The Cake Fork is moving!

Hi everyone,

Just letting you know that The Cake Fork has now officially become a .com!

You can check out my new blog The Cake Fork by clicking on the link.

Looking forward to seeing you over there!

Scooby Doo Cake

Recently I made a Scooby Doo cake from Debbie Browns book Cartoon Cakes and it was a lot of fun to make.  I used chocolate mud cake and covered it in dark chocolate ganache and then followed her instruction from there. 

Some of the modelling for scooby etc. was a little difficult to follow from the instructions but I just looked at the pictures and did my best. 

Here are some pictures of how it turned out!

My Wedding Cake

I recently got married and wanted to share with you my wedding cake. Yes, I did make my own cake and yes I am crazy!

Some of you may recognise this as a Faye Cahill design and you would be right! I didn't set out to copy her design.....it just ended up that way!  

I wanted to use the damask stencil on my own wedding cake for a while (inspired by Effie's cake with the doves on top) and I knew I wanted sugar flowers too. 

I used Jacqueline Butler's Craftsy tutorial to make filler flowers and then stumbled across this exact design on her blog and that's how I chose to brush the whole cake in Ivory lustre.

The bottom tier is dark chocolate mud cake with dark chocolate ganache and the top tier was made using a dummy cake. 

I hope you like it.

Salted Caramel and Vanilla Baked Cheesecake Recipe

Here's the recipe for the salted caramel cheesecake as promised. I have added my alterations in bold. Enjoy!

500g plain sweet biscuits

1/2 cup (60g) almond meal

150g butter, melted 240g

350g ricotta

500g cream cheese

1 cup (175g) brown sugar 250g

4 eggs

2 tablespoons golden syrup

1/4 teaspoon table salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup (250ml) single cream

1 cup (240g) sour cream

1 tablespoon icing sugar, sifted

sea salt flakes, for sprinkling

Caramel Sauce

1 cup (250ml) single cream

60g butter, chopped 85g

1 cup (175g) brown sugar 250g

To make the caramel sauce, place the cream, butter and sugar in a saucepan over low heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Increase the heat to high, bring to the boil and cook for 5-7 minutes or until thickened. Set aside and allow to cool.

Preheat oven to 160C. Place the biscuits and almond meal in the bowl of a food processor and process until coarsely chopped. Add the butter and process to combine. Press the biscuit mixture into the base and sides of a lightly greased 22cm springform cake tin. Refrigerate for 1 hour. There will be way too much biscuit mixture for the base. 500g of biscuits is too much but I had already followed the recipe and added the butter before I realised is was very wrong! I will do half the amount next time. Also, use a straight sided drinking glass to help push the biscuits up the sides of the tin. This way you get a really neat and even finish and it's much less fiddly.

Place the ricotta and cream cheese in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 5-6 minutes or until smooth. Add the sugar and beat for 3-4 minutes or until combined. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the golden syrup, table salt and 1 teaspoon of vanilla and beat until well combined. Spoon the mixture into the biscuit shell. place the tin in a baking dish and pour enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the tin. I highly recommend covering the outside of the tin in foil before putting in the water bath so you don't get any water seeping into the tin! Bake for 1 hour 30 minutes or until firm to the touch. Remove cheesecake from the baking dish and allow to cool in the tin. Refrigerate for 3 hours or until set.

Place the cream, sour cream. icing sugar and remaining vanilla essence in a bowl and whisk until soft peaks form. Top the cheesecake with the cream, drizzle with the caramel sauce and sprinkle with sea salt flakes to serve. Serves 8-10.

Salted caramel and vanilla baked cheesecake

I made this cheesecake recently from the latest Donna Hay magazine and it was absolutely beautiful but I did make a few changes to the recipe as I thought there were a few errors. It is supposed to be salted caramel on the top but the recipe is really just butterscotch sauce. Next time I will make real caramel!

Here's a picture of what it looked like and I will add the recipe soon. 

Guitar Cake

Here's a pic of my latest cake. I was asked to make an electric guitar cake so I decided to make a copy of a Fender Stratocaster. I found a picture of a Stratocaster online, printed it out and enlarged it until I was happy with the size. If you know what these guitars are supposed to look like you'll know that I missed a few details. I was rushed for time so I left some things off. It's made from Butter cake and buttercream icing. The letters were made using FMM Funky Alphabet cutters. I hope you like it.

Custard Tarts

I've been asked by my brother many times to make him custard tarts and finally I did. They were very easy to make and tasted brilliant. I must admit on this occasion I didn't make the pastry cases due to lack of time but normally I would make them myself. When I was growing up I didn't really like custard tarts because of the texture of the custard but I loved this recipe. If you like custard tarts I highly recommend you try these.

Recipe for custard filling:

1 tab cornflour

265g caster sugar

600ml cream

6 whole eggs, plus 2 yolks

1 tsp vanilla extract

grated fresh nutmeg

Method:

Preheat oven to 160 degrees.

Place cornflour and sugar in a bowl and stir in cream.

In a separate bowl, beat eggs and extra yolks, then add to sugar mixture with vanilla extract and stir well.

Pour filling into cases, sprinkly with nutmeg and bake until just set. approx. 15 minutes

Be careful not to overcook as it will rise out the top of the pastry cases and change the texture of the custard. I ended up making 48 small custard tarts from this recipe.

Enjoy!