Cake and Bake Show, Manchester

Hi everyone, I hope you are all well, and making the most of the sunshine if you are lucky to have some in your are. I am just waiting for the washing machine to finish so I can get some washing pegged out. It is so much nicer being able to dry things outside now instead of indoors it smells so much fresher. I was luck enough to have been given tickets to the Cake and Bake Show that was held at the Gmex Center last weekend. One of my Site Managers knows I am mad on cooking and baking and as a surprise organised for me to have tickets. I encouraged hubby to go with me mainly because, I didn't want to drive to Manchester but we decided to go on the train. I don't do trains so wasn't looking forward to this but as there is a train station very close to where I live and the stop we need to get off at was Deansgate, it made sense and saved a lot of money and stress of battling the city traffic. We strolled down to the train station and boarded the train, considering I haven't been on a train since I was little it was quite enjoyable. We chatted and watched the scenery as we passed through each station. We arrived at Deensgate and walked through the station over the tram lines and we were there, it was so easy. We waited in line for a few minuted then we went in and I collected our tickets from the booking office. We had a stroll round looking at the various stalls, there was quite a bit to see, but I wanted t catch some of the demonstrations. Lost hubby along the way but didn't worry too much as i knew I would find him later. I took in a demo by Mitch Turner, they handed out a recipe card of one of her cakes, she showed us how to do the frosting on it. It was a raspberry frosting but she had colored four portions of it with raspberry coolie and it gradually got lighter and lighter as the piping got to the top of the cake. I thinks it is one I will have a try at, the effect was really good. Eric Lanlard was also there giving demos, I couldn't get close enough to see his but enjoyed listening to him he has such a lovely french accent and I have enjoyed his series which has bee on television "Baking Mad". Paul Hollywood had also been there but as I went on the Saturday I missed him as he had done his demonstrations on the Friday, never mind I will just have to watch him on the telly. It was good to see families with young children arriving as well, and they children looked really interested in what what going on. I took some photos of some of the exhibits they were fab especially the one designed as a dress it was so intricate, unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the back as there were too many people around, but it certainly gives you the encouragement to have a go.

Lost my way a little!

Hello all in blog land, I seem to have lost my way a little and have not kept my blog up to date very well nor ave I visited many of you. I think I just needed a little time away and not do anything in particular. Things with family and pets have not been brilliant, certainly not in 2012 and we thought 2013 would be better but it has not improved so far, but, you just have to pick yourself up and get back on track and keep smiling. I have lots planned craft wise, perhaps that's the problem, I am planning too much, although the main thing I am still going to concentrate on is my cake decorating. I had a blast at Christmas and had 22 orders which I completed and delivered and I have repeat orders for Christmas 2013, I am going to start preparing for these in August. At lease I can get the fruit cakes done and stored away and I am going to sort out my pricing (honest!). My range oven is now completely fixed thanks to a very good engineer that came recently. It would appear there was a design fault with the timer which meant contacts were not being made with the controls and this sent one of my ovens into continual auto which meant you could not use it no matter what you did. It took 4 timer's to be replaced before this was sorted. Then the grill stopped working and the second oven also stopped working, right in the middle of Sunday dinner I might add, thankfully I still have my combination microwave oven and a Tefal dry fryer which meant I could still do roasties and roast the joint. I have a steamer so the veggies were sorted to. I didn't do so well with Valentines Cake orders this time, but then I did not really make it know I was doing them, I really need to get some sort of poster together and get that put up on then notice boards at work, this is where the majority of my orders come from and I have even received orders from friends and relatives of my work colleagues so that is good. I also did a birthday cake for a five year old with a request for a picture of one of his favorite characters,i used my printer which has been set up for transferring pictures on to edible icing sheets and then place on top of the dampened surface of the decorated cake. I managed to get this on this time without any rinkles or bubbles, there is certainly a knack to this. No I am off to put some washing out it is a wonderfully sunny morning even though a little cold but there is still a chance to get the washing out, I am so pleased I am getting fed up with washing drying in the house and having piles of it to wash because you can't do it all at once as there isn't the room. Here are some pictures of the cakes I mentioned earlier.

Christmas Cakes 2012 Contd.../

The sizes range from big enough for a single person up to family size depending on how much you want to eat, I made smaller ones for my father and mother in law as an extra for their Christmas box, they say they don't need anything but they do such a lot for us that I thought it would be nice to do something that is homemade, it is the second year I have done this and they look forward to it, its something different. I will be adding an extra one next year for my sister in law as she has been eyeing up the one I made for my mother in law, so that will be a surprise for her.

Christmas Cakes 2012

Those of you who know me know that I also make Christmas Cakes, I have done these for about three years now maybe a bit longer, each year I have had repeat orders and this year i received some extra ones from others and an increase in orders from my regulars. I am hoping that in 2013 I will have orders for other celebration cakes. That is my aim so we shall see what 2013 brings. The majority of the cakes were fruit cakes and two were sponge. The theme this year was mainly silver and gold, I try and make them different each year it is hard but I think I managed it. I am feeling the urge to do some of my other crafts but am not sure which to do, whether it is crochet, knitting, cross stitch or dressmaking, I have just made some curtains for my husbands study at his request while I am off so I am thinking something along maybe patch working, I have a lot of fabric in my various cupboards that would be of use. I am off now to have a look!

Cakes for a Double Christening

My sister in law asked me to make a christening cake for her new grandson, at it turned out the order was for two as there was an elder sister of the grandson who has not been christened so they had decided to have a double christening. As the little girl was a little older she is two I think I thought it more appropriate to make two ad that is what I did. I wasn't able to go to the christening but the feedback i had was that they were very happy with what I had made as I had bot been given any idea of the design I was told to come up with my own. So, blue for a boy and pink for a girl, you can't go much wrong with that I thoughts. I had some ribbons in my stash and the rest you can see in the photo's. The cakes were my usual vanilla Victoria sponges decorated in fondant.

Greetings to you all

I hope you are all enjoying your Christmas Break and are looking to bringing in the New Year. I for one cannot wait for the New Year to start and i hope that for the Bridges Family and other family members it will be a much happier and prosperous one. My life has been so busy of late an it is only now I am coming up for air, I haven't had much time for my blog or visiting friends. But I have been busy ion my kitchen on the run up to Christmas, well no change there then you must all be saying. Here is an update.

Update

A good few weeks ago now I completed my first ever order for a wedding cake. The photo I posted of it was one of my own and I am no photographer. I asked my customer who is also a work colleague if possible could I have a photo from the actual wedding and finally I have one. I think it looks great even though I say so myself, they have dressed the table wonderfully and even though i did not know what shade of pink they were using I thing I matched the cake up very well.