Category Archives: Aardvark Cakes

Giant Zesty Lemon Fondant Fancy: Clandestine Cakealong

  By Helen | June 11, 2013 - 7:12 am | , , , ,
12 Comments

Giant Lemon Fondant Fancy Cake

I think I’ve found my new favourite cake (I’m also sure I’ve said this before!) No, seriously, I made a discovery yesterday that will change my ‘go-to’ cake whenever I have to take a cake somewhere.

The Lemon Fondant Fancy is one of those cakes that looks impossible to do but is really quite easy. It does help that the base cake is only 6″ square so when it comes to covering it, it isn’t too difficult to get neat.

I made the buttercream (for the bump) with more icing sugar than usual to make it extra hard. I was worried that with it being so hot at the moment, the weight of the covering might squash it down. But that didn’t happen.

I did cover the cake and the bump with marzipan before covering with the yellow fondant icing as I love the taste of marzipan and I wanted a really neat finish. I suppose if you didn’t like the taste of marzipan, a thicker covering of just fondant would do just as well.

Uses for marmalade

The recipe is the brainwave of Jini Mulukutla, who I will try to have interviewed in the next few days. Jini’s recipe says to spread lemon curd in the centre of the cake and to stick the fondant down with the curd also. I was lucky enough to be sent some marmalades and jams from the lovely people at Mackays last month though, and wanted to see what would happen if I used marmalade instead. I thought that maybe it would be too tangy – I think I had convinced myself from being a child that marmalade was too bitter a taste. How wrong I was! It added just the perfect zesty taste. I am definitely going to be using marmalade as a substitute for spreading jam on a cake from now on. I also have another marmalade recipe coming up in a couple of days … watch this space!

We had some very tasty looking bakes from our last Cake-a-long – The Torta Columbina Cake.
Victoria Murray gave us this very neat example.

 

 

Rhonda Kirby gave hers a bit of bling with some purple sprinkles

Rhonda's sparkly Torta Columbina

Rhonda’s sparkly Torta Columbina

Katy Hough had so much more success with her sugar topping than I did.

Katy's tasty looking Torta Columbina

Katy’s tasty looking Torta Columbina

And last but not least is Cassandra’s delicious looking bake. Cassandra forgot to put on her topping and sugar beads. I love this as that is just the sort of thing I do. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to put a cake in the oven to find I’ve forgotten to add sugar or eggs!

 

 

Our bake for the next fortnight (and I promise it will be a fortnight) is the Father’s Day Spiced Ale Cake. This is my lovely friend, Deb Connor’s cake and I’ve actually tasted this cake. Hope I can do it justice when I bake it for Dermot for Father’s Day this weekend. I will be back with the roundup and the next bake on Monday 24th June. Happy Baking!

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Tatty Teddy/Me to You Birthday Cake: Cake of the Week and a rare family photo

  By Helen | June 3, 2013 - 10:20 pm | , , , , , , ,
17 Comments

Tatty Teddy Me to You Birthday Cake

Please excuse the look and layout of the blog. It is sick. Very sick. A new flashy blog look will be up soon!

We had a lovely day yesterday. We held Violet’s 7th birthday party. We were brave and invited the whole class plus extra friend’s children. If everyone could have made it, we would have ended up with 55+ children but in the end, 40+ could come. (Still enough!)

As usual, time was of the essence this week. We only got back from being in London where Mil was at her last England Talent Squad, on Wednesday night. Obviously, I hadn’t started any party preparations or THE CAKE before we went – that would be far too sensible! So, all systems go and 2 very late nights, here’s what we ended up with.

A brave Dermot delivering the cake!

A brave Dermot delivering the cake!

My instructions were to make a 3 tier cake with mostly chocolate cake and a Tatty Teddy theme. I saw the ribbon in John Lewis’ on Oxford Street earlier in the week and thought immediately of the cake. When I got it home, I discovered it was Washi Tape though but decided to go with it anyway. Think I just about got away with it, although the ribbon isn’t as neat as I normally prefer. It was pointed out that I had only made 6 stars (never thought to put 7!) and Violet told me this morning that I should have put ‘Violet IS 7′! What a failure as a mother ;-)

We took a moment at the end of the party to have our picture taken by our lovely friend, Cara. Amazingly, we are all looking the same way and smiling – what a professional!

The Costello Family

Scooby Doo Cake – Cake of the Week

  By Helen | May 13, 2013 - 10:14 pm | , , , , ,
2 Comments

Why did no-one tell me about the joys of plastic figures earlier? I spent years of my life that I will never get back making teeny sugar figures and now I discover how brilliant pre bought figurines are.

I temporarily came out of retirement to make little Hugo’s cake – He’s special enough to me that it was worth it! Actually I really enjoyed having a potter and Cara (Hugo’s mum) is a dream to cake for (its a verb you know!) – She gives me complete freedom and even went and bought the figures to put on the cake.

Cake purists among you are probably shouting at the screen about a non-edible medium being used – Sterilise the figures with alcohol (vodka or gin). It will evaporate. Also if you are using sugarpaste to stick the figure to the cake, the blob with come off on the feet of the character so the plastic won’t ever touch the cake.

I think I may start the odd session of pottering about with marzipan/sugarpaste but am definitely not about to start the business up again. The thought of taking orders and being responsible for wedding cakes still makes me quiver slightly. Could be something to do with how busy I am being Mum’s taxi.

For info, the Scooby Doo Characters are currently £6.99 at B&M – now try to convince me that homemade sugar figures are better!

Hope you like! What has everyone else been up to this week? Had a creative week? Feel free to show off your creations by adding to the linky below.

Clandestine Cake-a-long Returns – Torta Columbina & Homemade Orange Curd Recipe

  By Helen | May 9, 2013 - 11:38 am | , , ,
4 Comments

We’ve had a few weeks break from the Cake-a-long but its back raring to go! It seems that with every cake I’ve made from the Clandestine Cake Collection, I’ve learnt a new skill and developed a new addiction.

This time it is a delicious orange curd – when I came to make the Cake-a-long bake I discovered I didn’t have any orange curd in so undeterred made my own. Delicious! And so easy in the microwave. All the way through, I was convinced I’d mess it up, my eggs would curdle and it would taste awful – but NO – IT WAS A HUGE SUCCESS! We are now eating Homemade Orange Curd with everything – the kids might draw the line at Orange Curd Tuna Pasta however.

I’ve never heard of a Torta Columbina before – I have googled and found Tarta Columbiana which sounds very similar. This cake was the brainwave of Euan Greig who blogs over at Signor Biscotti, a lovely blog that will have your mouth watering. Euan’s version of the cake looks so much better than mine and you can find the recipe here. I’m going to try to interview Euan in time for the next round up in 2 weeks to find out more.

The cake itself was not too complicated – I did seem to end up with far too much egg white mixture for the topping though and had to crack it to make sure it was cooking. I personally would have liked a stronger orange flavour but I’m sure this is just me. I loved the addition of the almond flavouring too – it really added an interesting aftertaste. I’ve spotted Millie dipping into the cake over and over again which is a sure thumbs up!

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Homemade Orange Curd Recipe

Homemade Orange Curd Recipe

Ingredients

  • 2 egg yolks
  • 4 eggs
  • Finely grated rind of 2 oranges
  • 175g caster sugar
  • Freshly squeezed juice of 2 oranges
  • 125g butter, chopped into small pieces

Instructions

  1. Whisk the eggs in a large microwave bowl
  2. Add the orange rind, sugar, orange juice and butter
  3. Microwave on high at 30 second intervals for at least 8 minutes
  4. I whisked after every 30 second period so the butter was properly mixed in.
  5. The curd will thicken and form a thick coating on the back of a metal spoon.
  6. Taste and be transported to a delicious place!
  7. Transfer to either one big sterilized kilner jar or small sterilized jars and allow to cool fully.
  8. Keep in the fridge for up to 4 weeks.
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So there is the Cake-a-long for this fortnight. I will do a round up on Monday 20th May (the linky will be open until approx 8PM on Mon 20th May) and the new Cake-a-long will start on Tuesday 21st May. It is never too late to start joining in with the Cake-a-long. If you would like to suggest a cake for us to make, please feel free.

Our next bake will be the Giant Lemon Fondant Fancy on page 231 – Eek! Be brave with that fondant!

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Cake of the Week: Swiss Roll – A revelation!

  By Helen | May 3, 2013 - 5:18 pm | , , , , , , ,
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How have I gone 39 years without making a swiss roll? Even more to the point, how didn’t I know that they were so easy and so satisfying to make?

Last Sunday we were having a family getogether as we do every year around the time of our Dad’s anniversary and Mum’s birthday. As usual, I had been mad busy during the run up to the day. I had every intention of producing a masterpiece but thought it would end up being a Mr Kipling/Costco special.

On Sunday morning though, 4 of us did the Swimathon raising money for Marie Curie. Amazing how a swim can leave you feeling energised and utterly needing cake!

I came home and thought Swiss Roll like you do. A quick nosy round at old cookbooks and I came up with a recipe of my own. I was wanting to go for HUGE while we were expecting 13 of us.

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Swiss Roll – A revelation!

Rating: 51

Prep Time: 14 minutes

Cook Time: 11 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Yield: At least 8-10 generous pieces

Swiss Roll – A revelation!

Ingredients

  • 3 large eggs
  • 125g caster sugar
  • Splash of vanilla extract
  • 125g plain flour
  • Plenty of strawberry jam
  • Punnet of strawberries
  • Tub of whipping cream - whipped until fairly thick
  • 4 tbsp extra caster sugar for decoration
  • Icing Sugar to sprinkle over finished cake

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 200C
  2. Line an oven tray with baking parchment and sprinkle the caster sugar over it evenly.
  3. Whisk the sugar and the eggs for at least 10 minutes until really pale and visibly thickened. You should get a trail when the whisk has been removed from the mixture.
  4. Add in the vanilla extract.
  5. Fold in the flour very gently and slowly.
  6. Spread evenly over the sugar sprinkled baking parchment and put in the oven to cook for 11 minutes. This was the biggest revelation for me, that the cake cooks in such a short time - If you get a move on, you could even have one ready for your afters (dessert if you are not northern ;-))
  7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.
  8. Before the cake is fully cooled, roll it so the cake is still malleable enough to shape - I also cut off the very ends to give a neat finish but I think that was a bit pretentious and actually wasted valuable cake.
  9. Unravel and allow to cool completely.
  10. Spread a generous layer of the jam and cream on the cake and spread thin slices of strawberries evenly over the cake.
  11. Roll up again, sprinkle with the icing sugar and put on a rectangle plate if you have one. You can even add a spare strawberry at the front if you really want to be poncey!
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I’ve not done a Cake of the Week post for ages – Feel free to join in if you’ve been producing masterpieces recently. I’ll do a round up at the end of next week if we get entries.

Casa Costello
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Violet Meringue Kisses

  By Helen | April 30, 2013 - 7:26 am | , ,
9 Comments

I’m well known for my love of all things violet. You may remember a few weeks ago I was waiting on a delivery of some much coveted violet syrup.

Well, the syrup arrived and smells divine so I have set out experimenting with recipes. I’m big into making homemade gifts and saw several pics of meringue kisses in lovely gift bags and sellophane. I’ve never even tried to colour meringue before never mind flavouring it but will give anything a go. Fair to say, my first attempt was a complete disaster. Underterred, but a little short on time, I decided to have another go and actually follow the rules of meringue this time – and they worked!!

I only gave the meringue kisses a mild taste of violet as I wasn’t sure how much of the syrup, the beaten egg white could tolerate. I reckon if I did it again, I could get away with slightly more violet syrup.

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Violet Meringue Kisses

Rating: 51

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 2 hours, 20 minutes

Yield: 60-80 depending on how big you pipe them

Serving Size: Individual Mini Bites

Violet Meringue Kisses

Really really take your time adding the sugar - the slower, the better, it should take about 8-10 mins. It is highly unlikely that the meringue can be over whisked - I thought it could. Don't skip the sifting of the icing sugar - any lumps will knock the air out of the meringue. Again, I learnt the hard way that this bit is important.

Other flavours that can be used are vanilla extract, peppermint extract, orange extract, cocoa.

Ingredients

  • 3 egg whites
  • 100g caster sugar
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
  • 1 tsp Violet Syrup
  • 100g Icing Sugar - sifted
  • Food Paste Colour

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 80C (I didn't even know it went that low!)
  2. Whisk the egg whites for around 10 mins on a medium speed building up to a high speed until the whites are at peaks that hold themselves up.
  3. Add the salt and the caster sugar REALLY SLOWLY - this is what I did wrong the first time. Meringues cannot be rushed.
  4. You should after 8-10 mins get firm peaks where the mixture is really quite still - This is the bit where people put the bowl over their heads.
  5. Add the Cream of Tartar, the syrup and any food colour at this point - really slowly mixing again.
  6. Put the mixture into the piping bags and pipe teeny rosettes onto a baking tray with reusable liner or baking parchment on it. I ended up using 3 baking trays.
  7. Bake for 2 hours and leave in the oven until it has completely cooled.
  8. Try to resist eating them and bag them up with decorative ribbon for gifts.
  9. Can be kept in air-tight tupperware for 3 months.

Notes

I use disposable icing bags as they are easier to handle than baking paper bags. I use the star nozzle and leave quite a peak when I pipe them.

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Just to prove that disasters happen but perseverance pays off, here’s a pic of the first attempt at meringue kisses – hmmm look delicious?

And here’s what I was hoping to achieve …

Source: Pinterest

I think I managed to have my own version of a Pinstrosity and a Pin-n-tell.
I’m also entering my attempts at Violet Meringue Kisses into this month’s PinAddict’s Challenge.

PinAddicts Challenge

Featherlight Cake: Clandestine Cake-a-long 3

  By Helen | March 26, 2013 - 7:25 am | , , ,
8 Comments

Helen Jones, you are a genius! This cake is a revelation. A fat-free sponge that comes together ultra quickly and feels somehow luxurious but not guilt ridden to eat. (even with a shed load of fresh cream in the middle). Our cake for the Cake-a-long this fortnight is the magnificent Featherlight Cake on page 15 of the Clandestine Cake Cookbook.

We actually made and ate this cake early last week for a late Mother’s Day treat but it has taken me forever to get to the laptop to post about it. Never fear, the Cake-a-long is back on track – I actually was away with Millie’s synchro this weekend and I didn’t want to advertise to the whole world that the house was empty. Back now – burglars, you snooze, you lose and all that!

I’m sure that this recipe will be one that I will go back to over and over again. I can’t stress enough how refreshing this cake was to an ordinary sponge. I was tempted to add a splash of vanilla extract but decided not to mess with Helen’s design. It was fine without the vanilla in the end but I may try experimenting with other flavours in future. I’m thinking lemon rind and lemon curd would be amazing.

I know a couple of people have already baked this cake in preparation for this week -if you haven’t made it yet, it would be a fantastic alternative to all the stodge of Easter chocolate. I will hopefully post more information about the recipe creator, Helen Jones in the round up post.

So, go ahead! Let’s see your creations – Is anyone planning on filling with anything different to the suggested jam and fresh cream? If anyone is struggling with putting their photo on pinterest, please feel free to email me and I will do my best to help.

Our next cake will be the Torta Colombina by Euan Greig on page 116 – a Italian Easter inspired cake with an orangey taste – Can’t wait!

The linky for the Feather light cake will remain open until next Monday (1st April).

Toffee Shock Cake RoundUp: Cake-a-long 2

  By Helen | March 18, 2013 - 10:23 pm | , , , ,
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I need to apologise – I’m a week late with the round up and the next bake for the Cake-a-long. Life once again just got in the way.

We had a good turnout once more for the second in our Cake-a-long marathon – Hands up who enjoyed the Toffee Shock Cake? Me Me ME!!! There was certainly plenty of this cake to go round so if you happened to visit the Costello residence you would have received a generous slab of it.

Lovely to see our bakers stuck with the 4 tiers – Rhonda even gave us a peek at the inside of her cake!

Cor! Now there’s an inside to a cake!

For the fudge and toffee lover

 

 

Katy certainly didn’t hold back with her toffee toppings on her cake – No shortage of calories in this cake but isn’t it so neat?

 

 

The tallest Toffee Cake ever?

 

Cassandra’s cake is super tall – she had the opposite problem to me with the topping and had to warm hers up as it had set too hard!

 

Seeing Stars!


 

 

And last but not least, we have Victoria who had the genius idea of adding some chocolate stars to her cake.

Thanks for joining in everyone. If you would like to join us in baking our way through the Clandestine Cake Cookbook, we would love it. There’s no pressure to join in every week and no competition (Good job, I would have well lost by now!)

Cake of the Week: Parma Violet Cake

  By Helen | March 15, 2013 - 7:52 am | , , , , ,
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For one night only this cake was also known as The Violet Mary Costello Cake. (see photo!)

I have a new addiction – crushing up sweets and concocting various cake recipes. This was my offering to our latest Clandestine Cake Club held in St Helens last week. Our theme was Spring and I thought spring flowers and pastel colours would suit the theme.

Off I tottered to Amazon and duly ordered some Violet Syrup – I was going to go the whole hog and order crystalised violets but quite frankly, they were deeply ugly so I didn’t bother. Days went by and no sign of the violet syrup (I am in fact a week after the CCC still waiting for it to arrive and may be having a Parma Violet Cocktail night when it eventually does!) Not one to be deterred, I thought how best can I get a violet taste and so started the search for Parma Violets.

Turns out that they are considered quite a delicacy in St Helens – I was under no illusion previously that we were a Mecca for unusual ingredients but blinking hek, Parma Violets!?! Many a shopkeeper looked at me like I’d lost my marbles until my friend, Sue visited the good old market – Hurrah! I was now the proud owner of 40 packets. Yes, you read right – 40!!!

By now I had already made a sponge cake (just a normal vanilla sponge) so I crushed up 10 of the packets by bashing with a rolling pin in a heavy duty foodbag – I’m not ruining my Magimix for the sake of some Parma Violets! I mixed the crushed sweets with some thick buttercream/frosting and popped in the fridge for a few hours – I think the taste was slightly more concentrated because of this step but I’m sure if you ate straightaway it would be fine. The sweets weren’t completely crushed to fine sugar but the little flecks gave a lovely texture when we ate it. The parma violet taste was delicious and gave a little aftertaste kick – it was even nicer the next day. I also sprinkled some fine Parma Violet powder over the icing on the top of the cake for added flavour.

I’m thinking my next mission might be to try crushed Swizzels or even pear drops (although they do make me cough!) Can you think of any sweet suggestions? Don’t blame me though when you get told off by your dentist!

I know its been yonks since I did a cake of the week linky but if there’s anyone that would like to link up, I’d love to see your work.

Lime & Pistachio Round-Up: Clandestine Cake-a-long 1

  By Helen | February 26, 2013 - 11:30 pm | ,
3 Comments

Source: picmonkey.com via Helen on Pinterest

Wow! What a fabulous start to the Clandestine Cake-a-long. Our first bake seems to have been a great success with many more people saying they hope to take part.

The Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook was published almost 2 weeks ago now and everywhere I go people are talking about it. I came across it in Costco last week when I was shopping with the 3 mini Costellos – we may have left it open on my recipe page for all to see ;-) ahem!

Anyhow, back to the Lime and Pistachio cake – I thought it would be an idea to do a round up of all the bakes submitted to the Cake-a-long. I have added them all to the Clandestine Cake-a-long Pinterest board too. Feel free to visit the pics and leave comments.

For our first recipe, we had bakes from Katy Hough, Rhonda Kirby, Cassandra Simpson and Victoria Murray. We have had a fortnight of getting to grips with Pinterest aswell as a new recipe so we’ve all learnt something. I hope to add a Clandestine Cake-a-long Facebook page in the next few days to make it easier for FB diehards to add their bakes too.

Thanks to everyone who joined in – Our next cake is the wonderful, Julia England’s Toffee Shock Cake. Mine is cooling as I type so the post will be up tomorrow. Happy Baking!