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I've recently started a Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/bunchofflour

Check this out for photos of my recent cakes.

New biscuit cutter

On a recent holiday, I was able to add to my mini collection of interesting biscuit cutters. This time it was a tiny baby foot (Aww). Hopefully I'll get a chance to try it out soon :-)

Coronation fair

June 2nd was the Coronation fair at the Rufus centre in Flitwick. It was my first event and I spent hours the day before preparing. I made 8 different kinds of cake:

Victoria sponge filled with mixed fruit jam

Moist chocolate cake

Coffee and walnut cake

Honey cake

Chocolate and orange marbled ring cake

Vanilla cupcakes

Mini star bites topped with chocolate ganache

I also made a lemon drizzle cake (see a previous post for photo).

I feel I learnt a lot from this event - amount of stock to bring and preparation being key learning points. The most popular cakes were chocolate, coffee and walnut, Victoria and star bites.

I'm very much looking forward to my next stall at the Classic car and bike show in August.

Teddy birthday cake

The second May bank holiday weekend was my son's first birthday so I made him a special cake. It was a chocolate cake baked in a teddy shaped silicon mould decorated with chocolate and vanilla flavoured buttercreams. Everyone (including the birthday boy) enjoyed it so I'll certainly be making it again.

Chocolate and pecan brownies

Yesterday I met up with some old friends for a picnic and wander round Bletchley Park. Each of us was assigned items to bring and one of mine was brownies. This was an ideal opportunity for me to try out a recipe is come across a while back.

The original recipe was for chocolate and walnut brownies but owing to a lack of walnuts and having some pecans to use up I decided to tweak the recipe.

The change of nuts gave an interesting flavour to the brownies and didn't cause any issues with the baking.

Will be interesting to try the recipe again with walnuts and also plain as I know many people don't like/can't eat nuts.

Chocolate orange cake

On Friday evening I decided to make a cake to take with me to work the next day for my friends to try. After flicking through a few books I decided upon this chocolate orange cake.

The recipe was pretty straightforward - the main difference to other cakes I've done in the past is that it was baked as 1 whole cake rather than 2 pieces. The idea being that you slice it in half after baking and then fill it.

The other main difference was that the recipe called for American style frosting rather than icing. I'd not made frosting much before so was curious to see how it would turn out.

The cake took a while to bake and decorate (lots of time spent hanging around waiting for things to cool mainly) but in the end it turned out pretty well.

Once at work I asked my friends for feedback on the cake. The 2 main points of criticism were that the cake was very crumbly and the frosting was slightly bitter tasting. The main points of praise were that the cake was moist and flavoured well.

To address the criticism, next time I will bake the cake as 2 separate parts and use a lower percentage chocolate for the frosting.

Lemon drizzle cake

This is the lemon drizzle cake I made for my partner to take to work for him and his colleagues to eat during a meeting. I'd not made the recipe before but it was quite simple and filled the house with a yummy lemon smell as it cooked.

Luckily I managed to grab a slice before it left the house as there was very little left when the tin returned that evening!

I liked the way the syrup drizzled on after cooking added a lovely moistness to the cake. At first I was convinced the syrup would never be absorbed into the cake but it got there in the end!