week 28: Carrot cake

Carrot cake with American mascarpone topping. I think its American because it has more cheese and less icing sugar, British version has more sugar and butter. Am used to making carrot cupcakes but thought I'd give a big cake a go.

Chocolate making course!

A few select photos from my chocolate making course at Cakes 4 fun in Putney, London. Would thoroughly recommend it! already saving up for the next course. We made chocolate bars, plain flavour ganache filled chocolates, marc du champagne truffles, orange truffles and white chocolate lollies! hmmm yummy!!!

Week 27: Pecan Pie

Pecan pie which looks slightly odd, lets hope it tastes nice...my official taste testers (workmates) reviews were very good, falls apart a bit when it comes out of the tin but hey it all gets crumbled up in the eating process anyway!
Also made mince pies and meringue made with leftover pastry and egg whites - as my nan says, waste not want not! The meringues on the RHS of the pic are chocolate ones (I believe everything is enhanced with a bit of chocolate!)

Week 26: Half way cake

To mark the half way point I made a half cake. As only half a cake wouldn't feed my ravenous workmates I had to do 2 tiers, one chocolate sponge and the other victoria sponge.

Week 1-25: Cakes so far

Unfortunately I didn't get my butt into gear soon enough so don't have full photos of weeks 1- 25. I will shortly list the cakes/bakes I made during those weeks. Maybe I'll repeat them again at the end of the 52 weeks?? My friends/family can but hope!

Ok here is the list....
1:  cheesecake - both baked and chilled, baked one went down faster so guess it's the winner!

2:  whoopies - the latest thing from america, part cake, part cookie! apparently called whoopies as when children open their lunchboxes to find one they cry "whoopie!"

3:  brownies - standard favourite and my speciality bake

4:  raspberry shortcake - for the slightly healthy option ;-)

5:  melk tert - made in world cup week this is a south african favourite - think custard tart and you get pretty close. One of my favourites to make

6:  grasmere gingerbread - insprired by a trip to the lake district. This is actually a gingerbread cake rather than a biscuit

7:  scones - for wimbledon week

8:  cheese rice krispies - think chocolate rice krispy cakes with cheese instead of chocolate, sounds odd but actually works!

9:  eccles cakes

10:  victoria sponge

11:  choc fridge cake - always goes down well

12:  choc sponge cake - a true classic

13:  choc bourbon biscuits - branch off into the biscuit world. One of my taste testers actually moaned that I hadn't written bourbon on each one!!

14:  cinnamon whirls

15:  wagon wheels - a home made version of the kids classic

16:  jaffa cakes - hint: uses jelly!

17:  choc digestives

18:  double choc cheesecake

19:  cherry cake - sadly despite best efforts the cherries sank :-( answers on a postcard please!

20:  choc fudge cake

21:  millionaires shortbread - so called because of its rich taste

22:  banoffi pie - strictly speaking banaramel pie as its made with caramel not toffee as most recipes are!

23:  banana loaf cake

24:  pumpkin pie - halloween week. Actually surprisingly tasty given that it smells horrible when cooking the pumpkin!

25:  pumpkin cheesecake - continuing the halloween theme