Practise Wedding Cakes

I had a practise run for my wedding cakes!
Im making 4, the fruit cake isnt shown as someone else is decorating that

This is them with their crumb coat - they always look so cute like this i think, all new and yummy!




This is the red velvet with toasted marshmallow frosting. I stupidly forgot to take a picture of this one cut - doh! Its totally the most dramatic :(
Anyway i used this Nigella recipe for red velvet cupcakes, just made it as a cake, and this marshmallow frosting. I spread the frosting smoothly on the sides and then piped little mini meringues on the top and then toasted it all with a blow torch

The chocolate fudge cake - by far the most popular! Its a fab recipe, again by Nigella, which ive been making for years. i love it because it isnt too sweet, and it has a really fudgey texture without being heavy. This one is topped with basic chocolate butter cream piped as roses. Its really just a swirl, piped with a large star tip nozzle. Its really easy but looks like its really complicated!

Any finally this is a lemon cake with lemon swiss meringue buttercream
Yet again, a nigella recipe, i just doubled the quantities for her Lemon Drizzle cake. The topped it with this amazing swiss meringue buttercream. Ive never made it before and it does take a little while but it sreally delicious, and very stable, which i great for a summer wedding. This was supposed to be a little better finished off but i ran out of steam somewhat on the third cake! Something to consider when making the real things...



Makes me hungry just remembering them!

Blueberry Lemon Smoothie

De-licious blueberry lemon smoothie from Young and Crafty. I wasnt that keen on the almond milk so i didnt add much and my smoothie was uber thick! You really couldnt taste the almond milk so i should have just added more, still yummy though!

Raspberry Lemon Smoothie

Delicious raspberry and lemon smoothie - i followed this recipe but i couldnt find lemonade concentrate in the UK so i made my own with this recipe. It worked really well :)

Muffin Tulips - Lemon and Poppyseed

I've always loved the big tulips muffin cases you get when you buy a handmade muffin, you know the dark brown ones with the big pointy sides and i was wondering if you can make them at home so i thought id give it a go. I bought some pretty star patterned greaseproof paper from ebay to use, i think maybe darker paper next time would be good as the paler stuff shows up all the grease.
So I cut a square slightly bigger than my muffin tin hole to start.



I found that the narrow end of my hand blender attachment was the same size as the inside of my muffin holes so i used that to press the paper down into the hole. Its important to get it in the middle of the paper or you end up with wonky sides.



Then crease all the folds and the base to make it stay in the hole and then fill it as usual.


Its a bit fiddly to get the case creased enough to stay in the tin and its a bit hit and miss whether you get a nice shaped case or not but i think they worked ok.



I think id try bigger squares next time to get higher sides and let me fill the cases a bit higher - my muffins look more like fairy cake in size because i didnt want them to go over the cases



I made lemon and poppy seed muffins - recipe here, but i didnt ice them as i dont love icing.