slap me! ...I know I need it.

I need a good slap. I have been terrible at keeping this blog up to date. Think of my morning off today as a HUGE catch up. I will keep you all up to date today and gradually post one (hopefully... fingers crossed) every couple of days :) But this morning task is to write everything I have learnt from TAFE so far. Here goes, I have till 1:10pm until I have to leave for the train and head off to work...its 11:16am now. So here goes!

Lesson 3: Maderia cake and Fruit cake.

A Maderia cake is a great cake for cake decorating as it is a dense sponge like cake which holds its shape very well and is great to travel as it wont end up in a load of crumbs in your picnic basket. The taste was pretty boring to me but good to learn incase I need a dense cake and I am sure you can add different flavouring to it. It was a cake I felt would be delicious toasted and slathered with butter and a cup of tea on the side. Oooo then sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, I'm a sucker for cinnamon sugar... mmm hot cinnamon donuts... sorry getting side tracked. Back to cakes.

We softened the butter (175g) with a spatular and then added the sugar (180g) and lemon zest (1 tsp) creaming it together with a spatular, not our whisks like we have done before in the pound cake as we don't want to incorporate air into the cake because we are using chemical aeration. We then added the tempered eggs (200g) one at a time. Tempered means they have had the chill taken off them and are slightly warmer then room temp. Next we added the Vanilla extract (5g) and the batter should be smooth and silky. If the eggs have curdled because they were too cold add a tbs of flour and give it a good mix or warm the mixture up over a bain marie slightly. Usually works for me when this happens. Next add your sifted cake flour (260g) and baking powder (1tsp) and mix to combine.

Place in loaf tins or cupcake cases and bake at 180 degrees celsius until golden and cooked through. Test with a knife to see if it comes out clean.

When the cupcakes were cool we iced them with fondant. To get the fondant to the right consistency you add a tiny splash of water but be careful hour much you add if you are also adding food colouring. This was our big mistake so far. The whole class (except a few experienced cake decorators... me not included here) added WAY to much and ended up with fluro icing rather then a nice shade of baby pink. I added more fondant to mine to dull the over bright colour down and thicken it up. You need to take it to blood temp over hot water so it dried shiney. This I need to practice... too much colour, not hot enough.

They turned out... well... there is a reason there are only two in the photo  :)

We iced the loaf cake while it was still hot with a lemon icing (lemon juice and icing sugar) and then quickly stuck it back in the oven to seal for 10 seconds.

Maderia loaf, fruit cake and cupcakes.

The fruit cake. Now this was no much chopping sticky gooey fruits that in the beginning I don't like. Dried fruit in my opinion is old fruit, why would you eat old fruit?!?

We had old...sorry I mean dried apple, pear, apricots, sultanas, peel, dates, currants, glace cherries, almonds and hazelnuts. After you have chopped your old... sorry dried fruit and nuts and soaked it in some rum you start on making the batter. Do the same method as the maderia cake in regards to creaming the butter and sugar then adding the tempered eggs and finally the flour. Mix this through your old fruit... sorry dried and then add a fresh (wahoo!) grated apple last. Pout into a double lined 20cm x 20cm square tin and bake at 180 until coked, this felt like hours and might have been but silly me didn't write the time down.

We glazed the cake with a flavourless glaze from a tub (looked like really runny jelly) and decorated it with almonds.

If anyone wants the whole and complete recipe for this as even me who hated dried fruit really enjoyed this fruit cake let me know in the comments and I'll email you a copy.

Thanks for reading and keep watching because I promise next post will have more pictures :)