Tin Can Cakes

I thought these little tin can cakes at Oh Happy Day were so cute i wanted to see if i could make them too.
I used this Chocolate cake recipe by Nigella Lawson (US version here), which i love - not too sweet and really fudgey. So i put the mix into my cans, baked them and happily, all went well!

 I turned them out ok, which I was worried about. I had greased and floured the inside and put greaseproof at the bottom. Im just not sure i like the ridged edge the cans give the cake... need to try and find smooth sided cans.

I cut the uneven top off (yum i love eating the scraps!), cut them in to 3 and then frosted them. I was practising my frosting so i used a few different techniques.

I think theyre pretty cute, some issues need ironing out but theres definitely potential here :)

Frosting practise

I love beautifully decorated cakes, im just not very good at it! So i thought id have a go and try and get some basics down. I used this tutorial at Glorious Treats and her American Buttercream recipe. 

So heres my attemp...

Some are better than others but i think my favourites are the rose style one (middle row, left and middle), really easy and very pretty. 

Gingerbread house

My sister bought me this for Christmas and i decided to make it this weekend

The kit came with the pieces pre-baked but I think it would be pretty easy to make them yourself. It needs to be a pretty hard gingerbread biscuit though to stand upright



I added icing to the front and back pieces



and then assembled the basic house



The kit came with a handy little tray to make the house on with some recesses where you put the sides of the house, it does make it more stable, but i dont think it was entirely necessary

I then added the roof pieces, using a lot of icing as they did slip to begin with



and then decorated the hell out of it!!





I'm not sure cake decorating will ever be a strenght of mine, im not precise enough but i certainly enjoyed myself making it! That fact that i ate a shed load of icing had nothing to do with it...