definitely a passion I wish to pursue in the future. So I thought I might share with the all the other bloggers out there my limited knowledge about baking and all my creations. 

So this is the space where I will be posting photos, and maybe the recipes, of all the baking goods I create :) I hope this is something that will be interesting to people, so if it is, drop me a comment and let me know.

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Hello Blogging World!

Hello people of the blogging world!

If you're reading this you've found your way onto this new girl's first blog post. Thanks and it's nice to meet you! Oh, and I apologise for how awful this blog must be, but cut me some slack, I'm new :) 

Many of my friends have blogs and have raved about how good they are, I've also seen and read a lot of blogs, so I've thought why not give it a try! 

So here goes...

I'm so excited to start blogging, and I'm well aware I could just be talking (or typing) to no one at this stage. If there is anyone reading this please bare with me, this is a whole new thing for me. 

My blogging adventure begins here! :D

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