There's always time for Cake!

I bought "Tea & Cake London" by Zena Alkaya the other day. I'd eyed it up online before but wanted to have a flick through & double check my favourite cake shops were included in the extensive list (because to be quite honest, if they weren't it would be a pretty rubbish cake book!) Peggy Porschen's, Bea's of Bloomsbury & Hummingbird Bakery were all in there so I gave in & bought it, & how happy I am that I did! :)

With my impending post Birthday diet, it probably wasn't the wisest thing to buy as I now feel the need to eat my way around London's best cake shops. But I bought it, & it's mine & who am I to deny that poor little book it's life's purpose?!

So I opened it & started with ...

Konditor & Cook's original Waterloo branch is featured in Tea & Cake London but as we were in the area a friend & I popped into the Soho branch last weekend to kick off my final birthday celebration.
It was located in a random little cinema on Shaftesbury avenue & is open until 11pm (10:30pm on Sundays!) for late night cake emergencies, which I think everyone has once in a while & I'd have a whole lot more if I lived nearby!

We headed straight for the cake. I'd been told by a friend that the Carrot Cake & their renowned Curly Whirly cakes were amazing ... So I went for carrot, & a little mini cake off the counter that was some kind of chocolatey cherry heaven, my friend had the Almond St Clement which was this moist lemony, orangey gluten free almond cake & was delicious - They were all SO good, you definitely could not fault any of them!

To go with our amazingly good cakes we ordered a pot of tea, before noticing my next favourite thing about K&C which is the fact that they sell wine! ... Not enough places sell cake & give you the choice of washing it down with a glass of wine! So after the cake was devoured & the tea was drunk, wine was ordered & we were very happy.

I need to go back & try the Curly Whirly cake ... & the brownies are meant to be super good! There are 6 branches across London, in Soho, Waterloo, Borough Market, Chancery Lane, South Bank & The Gherkin ... all of which I now feel the need to visit! I'd like to go for lunch one day as the savoury food looked super tasty too - I'm really regretting not getting a spinach & parmesan muffin but after all the cake there definitely wasn't room!

So... a good start for my new cake bible! Where to next?!

Magical pink ombre layer cake

Last week I made my first 6 layer cake :) ... i'd wanted to try one out for AGES but to be fair, couldn't be bothered! Seemed like a LOT of effort. But finding myself with a morning of nothing to do I figured i'd give it a shot & was surprised at how simple it was!

To make one you will need...

For the cake:

Have all ingredients at room temperature

9 medium eggs - lightly beaten

18oz self raising flour - sifted

18oz caster sugar

18oz butter

2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For the filling:

Raspberry Jam

250g butter

400g icing sugar

tsp of vanilla extract

To cover:

500g butter

800g icing sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Gel colouring

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 / 350F / 180C

Grease & line 6 8inch cake tins (I only had 2 so did 2 at a time!)

Beat the butter & sugar together with an electric mixer on a medium speed 

until light & fluffy, about 5-10mins

Turn down the speed & add the eggs a little bit at a time, 

scraping the side of the bowl after each addition

Add the vanilla extract

Once it's all well combined turn off the mixer & 

fold the sifted flour in a bit at a time with a metal spoon

Now separate the mixture into 6 bowls & colour each layer a different hue/colour, 

best to use gel colours instead of liquid food colouring as it makes them more vibrant

Transfer the mixtures into the prepared cake tins & cook for 17-18 mins 

until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean

Leave to cool 

Trim the tops off the layers so they're nice & flat & even

Beat the butter with an electric mixer until soft & slowly add the icing sugar,

add the vanilla extract & beat until light & fluffy (about 5 mins) 

Layer your sponges with jam & butter cream within each layer

Lightly coat the whole cake with a layer of buttercream to lock in the crumbs & pop into the fridge whilst you prepare your coloured buttercream

As before mix your butter until soft & slowly incorporate the icing sugar & 

vanilla extract beat until light & fluffy

Split the buttercream into 3 bowls & mix in the different amounts

of colour so you end up with 3 hues of the same colour

Using a piping bag with an open star tip start piping swirls of your darkest colour working from the inside out, along the bottom of the cake, filling in any gaps with a little line of buttercream as you go along

Once you've finished the first layer change to a lighter shade of your colour & repeat the swirls, finally finish the top in your lightest shade until the whole cake is covered :) 

TA DAAA! Magical ombre cake! ... my swirls could do with a bit of practice but the colours just look so pretty no-one really cares if they're a bit dodgy! Practice shall i'm sure eventually make perfect :)

It's pretty massive by the time you've finished all the layering & buttercream so make sure you have a lovely bunch of people to help you eat it! 

Cake!

A little bit late but with last week being the Queens Diamond Jubilee and my Dad's b-day it was an obvious excuse to make some yummy treats so I made a couple of cakes for the occasion...

Piped buttercream Victoria Sponge :) 

Red, White & Blue inside - v.patriotic! 

Old school pineapple upside down cake!

I do love cake :)

Peggy Porschen's Scrummy Cakes

Over the past year or so I've developed a bit of a passion for baking and cake decorating and through this I discovered one of my favourite places in London: the Peggy Porschen parlour.

If you haven't heard of Peggy porschen before and you have a sweet tooth or just appreciate amazingly beautiful cakes, her Belgravia parlour would be the first place I'd suggest you visit.

I went with the boyfriend during that ridiculously hot week in October (remember that?! ... That was lovely) and I was so amazingly excited, having drooled over pictures of her cakes for a good 6 months, to actually get to eat one.

After a wander through Belgravia in the blistering sunshine we rounded a corner and I spotted her pretty pink parlour, my boyfriend said I actually squealed and jumped at the sight of it, ever the cool and collected person that I am I just don't believe him, he must have been delirious from the heat.

Spotted this pretty little bird on a pretty Belgravia door.
So cute!

After spending a good 10 minutes choosing what cakes we were going to go with (I chose a slice of the summer berry cake and the boyfriend got a chocolate cupcake) we sat outside and devoured said cakes in what seemed like a couple of seconds, it was literally the best cake I ever tasted! It was light and fluffy and the flavours were amazing, I do think everyone has to go and have at least one of her cakes in their life time, I personally have very over the top dreams of having one of her beautiful tiered cakes centre stage at my wedding one day... maybe if I start saving now! I've also recently discovered that you can go to the parlour for afternoon tea which I will deff be looking into for my birthday next year!

So go... Eat cake and be merry, I've heard the black forest cupcakes are heavenly!