Mickey Mouse Ears cake



Mickey mouse ears cake

This turned out great, and I'm pleased as it's 150% better than when I last used red sugarpaste as I didn't totally cover it with cornflour when I dusted.

Tasted good (I've been told) - just need to practice tiered cakes a bit more as I might need to invest in proper supports for the next one...

Number one first birthday cake

Number One cake for Lily

I made this cake for Lily's first birthday. I was pretty happy with it, apart from it being really hard to ice an "odd" shaped cake.. Still - practice makes perfect I guess!

Coconut cream pie

Page 88 - Coconut cream pie

Another dark horse! Recipes like this are the reason that I like my little Hummingbird project - because I'd have never have made this by choice...

... But it was lovely - the coconut custard was so nice and I'm getting good at making pastry myself. I took it to Hannah's for dessert and think they liked it too. The custard even had mum's approval - shocking!

I spent quite a bit of money making this - as I bought a posh loose-bottomed pie tin and baking beans. So I best have lots more pie recipes to come!!!

Malted chocolate cupcakes



Page 84 - Malted chocolate cupcakes

WOW! This recipe was a bit of a dark horse, I thought it would be okay but it turned out to be super tasty! The malted chocolate frosting gave it a different flavour to the usual chocolate cupcakes, more subtle and actually nicer I think as sometimes chocolate cupcakes are little intense. The icing was lovely an smooth, and Maltesers on top were scrummy too.

As I'm writing this I'm actually trying to work out when I can make them again :-)

Apple and walnut cupcakes



Page 83 - Apple and walnut cupcakes

Another recipe that I made last year and have been hopeless at writing up!

Any recipe with the cream cheese frosting is bound to be a hit an the apples made this nice and soft. In all honesty I can't remember much more about my thoughts about making these at the time (hence why I need to remember to blog about my recipes as I make them!) - however they obviously weren't memorable for being amazingly good or awfully bad!

Blood orange cheesecake (to be re-visited)

I'm excited about this recipe as I love cheesecake and the orange on top I bet will be lovely.

HOWEVER...

It appears that blood oranges are only in season briefly in the UK - So I'll keep an eye out but think I might need to wait until January/February to make it.

Perhaps I'll have made all of the other recipes in the book by then!!!

Carrot and ginger cake

Page 79 - Carrot and ginger cake

I made this for dad's birthday as he loves carrot cake and thought he might like the ginger twist...

It was HUGE! In my opinion perhaps a bit too big for a single cake, but it was moist and so noone complained about the size. My only criticism is that I didn't grate the ginger finely enough and it was a bit stringy in texture. But noone else said that, only me!

A good variation on a carrot cake.

Chilli, cheese and sweetcorn muffins

Page 74 - Chilli, cheese and sweetcorn muffins

These were strange but nice... the sweetcorn didn't massively appeal but it worked ok. They were quite cheesy so actually reminded me a little of cheese scones. I was conservative with the chilli as I didn't want to overdo it - you could definitely taste it but I could have been braver...

Custard and cinnamon tart



Page 73 - Custard and cinnamon tart

I was dreading this recipe more than any other so far... I'm not a custard tart fan and it looked so fiddly making the pastry from scratch.

This is one of the first recipes I haven't actually tasted - partly because I just didn't want to and also because it has lots of raw eggs which I'm not supposed to be eating at the moment...

The pastry turned out really well - it's a bit of a faff but worth it for the end result. The filling didn't set that firmly - perhaps because I didn't whisk the egg whites for long enough before folding them in. However I took it to work and Carl ate seconds and thirds so it must have tasted ok. I also forgot to sprinkle cinnamon on top, so would do this if I made it again. Or perhaps nutmeg as a few people suggested that would be nice too...

Rose cupcakes

Page 68 - Rose cupcakes

I wasn't looking forward to making these as I'm not much of a rose flavour fan. To be honest you could barely taste the rose... I'm not sure if that's because I didn't use enough or I bought the wrong rose water - but you'd barely know.

However they were moist and still tasted like vanilla cupcakes so all was not lost!

Blueberry Crumble Loaf



Page 67 - Blueberry crumble loaf

I think this blog is bringing me to the conclusion that I love to bake loaves!!! This was lovely, and the crumble topping gave it a bit of an edge!

As with all Hummingbird recipes, the loaf was really moist and the fruit gave it a zing. It was really easy and I'd definitely make it again!

Espresso cupcakes



Page 64 - Espresso cupcakes

I was excited to be making these as the lovely Lesley LOVES coffee and LOVES cake so I thought she'd love these!

They were nice, although I used espresso powder which I think goes in an espresso machine as opposed to "instant" as it says in the recipe. As such, the icing was a little spotty with coffee granules! However they tasted good if you closed your eyes :-)

Mixed nut slices

Page 63 - Mixed nut slices

Another out of date post - I made these in August last year!

I was looking forward to making this after the fruit and nut tart recipe was so lovely - and I wasn't disappointed!

The caramel and nuts combined made this lovely - I don't eat nuts that often but I'd definitely make this again!

Rhubarb and Almond Loaf (part 2!)

Page 46 - Rhubarb and almond loaf

As promised, I made this recipe when I eventually got hold of some fresh rhubarb... I may be a bit out of date writing this one up as I actually made it nine months ago... but better late than never!

I don't know if I'd ever eaten rhubarb before this recipe but it was lovely - the tangy rhubarb was lovely in the sweet loaf and it went down well at the party I took it to. I've just remembered as I'm writing this that I still have some of the stewed rhubarb left in the freezer - yum!