Cake Tasting, part 2.

Lass drooling as I type

could I have the recipe for the vegan cake please?

xx

 let me taste it this evening and see if it's worth passing on! Lol. No point in passing on a recipe for a bad cake after all. But if it's at least half decent, then you can 100% have the recipe.

Just finished making the peanut butter Swiss meringue icing...... I could spread it on bread and just eat it! OMG is it good! My mouth is still watering from the fingertip full I had to try it! 

Lass

Xx

Lass

Stop! I’m dribbling. They look too good. There’s someone in my house who might actually faint from delight if I made her peanut butter Swiss meringue icing, 

I hope the tasting goes well

xx

I am splatted on the sofa with a cat on my lap. I can now allow the pain to take over as they've just left - I've done far too much yesterday and today. That was sheer bloody mindedness that got it all done. Clear up can wait! Lol

 the vegan cake was OK, not outstanding. However I have a feeling that it's the wholemeal flour that messed it up and dried it out. So in the recipe where it says wholemeal flour, just use more plain instead. I think that will really improve the texture and moisture content.

https://www.bosh.tv/recipes/chocolate-fruit-nut-cake

 tasting went really well! They managed to choose a cake, icing, and filling tonight. No need for deliberations! So they've gone for the pecan, chocolate, mayonnaise cake, filled with the peanut butter Swiss butter cream, covered with a chocolate ganache icing. We also finalised the tropical cake as the coconut and lime cake, soaked in mango syrup, filled with mango and passionfruit jam, covered in lemongrass and lime icing.

BTW, peanut butter chocolate cake with the peanut butter Swiss meringue..... YUM!!! I'm keeping the extra loaf I made of it, and covering it in the PBSMI. Blood sugar and cholesterol be damned! Lol. 

Now I just need to hope that my FB plea for homes for the other 2 cakes and 2 loaves finds them homes. Really don't want to bin them! Fingers crossed!

Lass

Xx

Hi Lass Sounds as if you've done far far too much and your cat knows it! I do hope you took a couple of painkillers once everyone went home!

I'm sure anyone who lives nearby would gladly take the remainder of your hands! Or do you have a hospice nearby! When I went to my local Marie Curie Hospice there was lots of baking handed in to have with our tea/coffee at break time and everyone appreciated them!

I hope now all that's done, you can rest for a bit! When is the wedding? Hope you are keeping alright!

Lass

Hi Lass

Wow those cakes sound good - although I’m intrigued by the mayonnaise. Actual mayonnaise? Why? What? 

I do hope your cakes find a home. I hate waste, especially of something so delicious. 

xx

Heck Lass

They look gorgeous and I am now sooooo hungry x

anndanv

Yeh, the cat wasn't happy as for two days is been up and down to the kitchen regularly, so there was no lap for him to snuggle on. Lol. So me sitting down with my legs up meant he was straight on my lap and snuggling.

Painkillers were def popped regularly yesterday, and will be again today. I told them I was busy Tues so couldn't do the tasting then, but any other day was fine. So they picked Wed. I should have said not Wed either, but I know how busy they are, so didn't want to put them out. So the walk to and from the diabetes class was enough for the 2 days by itself. The cake baking was a push, but OK. But the icings the next day was just too much.

Woke at 4am as I usually do, but for once actually rolled over and passed out again without issue. This morning woke at 6, and stayed in bed until 8 ish because everything hurt so much. Can't take pain killers yet, as have 2 rounds of meds to take before I can have them, and of course numb head hasn't remembered to take them yet. So I'll take them now as I'm talking about it...... Done. 

The nearest hospice is an £8 taxi away, one way. The Macmillan Centre is a £3 one way journey. It's fine if I'm going down for an appointment as I could drop them in then. But I don't really have the pennies to be going down and back just to drop off some cakes. Plus, these ones are filled with nuts, so they might be funny about it.

However, my friend knows a lady through her self harming support group who is really struggling financially. Her and her partner have 5 kids, so treats are few and far between. So my friend is going to pick them up on Sat and take them to her. So this morning I've iced all the cakes, binned the excess icing, kept the ganache to make some truffles out of when I'm up to it, and cleaned the kitchen up. Need to empty the dishwasher, fill it, and set it off again. But that's much too much bending for now!!! Lol. 

The wedding is in May, so need to fit in one more cake tasting before then. The third cake is to be marbled summer berry with mascarpone icing. So strawberry marbled cake, with maybe a raspberry icing, and I need to think of and find an interesting filling that goes with the berries. So we'll see what happens. Can't have something different and interesting in two of the cakes and not in the third! 

Lol, yes, actual mayonnaise straight out of the jar. I used a Polish one because it's got a bit of a tang to it that your Hellmans doesn't. It reminds me of the Belgian one you get from the little vans with your chips! 

But by using the mayonnaise, you use less egg and it replaces the fat. Cause mayo is basically just oil and egg with an acid really. Not done it before, but the cake was lovely! Nice and moist with a really good crumb that was fluffy and not crumbly. So it held the chunks of pecan suspended through it really well. Def recommend it.

Oh yeh, and I've smeared a big thick layer of the peanut butter meringue icing on the peanut butter loaf cake for myself! I def feel like I deserve it. Lol.

Lass

Xx

Mayonnaise? Oh wow. How does it taste? I'm having a wedding this summer, currently looking for wedding photoraphers in essex and a bakery to order a cake. Do you bake cakes for sale? :)

Heya! 

Yup, Mayo! XD

To taste, you'd not know there was mayo in it. It's a lovely moist cake with a good crumb structure, a good chocolate taste, and I got the size of the pecans right so it was a nice crunch in your mouth without being annoyingly small or intrusively large.

Congrats on the upcoming wedding! I'll ask a friend of mine who is a wedding photographer if he can recommend anyone in Essex, or if he himself would travel, and let you know.

I'm a trained Baker/patissier/chocolatier, but because of my health I can't work at the minute. Also, due to government health and safety regulations for food prep, I can't officially sell anything I make because I have cats, only one fridge, and the wrong sort of counters to name a few things. But all my friends know that if they want a cake made for anything, they just have to ask and I'll make it for them. And I'll happily accept a donation or a thank you in monetary form. Lol.

Lass

Xx