Tag: buttercream

Posted in Cakes, decoration

Easter cake (no tools required!)

Posted on by The Soggy Bottom

When you’re first getting into cake decorating, it’s easy to be fooled into thinking you need a million special tools to create a professional looking cake.

Well STOP RIGHT THERE. Before you go rushing to Lakeland (the motherland), and break the bank on a turntable, airbrush and edible pigments, give this no tools Easter cake a whirl.

This super cute Easter cake is a great one to make with young sprogs because no special tools or skills are needed, what a win!

Now before you all start coming for me, I did use a piping bag (I know, the shame), but no nozzle and the same effect can be achieved by snipping off the end of a zip lock bag!

Before we get crackalackin, here’s some nawti kitchen goss:

Kitchen Goss

A new month, a new obsession, this time it’s below deck. Sorry, how have I not discovered this gem of a tv show before now?!? It’s everything I love – drama, relationships and boats – all rolled into one. #boatlover

The obsession has taken a new turn and I’ve now convinced myself that yachting needs to be in my life.

Yes, I was the world’s worst waitress so the silver service of the stews might not be for me.

Yes, I have the upper body strength of a malnourished 12 year old so deckhand would also be a struggle.

Yes, I nearly drowned trying to surf in Scarborough so sea safety isn’t my forte.

But haters gonna hate, the ocean is my calling. See you on the waves #yachtie #seeyounextcharter #steworcrew 😈🤘🤪

Anyway back to decorating…

I’ve made a short vid showing how to recreate this cake at home, but if you really love reading there are written instructions below!

Ingredients

  • Cake recipe of your choice (I did coffee because I’m officially an adult and like the taste of coffee now)
  • Buttercream (enough to fill and ice the cake, and to make little chickies)
  • Piping bag/freezer bag/zip lock bag
  • mini eggs (I used a total of 6 small bags, but I rek like 2 big ones would be fine)
  • Sprinkles
  • Food colouring (yellow, black, orange)
  • Optional – cocktail sticks
  • Optional – gel icing pens (available in any supermarket)

Method

  • Get your cake of choice baked and cooled
  • Make some classic American buttercream (or try this recipe if you’re being fancy: https://the-soggy-bottom.com/2020/01/31/italian-meringue-buttercream/ )
  • fill between the layers of your cooled cakes, and crumb coat (put a thin layer of icing around the whole outside of your cake)
  • Chill in the fridge!!! This step is really important if you want a clean looking cake (need at least 30 mins I would say)
  • Get a decent blob of buttercream (but save some for the chicks) and spread over your chilled crumb coated cake, it doesn’t really need to be super neat because we’re going to cover it all up anyway so just whack it on!
  • Pop that back in the fridge to firm up
  • In the mean time start prepping your decor
  • Colour most of your remaining buttercream yellow
  • Plop into a piping bag (or freezer bag)
  • If you do the next step on greaseproof paper or tin foil it will make it easier:
  • Snip off the end and pipe a big blob, then a smaller blob on top to make your chicks
  • Freeze these for 5 mins – you’ll then be able to pick them up and handle them much easier
  • Colour tiny amounts of buttercream black and orange, and use a cocktail stick to place these on the chick to form eyes and beak
  • TOP TIP – if you want to make this step easier, buying the gel icing pens from supermarkets are really useful for small details like this
  • Get your cake back out the fridge and chuck some mini eggs on
  • Cut out a small circle from paper and place on the cake
  • Fill the surround with sprinkles and push them in a bit so they don’t all fall off
  • Peel off your paper, and place your chickies in the centre
  • All done!!

Right well that’s the end of that.

I hope you all have a fabuloso Easter.

Thanks for reading, lots of luv, Han x

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Posted in Cakes, decoration

Tropical Traybake

Posted on by The Soggy Bottom

Since nobody has been able to jet off to Benidorm or any other exotic location this year, it’s time to bring the sun to us with this tropical traybake.

This orange and passionfruit cake will provide the sunny vibes, but if you really want to recreate the ‘Brit on holiday’ experience, then you’ll also need to do the following:

  • wear a ridiculous tropical shirt (bonus points if it matches with the rest of your travel companions)
  • get up at the crack of dawn to ‘save the sunbeds’
  • burn to a crisp on the first day
  • say it’s boiling at least 17 times a day
  • learn how to say hello in the local language, then proceed to speak English

Before we get into the nitty gritty of the recipe, here is this week’s (very embarrassing) kitchen goss

Kitchen Goss

I can’t quite believe I’m exposing myself this much on KG, but this is too funny not to share.

So I recently rediscovered this voice memo I made in 2018 when I was revising for my chemistry A-level. I must’ve seen a pinterest thing on creative ways to revise or something, because something unholy possessed me to make a song about electrophilic addition.

Yes it’s to the tune of ‘These Words’ by Natasha Bedingfield

Yes it took me all day to write (and I couldn’t even make it rhyme)

Yes the full version of ‘Mechanisms Mix *flame*’ is available on soundcloud

I can’t bring myself to listen to the full thing, and safe to say I will never be doing that again.

Back to the bake…

Ingredients

  • FOR THE CAKE
  • 225g butter
  • 225g caster sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 225g self raising flour
  • 1 orange – zested n juiced
  • 1tsp vanilla extract
  • FOR THE ICING
  • 150g butter
  • 300g icing sugar
  • 3tbsp passionfruit curd (or adjust to your taste)
  • 1tsp vanilla extract
  • gel food colourings

Method

  • whack your butter and shug in a bowl and beat until light and fluffy
  • add eggos one at a time
  • fold in flour, orange zest, vanilla and 3/4 of your orange juice (save the remaining quarter for icing time)
  • Whack this in whichever tray tickles your pickle, make sure to grease and line it
  • bake for 20-25 mins at 180C (or if your oven doesn’t have numbers on it like mine, then just take it out when it looks golden and a knife comes out clean when you poke it in)
  • Whilst that’s cooling you can crack on with the icing
  • whip up the butter and icing sugar
  • add the orange juice and passionfruit curd to your taste (it can be quite zingy)
  • if you want to decorate with painted buttercream flowers then split icing into bowls and add colourings of your choice (gel food colourings work best here)
  • once the cake is cool, remove from the tin and spread over a base layer of icing
  • Let this set up in the fridge – very important step otherwise going to be difficult to add more buttercream on top!
  • once harder to the touch, get the cake out and get creative
  • I ‘painted’ flowers onto mine, which is a technique I’ve been wanting to try out for ages, but go with whatever you feel looks fun n fresh

If you’re interested in how I decorated my traybake, then take a look at this very speedy vid below.

Thanks for reading, lots of luv, Han – KG x x x

Posted in decoration

Italian Meringue Buttercream

Posted on by The Soggy Bottom

Not overly sweet and smoother than my chat up lines – you won’t go back to the basic buttercream after getting your nashers round this.

There are 3 main types of buttercream – American, Italian meringue and Swiss meringue. There are some other irrelevant ones but these are the 3 top dawgs.

Continue reading “Italian Meringue Buttercream” →