birthday cakes and other bakes

A cake for my Aunty's 70th birthday. I haven't baked one of these before, or if I have it was so long ago that I've forgotten, but Mum used to make these a lot. It's a fatless sponge, similar to a swiss roll I guess, so very light and fluffy. I sandwiched the sponges with cream, jam and fresh strawberries. I would love to make this again as it's so fresh and summery.

This is what happens when you leave baking to the last minute so you have to make something simple and the only fondant icing colour you have in the cupboard is black. I kind of love the brick in its basic glory though and oddly black is probably the most appropriate colour for my eldest brother. The cake itself is a Mary Berry basic sponge traybake cut in half and stacked with jam and butter icing sandwiched in between. Mary's traybake never lets me down, it's so good!  The cute lemon meringue cupcakes were baked by my sister in law.

This is actually my second Minecraft themed cake (first was for eldest nephew here) but this time it was for my youngest nephew. The cake was another Mary traybake but cut into smaller blocks and iced individually before haphazardly stacking into a structure. Whilst I baked the sponges my Mum did a cracking job of making all the fiddly figures to set on and around the cake.

As an Incredible Hulk fan, this was my favourite cake of the bunch, evidenced by the fact I took more than one photo! Unsurprisingly, this cake comprises of..... you guessed it.... yet more Mary Berry traybake sponges.

It turns out making a Hulk cake isn't as straight-forward as one would think. Have a browse through Google Images and you'll understand.... The vast majority look pretty ropey! I think because there are so many different styles of the Hulk he's not got a go-to, recogniseable face to draw, if that makes sense? There were a couple of more hopeful looking cakes though, one of which had the Hulk breaking through a wall. I thought that looked cool so I followed that idea but drew a different face. Initially Mum and I tried to sculpt a 3D face to match the 3D fists but it looked horrendous. It was so bad I almost wish I'd taken a photo. Luckily we had enough green icing to make his face again on a flat layer. I think what we ended up with was presentable and recogniseable. The fists are definitely my favourite part though!

Other bakes:

My Mum has owned this pretty, flower shaped Denby dish for a few years yet has never used it due to the impractical shape. Whilst I partly agree about it not being the most functional dish, I've always thought it would be great for a pudding. Back in April, I finally put the dish to use and it was glorious.

The crumble was attractively colourful and tasty and I loved how the petals of the dish made perfect portion sizes. The dish might get another outing soon as last month I discovered a few sticks of rhubarb growing in my new garden! Rhubarb crumble is most definitely on the horizon. 

A few months ago I baked these biscuits/cookies (whatever you choose to call them) to take to my brother's house for dessert and served them warm with a dollop of Hagendaaz Praline and Cream ice-cream. OH MY GOODNESS IT TASTED AMAZING. I highly recommend it. They're basically The Hummingbird Bakery's chocolate chip cookies from their first cookbook. The only difference was swapping some of the chocolate chips for pink smarties.

What have you been baking recently, anything nice and summery? I've been optimistically flicking through my recipe books but have yet to make anything. I think it's safe to move away from the Mary Berry traybake though!