27 August 2013

This summers bakes & makes

Wow, it's been what can only be described as a frantic summer here at RBC HQ & here we are at the end of August & I haven't shared a thing!  It's included redundancy (booo!), job hunting (again), birthdays, weddings, hatching plans for shaking off corporate life once & for all, head scratching as to how to extend our vintage terrace without needing a significant lotto win...

Oh & I've gone a bit Kirsty Allsop, embarking on make & do projects that I'm really quite proud of even if I say so myself!  So rather than my usual waffle I thought I'd make this post a bit of a visual summary of my creations of the summer.  Hope you enjoy the pictures & that they might even spur you on to your own Blue Peter moment.

First bake of the summer was this quadruple layer cake filled with blueberry, passion fruit & raspberry butter cream.  It was possibly the hottest day of the year at that point, so there was a fair bit of swearing when it collapsed for the first time.  (Got it to stay upright on attempt 3!)  I have since discovered that a quadruple layer cake isn't actually expected to defy gravity & I should have used sticks to pin it together.  Anyway it was delivered in one piece for my friends birthday & even though it was no oil painting, it tasted good!


Cake two of the summer was for my Mum's birthday, the much revered Hummingbird Bakery carrot cake.  This did not disappoint!  It was a lovely light texture, complemented perfectly by the cream cheese frosting.  I'm not big on sugar craft so I cheated & found these really cute chocolate carrots from Sainsburys.  No candles…mum doesn't do candles!



This was the point I went a bit make do & mend.  In its previous life this was a pine dressing table stool with a pink velour seat pad.  Some paint, fabric, sparkly buttons, a staple gun & voila a new lease of life.  I had quite a bit of fabric left so I've made a matching lampshade.  I bought a kit from NeedCraft, it was only a little fiddly & the finish was pretty professional looking (lets face it when its 8ft in the air hanging from the ceiling how could anyone tell the difference?) There's even a video tutorial on the website featuring Cath Kidston to help you along.



These little cuties were made as a farewell treat for our dear friends who have gone to live on a rock in the South Atlantic for 2 years.  Much debate was had over who got gummy bears & who got smarties!


I made the cat a castle.

Least said about that the better, I had been off work for 2 months & was having a moment.  She quite liked it!


I made my 8th nappy cake for our lovely wedding photographers who were expecting their first baby.  

(orders welcome!)



My final make of the summer was this delicious Blackberry, Lime & Vanilla jam.  There are a lot of blackberry bushes along the river paths where we live, so off I went a foraging!


Came back with almost a kilo of lovely ripe blackberries, although FYI, foraging in a sundress & flip-flops…bad idea!  I came home with purple feet & between the nettles & the brambles, a right arm that looked like I'd been self harming which is not cool!

Into a pan they went with some lime, vanilla & jam sugar, boil for a bit, jar up & leave to set.  I know, I thought it would have been way more complicated too.


Totally yummy on crumpets!


So there you have it, the summer sum up of what I've been making & baking, looking back I realise I've been quite a busy bee!  I start my new job next week, so it's back to the real world for me for now.  Till next time, Rebecca x 


18 May 2013

DIY coffee - an experiment in roasting!

So you may remember I used to work for a coffee company & I've picked up a fair bit of useless knowledge & tried many different blends & roasts over the years.  However, I'd never even thought about roasting my own coffee beans, so when a friend offered me a bag of green coffee beans, fresh from his Grandparents farm in India, I thought it was worth having a go.

This what the beans looked like when they arrived.  They had been washed, so the outer skin & pulp of the coffee cherry that surrounds the bean had been removed & they'd been left to dry.


For the main event, I enlisted the help of my local coffee geek (otherwise know as Olly, ex-colleague & friend) & we set about our research into how to roast coffee beans at home without having to buy an expensive mini batch roaster!  There are a number of methods, but we went for the straight forward frying pan technique.

First step was to wash the beans in cold water, the little bit of moisture that absorbs into the beans helps them roast & I guess stops them from burning too quickly!

Next was to heat the frying pan so it was HOT!

Tip the beans into the frying pan, keeping the heat high & the beans moving!


Gradually the colour started to change....

Then you hear a crack!  It was around 4 minutes in to roasting, it's almost like the sound of popping corn, at this point turn the heat down just a touch.

Keep the beans moving all the time until you hear them crack again, you'll also start to smell a faint smokiness.

This is the point to take them off the heat, the residual heat will keep them roasting.  By now, they've been in the pan for 7-8 minutes.


Tip the beans into a metal sieve & swirl them around to help them cool down quickly.  It was a freezing cold day when we did it so we stood in the garden to cool them down.  It also helps being outside as the chaff that can come off the beans just blows away.


Once they'd cooled properly, we ground some & brewed up using Olly's posh glass drip filter.


I have to say we were pleasantly surprised by the result.  It produced a very smooth coffee, quite mild, it was very enjoyable to drink straight, no milk or sugar, adding them would have killed the delicate flavours.  Put it this way, I've drunk (& sent back!) way worse cups of coffee from professional outlets!


If you ever get the chance to roast your own, I'd give it a try.  It's really easy & very satisfying in the same way I guess as baking your own bread or making home brew is?  Don't think I'll be doing it all the time though, for the sake of laziness I'll stick to my pods for now.

Thanks to Olly for the use of his kitchen & hurrah to us both for not burning it down in the process! Till next time, Rebecca x


19 March 2013

Hotel Chocolat giveaway to celebrate 100 posts!

I must admit when I first conceived my hair brained idea of baking a cake a week for 52 weeks back in January 2010, I wasn't entirely sure if I'd get through the challenge, never mind still be blogging 3 years later.  But here I am & thankfully here you are, well some of you at least, still reading, commenting & providing the incentive for me to carry on.  I know a 100 posts might not be a lot in the grand scheme of the blogsphere, but for me it's a big deal & worth celebrating.

So what better way to celebrate than with a competition to win some delicious Easter chocolate courtesy of our friends at Hotel Chocolat!  The prize is a Zebra Beastie Egg (yes it has stripes!) from their Easter 2013 collection, it comes with 6 praline & caramel mini eggs...yum!

Lets face it, chocolate makes most of us happy & as tomorrow is the UN's first International Day of Happiness, our competition theme is just that, happiness!  To enter all I'd like you to do is pledge yes to happiness & no to grumpiness, are you with me? You can leave a comment below or email me at rebeccabakescakes@hotmail.co.uk.  Open to UK entries only, the competition will close at 12pm on Wednesday 27th March 2013 & the winner will be picked at random & contacted by the end of the day.  

Good luck!  Rebecca x

Source: www.dayofhappiness.net
I should probably point out that Hotel Chocolat are not at all affiliated with the UN Day of Happiness or Action for Happiness, but given they make such delicious chocolate, I imagine they are all lovely people & like the idea of making the world a happier place. 

27 August 2013

This summers bakes & makes

Wow, it's been what can only be described as a frantic summer here at RBC HQ & here we are at the end of August & I haven't shared a thing!  It's included redundancy (booo!), job hunting (again), birthdays, weddings, hatching plans for shaking off corporate life once & for all, head scratching as to how to extend our vintage terrace without needing a significant lotto win...

Oh & I've gone a bit Kirsty Allsop, embarking on make & do projects that I'm really quite proud of even if I say so myself!  So rather than my usual waffle I thought I'd make this post a bit of a visual summary of my creations of the summer.  Hope you enjoy the pictures & that they might even spur you on to your own Blue Peter moment.

First bake of the summer was this quadruple layer cake filled with blueberry, passion fruit & raspberry butter cream.  It was possibly the hottest day of the year at that point, so there was a fair bit of swearing when it collapsed for the first time.  (Got it to stay upright on attempt 3!)  I have since discovered that a quadruple layer cake isn't actually expected to defy gravity & I should have used sticks to pin it together.  Anyway it was delivered in one piece for my friends birthday & even though it was no oil painting, it tasted good!


Cake two of the summer was for my Mum's birthday, the much revered Hummingbird Bakery carrot cake.  This did not disappoint!  It was a lovely light texture, complemented perfectly by the cream cheese frosting.  I'm not big on sugar craft so I cheated & found these really cute chocolate carrots from Sainsburys.  No candles…mum doesn't do candles!



This was the point I went a bit make do & mend.  In its previous life this was a pine dressing table stool with a pink velour seat pad.  Some paint, fabric, sparkly buttons, a staple gun & voila a new lease of life.  I had quite a bit of fabric left so I've made a matching lampshade.  I bought a kit from NeedCraft, it was only a little fiddly & the finish was pretty professional looking (lets face it when its 8ft in the air hanging from the ceiling how could anyone tell the difference?) There's even a video tutorial on the website featuring Cath Kidston to help you along.



These little cuties were made as a farewell treat for our dear friends who have gone to live on a rock in the South Atlantic for 2 years.  Much debate was had over who got gummy bears & who got smarties!


I made the cat a castle.

Least said about that the better, I had been off work for 2 months & was having a moment.  She quite liked it!


I made my 8th nappy cake for our lovely wedding photographers who were expecting their first baby.  

(orders welcome!)



My final make of the summer was this delicious Blackberry, Lime & Vanilla jam.  There are a lot of blackberry bushes along the river paths where we live, so off I went a foraging!


Came back with almost a kilo of lovely ripe blackberries, although FYI, foraging in a sundress & flip-flops…bad idea!  I came home with purple feet & between the nettles & the brambles, a right arm that looked like I'd been self harming which is not cool!

Into a pan they went with some lime, vanilla & jam sugar, boil for a bit, jar up & leave to set.  I know, I thought it would have been way more complicated too.


Totally yummy on crumpets!


So there you have it, the summer sum up of what I've been making & baking, looking back I realise I've been quite a busy bee!  I start my new job next week, so it's back to the real world for me for now.  Till next time, Rebecca x 


18 May 2013

DIY coffee - an experiment in roasting!

So you may remember I used to work for a coffee company & I've picked up a fair bit of useless knowledge & tried many different blends & roasts over the years.  However, I'd never even thought about roasting my own coffee beans, so when a friend offered me a bag of green coffee beans, fresh from his Grandparents farm in India, I thought it was worth having a go.

This what the beans looked like when they arrived.  They had been washed, so the outer skin & pulp of the coffee cherry that surrounds the bean had been removed & they'd been left to dry.


For the main event, I enlisted the help of my local coffee geek (otherwise know as Olly, ex-colleague & friend) & we set about our research into how to roast coffee beans at home without having to buy an expensive mini batch roaster!  There are a number of methods, but we went for the straight forward frying pan technique.

First step was to wash the beans in cold water, the little bit of moisture that absorbs into the beans helps them roast & I guess stops them from burning too quickly!

Next was to heat the frying pan so it was HOT!

Tip the beans into the frying pan, keeping the heat high & the beans moving!


Gradually the colour started to change....

Then you hear a crack!  It was around 4 minutes in to roasting, it's almost like the sound of popping corn, at this point turn the heat down just a touch.

Keep the beans moving all the time until you hear them crack again, you'll also start to smell a faint smokiness.

This is the point to take them off the heat, the residual heat will keep them roasting.  By now, they've been in the pan for 7-8 minutes.


Tip the beans into a metal sieve & swirl them around to help them cool down quickly.  It was a freezing cold day when we did it so we stood in the garden to cool them down.  It also helps being outside as the chaff that can come off the beans just blows away.


Once they'd cooled properly, we ground some & brewed up using Olly's posh glass drip filter.


I have to say we were pleasantly surprised by the result.  It produced a very smooth coffee, quite mild, it was very enjoyable to drink straight, no milk or sugar, adding them would have killed the delicate flavours.  Put it this way, I've drunk (& sent back!) way worse cups of coffee from professional outlets!


If you ever get the chance to roast your own, I'd give it a try.  It's really easy & very satisfying in the same way I guess as baking your own bread or making home brew is?  Don't think I'll be doing it all the time though, for the sake of laziness I'll stick to my pods for now.

Thanks to Olly for the use of his kitchen & hurrah to us both for not burning it down in the process! Till next time, Rebecca x


19 March 2013

Hotel Chocolat giveaway to celebrate 100 posts!

I must admit when I first conceived my hair brained idea of baking a cake a week for 52 weeks back in January 2010, I wasn't entirely sure if I'd get through the challenge, never mind still be blogging 3 years later.  But here I am & thankfully here you are, well some of you at least, still reading, commenting & providing the incentive for me to carry on.  I know a 100 posts might not be a lot in the grand scheme of the blogsphere, but for me it's a big deal & worth celebrating.

So what better way to celebrate than with a competition to win some delicious Easter chocolate courtesy of our friends at Hotel Chocolat!  The prize is a Zebra Beastie Egg (yes it has stripes!) from their Easter 2013 collection, it comes with 6 praline & caramel mini eggs...yum!

Lets face it, chocolate makes most of us happy & as tomorrow is the UN's first International Day of Happiness, our competition theme is just that, happiness!  To enter all I'd like you to do is pledge yes to happiness & no to grumpiness, are you with me? You can leave a comment below or email me at rebeccabakescakes@hotmail.co.uk.  Open to UK entries only, the competition will close at 12pm on Wednesday 27th March 2013 & the winner will be picked at random & contacted by the end of the day.  

Good luck!  Rebecca x

Source: www.dayofhappiness.net
I should probably point out that Hotel Chocolat are not at all affiliated with the UN Day of Happiness or Action for Happiness, but given they make such delicious chocolate, I imagine they are all lovely people & like the idea of making the world a happier place.