Christmas Cakes and Cookies 2010

The Christmas cookies were for a farewell party at my Grandparents' over Christmas. It was fun making cookies because it's something I haven't done a lot of over the past few years.

The mini Christmas cakes below were presents for all my friends and my Grandparents. A few of my friends said they were 'too cute to eat' but finally gave in to temptation and enjoyed them in the end.

It was fun making the cakes as it gave me plenty of practice with covering fruit cakes with marzipan and icing, and it also helped with the patchwork techniques.

I adore the Christmas patchwork cutters - they are so cute.

The Penguin Christmas Cake was a present for my sister and her husband. I'd found the penguin figures in a cake magazine and thought they were too sweet to not have a go. The snow flakes were made with a cutter and brushed with an edible shimmer.

The final Christmas cake was for the cake decorating course I go to. One of the tasks was to design and decorate a Christmas cake. The fruit cake could be shop bought but I love making that style of cake because you can put as much alcohol in as you want, also there's no chance of nuts as I'm not a fan.

The patchwork took a long time to complete and I think it was worth the time and effort. This cake was also very difficult to cut into. However it is all eaten now.

Cupcakes

I love making cupcakes. They may be simple to make but you can add whatever flavour or topping, inside and on top. These are some of my most recent cupcakes:

These were chocolate and vanilla cupcakes that were part of a selection of food for one of my friends at work. She told me yesterday that they went down a treat and also that she tried to take credit for them :-)

I really like the little floral cups that they sit in I think it just finishes them off beautifully.

The chocolate cupcakes above were for a party at my grandparents' house. I really love making flowers with a mixture of sugar paste and royal icing - it keeps its shape but tastes yummy.

The Cherry Cupcakes had coconut and chocolate chip filling with pink vanilla icing and a cherry on top.

And the purple cupcakes above were samples for my sister's wedding. I made two dozen and took them to the hen weekend so they could all give me feedback on flavours and appearance. Needless to say they all wanted more. Greedy Hens!!!

Chintzy Cakes

Thanks for checking out my new blog, Chintzy Cakes. It's a place for me to show my cake designs and to share with you a bit more about my love for baking.

At the moment I'm looking into setting up Chintzy Cakes as a business due to all the comments I've had from friends, family and work mates - it's all been really positive!

I started baking at the tender age of 4 years old. My grandparents, both Smiths and Parkes, would let me make flapjacks but I have to confess probably a third of the mixture was eaten before making its way to the oven!

Another fond memory was making the biggest Yorkshire puddings I've ever seen. I was probably 4 years old as my Grandpa Smith was still with us and I had been given the task of making mine and my sister's puds and my Nana and mum made everyone elses. I was doing the whole chef thing of looking at the mixture and adding extra flour or more seasoning and they stood there saying 'just follow the recipe and they'll be fine'. So I got on with whisking and put the Yorkshire puds into the oven for 10 to 15 minutes and when they came out they were HUGE. I couldn't believe it, especially as my nan's and mam's were tiny teehee. The rest of the family were very jealous of them :-)

I have many more favourite baking memories but will save them for a later date. Pop back soon to see more of my cake creations!