So it was my 21st birthday party yesterday. My birthday isn't actually until Friday, but it was a joint party so we had it between our birthdays. I baked for three days to make enough yummy things to eat (unsurprisingly, there are a few leftovers, but nowhere near as many as I was expecting!) I made everything bite sized, so that it was easy to snack on and I now have at least three recipes that I will share with you in the near future because WOW were they good.
I actually made (in the end)
1) Vanilla cupcakes with butter cream
2) Chocolate cupcakes with marbled vanilla and toffee butter cream
3) Carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and cinnamon dust
4) Banoffee cupcakes with toffee and cream toppings (I will share this recipe at some point. It's one of my absolute favourites and people practically maul me when I produce them)
5) Malibu and coconut chocolate cookies (I adapted
another recipe, but will share this because I actually have to restrain myself from eating the lot)
6)
Lemon cloud cookies that I wasn't overly impressed with, they weren't lemony enough for me and the texture was almost floury.
7)
Black and White cookies that were delicious, but really cake-y, rather than the biscuit I was expecting. I followed the original recipe's suggestion to sub almond extract for the lemon juice in the topping and they ended up tasting a whole lot like bakewell tart. Which, according to my friend Rachel, made them even better. I think she ate about 8, lol.
I'm a bit miffed (oh what an English word) that there aren't many photos of my mini cake bites anywhere, I was too busy arranging the party to worry about actually taking photos. If I find any I'll put them up, because not only did it look super professional, it also looked incredibly cute. I actually didn't want anyone to eat them at first because it looked so good. I'll make them again though, worry not. If only because I love my new silicone petit four baking tray so much that I simply have to use it again!
The birthday cake itself went from an excellent and exciting creation to a slightly crappy version of what I wanted because my oven broke just before I could bake it. Which I didn't realise until I'd cooked (and ruined) the first carrot cake. It doesn't help that the entire food spread was wheat free (the person that I was sharing the party with is a Coeliac) and so the cakes are quite difficult to cook anyway. And by the time I'd utilized my friend's oven, I didn't have the time to spend on the prep of the cake as I wanted.
So instead of having a two layered bottom tier, we only had one, which made the cake look very squat. And the carrot cake wasn't leveled out or tidied up round the edges, which gave the top tier a very bobbly, uneven finish, which was a tad annoying, but I literally had half an hour in the end to ice and decorate it.
So my great apologies for the amateur look of this cake (and I had such grandeous plans as well!) but it really was the best I could do with the time constraints and the broken oven.
Also, the only picture I have of it has me in (as the Scarlet Witch, did I mention that the party was X Men themed? I should point out that I have put on someone else's mask - I do know that the Scarlet Witch doesn't wear one :-P)
My red gloves and cape seem to have disappeared as well. And I'm kneeling down, my kitchen counters aren't head height.
That's the X Men logo on top, with a 'V' and an 'L' for the birthday girl's initials and, of course, the standard '21' to signify how old we are. The blue and yellow fondant balls around the edge are in the X Men colours.
Once again though, despite the not great quality look of the final cake meant nothing to it's final taste. Somehow the oven breaking down half way through cooking one of the tiers and the ferrying of cake tiers half way across Reading and the last minute That-Tier-Is-Ruined-I'll-Have-To-Make-Another-One-Oh-Cr*p-I've-Got-Two-Hours, didn't affect the yumminess of it all.
Of course I now have a half a 12" chocolate cake and half a 10" carrot cake to make my way through. Oh noes.
<3 Maag
