Truly Love Cake

Been baking for my daughter's teachers today. Super gooey triple chocolate brownies and vanilla biscuits 😋 Diet will have to start another week cos lots of brownies left over and can't let them go to waste!! 🤣 Keep following for the recipe....they are divine! 😍

Here at the Truly Love Cake house I've started the process of homesteading and I'm so excited that I had to share it with you all. Obviously we won't be able to fully homestead as we'd need to keep and fame animals, but we plan on doing as much as we can. We are in the process of renovating our garden to include a huge growing area. We plan on growing as much of our food as possible and making and storing freshly homemade foods.

I started my journey with jams and soups. Today I've tried lemon curd and no knead bread. Both are delicious and I'm so impressed with the bread! It's such a simple recipe and can be made in bulk and the dough stored in the fridge for you to take off chunks to cook meaning you can eat fresh bread all week!!

Not sure if this is something anyone is going to be interested in but I'm going to start regularly posting recipes on here for people to try. If you'd be interested in getting recipes for fresh homemade foods that not only save you money, taste amazing and are free from all the added preservatives etc please give my posts a like so I know it's something you would like to see more of.

Fond memories of making delicious treats for Mother's Day! 😍 Could happily tuck into a slice of my cookie traybake right now 😋

Wishing you all a lovely Mother's Day ❤️

Really enjoyed making this cake. I'd hoped to be a bit more adventurous with the mermaid, but just didn't have the time. Eva was thrilled however and it tasted delicious 😋

I've now tweaked my new buttercream recipe and I have to say it's so much easier to work with and reduces the sweetness also, which is useful when using a lot for decorating. Will share the recipe with you all shortly.

Miss making cakes so much!! Loved making this one for my daughter's 6th birthday party 😍 Unicorn 🦄 and rainbow theme 🌈 of course!!

Tried a new buttercream recipe too which I'm still tweaking a bit to get perfect. One more cake to make this week for her tea party so will let you know how that goes and if all well ill share the recipe with you all. ❤️

How cute are these joint birthday cakes!? 😍

My daughters 5th Birthday cake 💖
We had an Encanto themed party and I got to practice my cake modelling skills. I'm so happy with how this came out and Eva Rose loved it.
Not sure why the purple top tier has come out so dark in the photos 🤷‍♀️

Really pleased with how my daughter's birthday cake has turned out! 🥰 Everything is handmade and the princess was made to look like my daughter too. She was absolutely thrilled which is the most important bit! Now to start work on the cake for her party!
I've missed making cakes so much!

First cake I've made in a while! Really miss all my lovely customers and so many of you have been asking if I'll be coming back. 🥰 Really appreciate all the love and support. Unsure what the future holds but I'm still baking and plan to start posting regularly again one day soon with recipes for you all to try and baking tips.

By far the best cookie I've EVER eaten in my whole life! I can't recommend this recipe enough. From one of my favourite bakers Jane's Patisserie, which I've stuffed for added calories! 😋

Stuffed Cookies 🍪

125g unsalted butter
100g light brown sugar
75g Granulated Sugar
1 large egg
300g plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
0.5 tsp Sea salt
300g chocolate chips
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g bar of chocolate

Method:
🍪Cream butter and sugar for at least 3 minutes in mixer.
🍪Add egg and vanilla and mix until combined.
🍪Mix in the dry ingredients to form a dough.
🍪Roll into 121g balls placing 2 squares of chocolate in the centre making sure they're completely sealed inside each ball. You should have 8 balls. Pop them on a sheet of baking paper on a tray and put them in the freezer for 30 minutes.
🍪Put 4 balls of dough on each baking tray lined with baking paper and place in a preheated oven at 165 degrees for 14-16 minutes.
🍪Enjoy the cookies while warm or pop in the microwave for 15-20 seconds 😋

This recipe can be amended in lots of ways. Swap the vanilla extract for caramel/salted caramel flavouring or swap half the chocolate chips for chopped hazelnuts or add 2 tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter and 100 chopped peanuts instead of the chocolate and chocolate chips. So many options all of which delicious!

Or triple chocolate by replacing 20% of the flour with cocoa powder and adding a mix of white and dark chocolate chips!

Or red velvet by changing plain flour to 265g, add 15g cocoa powder and 1 tsp red food colouring.

Any other ideas let me know!

My first proper cake in 2022!! Would you like to know how to make it? You can change the colours and topper to be any princess 😊 This cake was made using 4 x 6 inch chocolate sponge cakes both filled and coated in vanilla buttercream.

Completely unbaking related but I wondered if anyone would want to help with donations to help the people of Ukraine? No pressure to at all but if anyone would like to help please let me know. It's such a heartbreaking situation and I want to help in any way that I can. I'm happy to collect items or you can drop them at my house. Just drop me a message.
Thank you ❤️

🇺🇦🇺🇦

Medical
Paracetamol
Ibuprofen
Cold/flu treatment
Antiseptic cream
Bandages
Sterile dressings
Surgical tape
Wound closure strips
Multi vitamins
First aid kits
Lozenges
Vicks v***r rub
Barrier cream
Cough syrup

Food/drink
Protein bars
3 in 1 coffee sachets
Small packets nuts/raisins
Crunchy peanut butter - in plastic containers, not glass
Cup a soups

Personal hygiene
Toothbrushes
Toothpaste
Wet wipes

Shower gel

Clothing
Thermals
Socks
Fingerless mittens
Snoods
Warm shoe liners
Heavy denier tights - large size

Tools - for First Aid vehicle repair
Spanners
Socket sets
Tow ropes
Jump leads
Screwdrivers
Wrench
Spear fuses
Pliers

Other
Torches
Waterproof ground sheets
Dry bags - dark colours!
Head work lights - preferably red light!
Basic £1 reading glasses
Mini gas stoves

Add little message little cards..talisman ..small teddies... make a blue and yellow bracelet.

At this stage, no clothes, no toys, no books, no shoes. these are not essentials and no room for these on the run across Ukraine!

Please put a list of all items insde the bags and stick one to the outside! Please also, send me a copy of the list.

If you are unsure or unable to collect items, you can always make a donation. Large or small, it will enable us to purchase these essential items.

Griddle Cake Recipe

You can add any variety of additions to this recipe. My recipe is for chocolate chips, but you could use raisins, dried apricots, glacé cherries or whatever you fancy. I also used vanilla extract, but you could use some almond extract with cherries for a bakewell flavour! Lots of options. I'm a big chocolate fan, so it was an easy decision for me! 🍫

Ingredients

225g self raising flour
100g margerine/butter
50g caster sugar
1 medium egg
2 tbsp milk
Pinch of salt
50g chocolate chips
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1) in a bowl rub the margarine/butter into the flour and salt to make breadcrumbs.

2) stir in the sugar and chocolate chips.

3) beat the egg, vanilla extract and milk in a jug and mix into the breadcrumbs mix to form a dough.

4) on a lightly floured surface roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut into shapes. For ease we did circles but you could do different shapes too!

5) heat a greased pan and cook each cake for about 3 minutes on each side. If you want slightly thicker cakes just extend the cooking time until the cakes feel firm when you push on the top. If wobbly and squishy leave to cook a bit longer.

Serve hot or cold, but personally I prefer them hot!

I am so excited to have bought my first Le Creuset pan today that I just had to share with you all!! 😍 Already thinking about what I want to buy next! 🙈😂 And what I'm going to cook first! I'm told they're great for baking bread! 🍞

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Morning Everyone! Just wanted to drop you all a quick message to say I've not disappeared and I will be sharing more recipes and tips very soon. I've had a really bad run of migraines with pretty much one a day for a while so I've not been able to post. I'll be back to it as soon as I can though! I've just started on new medication which I'm praying will end my migraine misery for good! 🙏🙏

Has anyone been baking in my absence? I'd love to see your bakes 😊 These are my Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins 😋 recipe to be shared soon!

My last ever customer order has been collected 😭 got a bit emotional I'm not going to lie, but I've been overwhelmed by the support I've received. So many people have sent me lovely messages since my announcement and lots of suggestions of what I can do next. From writing my own recipe and cake decorating book, creating tutorial videos to running classes to teach people the skills I've learned and many more. 😊 For the moment I'll be baking with my favourite baking assistant (my 4 year old) and focusing on getting my migraines under control. Plus I'm really enjoying sharing my recipes and skills with you all.
Thank you for being part of my page and for all your encouragement. It's made this whole process a lot easier for me. ❤️

Now that I've tried out the orange and blueberry scone recipe I'm even more in love with them! 😍 I decided to add a bit more orange zest than the recipe stated and I made a glaze using juice from the orange and some icing sugar. It added an extra burst of orange and sweetness that enhanced the overall flavour.

Has anyone else baked these yet? I'd love to hear how you got on 😊

Good Morning Bakers!
Its Friday at last and the insanely long month of January is nearly over 🎉 Today I'm going to bake the blueberry and orange scones with my little baking assistant 😍 I can't wait to try it out and have a friend coming round with some clotted cream to help me test them 😋

I will be sharing my very popular vanilla biscuit recipe! These biscuits were one of my best selling products through my business. They don't spread in the oven so can be cut to any shape. I like to use fondant to create a huge range of decorations to go on top. I've also used this recipe to make jammy dodgers and biscuit lollies 😊

Food colourings
I use a mixture of Colour Splash gels or Sugarflair gel. Colour Splash is cheaper and quite often you can find deals to buy a few for cheaper. I usually pay around £1.60 a tube when I buy a few.
If you are looking to create certain colours the only option I have found is Sugarflair Extra. Black, blue, navy blue, red and deep purple can be really tricky colours to achieve. You cannot achieve those colours using colour splash.

Creating vibrant colours
To create a colour such as black your best option is to use chocolate buttercream as its already dark in colour. Make your buttercream as normal then add some sugarflair black extra and mix thoroughly. If this is not black enough pop your buttercream in the microwave until really soft, mix then pop in the fridge overnight. Colours always develop over time so it's best to make colours like this in advance. The next day pop your buttercream in the microwave for short bursts of 10 seconds until it is soft enough to mix. Using the back of a spoon squeeze the buttercream against the side of the bowl until all the air bubbles have gone and you're left with silky smooth buttercream. If you need to add a little more black extra gel. You should now have black buttercream.

Please note there is a limit to the amount of food colouring you can safely use so please read the instructions and only use the correct amount for the amount of buttercream you have.

Also please make sure you inform anyone who is going to eat the cake/cupcakes that they will end up with a black tongue.

If you want to achieve any of the other vibrant colours you first need to beat your butter for at least 10 minutes adding a touch of violet food colouring or some whitening while it beats. This helps remove the yellow tone from the butter. Next add the colour of choice and pop the whole lot in the microwave until the butter is liquid. Give it a good stir and pop it in the fridge overnight. The next day bring the coloured butter up to room temperature again and mix thoroughly. Add your icing sugar and a touch more colouring gel if needed. It's now ready to use.

Equipment
I use a graduated spatula for covering all my cakes and to seal to top of my cupcakes before I decorate them. They come in a variety of sizes but I like to use a small one as I find the big ones I can't be as neat with or have as much control over.

I also use an acrylic cake scraper to smooth the sides of my cakes. You can use flexible ones, but for a straight edge cake I prefer the hard acrylic. I use flexi smoothers when I am coating carved cakes.

To achieve a perfectly smooth cake with nice sharp edges you will need a good quality turntable. I bought mine from Amazon for around £30. It makes the world of difference if you have one that spins perfectly smoothly.

Suppliers
I buy my equipment and food colourings from a range of suppliers but my main one is Vanilla Valley. Other suppliers are: Cake Craft, The Cake Decorating Company, Cake Stuff and Amazon.

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Good Morning Bakers!!
Coming up this evening are tips on colouring buttercream, including what colour brands I use, where I get them from and the equipment I use to get my buttercream super smooth on cakes. 😊

I am very excited to share this next recipe courtesy of Lucky Days Cafe in York. I had a lovely brunch there on Tuesday followed by one of the nicest scones I've had in a long time! They were kind enough to give me the recipe and agreed I could share it with you all 😊 I will put a link to the cafe in the comments below. Highly recommend a visit if your ever in York.

Blueberry and Orange Scones

Ingredients
450g self raising flour
110g salted butter
80g caster sugar
50g fresh blueberries
Zest of half an orange
20cl of whole milk

Method
1 - Rub the flour, sugar and butter together until it resembles breadcrumbs.
2- add the zest and lightly chopped blueberries
3- add the milk and mix to form a dough. Do not over mix just lightly until a dough is formed.
4- roll out until 2cm thick and cut into 12 squares.
5-place 2 chopped blueberries on top and place on a tray with greaseproof paper
6- bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius fan for 14 minutes
7- once baked cool on a cooling rack.
8-slice in half, spread some jam on each slice and top with clotted cream.

I haven't tried the recipe as yet but I will be in the next couple of days. Can't wait to try it! Sorry Slimming World but I'll be having mine with a huge dollop of clotted cream! 🤣😋

Picture of scones I've made previously.

Good Morning Bakers!!
I am going to be setting up a Truly Love Cake Facebook Group very soon for people to post their questions, share their baking creations and request tips. I am being inundated with messages asking questions which is great and I'm more than happy to help, but if it's in a group then everyone can learn from the answers and we can create our own little baking community. I'll post the details of the group on here as soon as its ready. 😊

Pizza Dough update

I made pizza tonight using wholemeal strong bread flour after accidentally buying some. It came out fine, but it didn't taste anywhere near as nice as when made with white flour. It wasn't as light in texture and personally I didn't think it tastes as good. I won't be using it again. Thought I'd share with you all. Has anyone tried the pizza dough recipe yet? If you've made it with wholemeal flour I'd love to know your thoughts 😊

Sweet Pastry Recipe

This recipe is from Mary Berry but I have tweaked it. It's a lovely sweet and crisp pastry.

Ingredients

175 g plain flour
3 egg yolks
60g caster sugar
75g salted butter
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
6-8 tsp of milk

Method

1) sift the flour into a bowl and make a well in the centre.

2) add the egg yolks and sugar.

3) use a rolling pin pound the butter until its soft. Then add to the centre of the well along with the vanilla extract.

4) use your fingertips to mix all the ingredients, except the milk, together working the flour in gradually. Start adding the milk in 1 tsp at a time until you can form a dough. I added 8 tsp but you may need less.

5) on a lightly floured surface knead the dough for 1-2 minutes. Then wrap in clingfilm and pop in the fridge for 30 minutes.

6) grease your 9-10 inch tart tin and on a floured surface roll out your dough.

7) using the rolling pin lift the dough up and drape over the tart tin.

8) use your knuckle to very gently ease the pastry into the tin. Pick up the pastry at the edge as you do this so as not to stretch or break the dough. If you get any tears just fill them in with some pastry.

9) use a sharp knife to cut away the excess pastry and use a fork to prick the base of your tart several times.

***this next stage is optional but I like to blind bake my pastry before adding a filling.

10) cover your tart with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans. Bake in the oven at 180 for 20 minutes then remove the beans and paper and bake for a further 5 minutes.

11) add your filling (I made apple pie so used pre stewed apples) I then added a top to mine with remaining dough (I made double) but you could lattice the top or leave it open.

12) I baked my pie for 25 minutes at 180 degrees. I sprinkled sugar all over the top of the pie before baking. If your not putting a top on then you may need to alter cooking time.

So many options of what you can make using this pastry. You could even flavour your pastry using different flavourings or make it chocolatey. Look forward to seeing what you make! 😊 Happy Baking!

Vanilla sponge cake recipe

I think this recipe originates from Mary Berry, but it's one I use for pretty much all cakes and cupcakes. Perfectly light and moist sponge cake every time. This is going to be a long post, but there is a lot of information to share so bear with me.

Ideally you will need a stand mixer or hand held electric mixer, but if you need to use arm power you can. For a stand mixer use your be**er attachment. Don't use a whisk.

This recipe is easily adapted for the size cake tin you have or the flavour you want. I bake 2 eggs for a 6 inch tin then go up by 1 egg for every inch bigger. So 4 eggs for an 8 inch and 6 eggs for a 10 inch. You can use more eggs if you wish for a deeper cake but remember your cooking time will increase.

I use baking belts with all my cakes and I bake at 140 degrees. Low and slow gives a really light sponge. You can either buy baking belts or you can make your own using damp pieces of tea towel wrapped in tinfoil. Simply wrap these around the outside of each cake tin before you put them in the oven. These belts help slow down the cooking of the outside edge of your cakes so you get a more even bake with no crispy edges or soggy middles.

Step 1 - weigh your eggs with their shells still on. You will use the same weight for your margerine, sugar and self raising flour.
Step 2 - weigh out your margerine and pop in your mixer in medium speed. While that is mixing weight out your caster sugar and crack your eggs into a jug. Your margerine needs to look light and creamy before you add anything else.
Step 3 - add your sugar to the mixer and continue to mix on medium speed while you weigh your flour. You need to allow time for the sugar to dissolve into the margerine.
Step 4 - turn your oven on to 140 degrees Celsius and line your tins base and sides with greaseproof paper
Step 5 - turn your mixer off, scrape the sides of the bowl and add your vanilla essence. You need to use good quality vanilla. It makes the world of difference to your flavour. I'll share a picture of the one I use. £6 a bottle in most supermarkets. Add one of your eggs and put the mixer on high. Don't leave the mixer and stop the machine the moment the eggs are incorporated and the mixture no longer looks lumpy. This will take a few seconds only. DO NOT OVER MIX!
STEP 6- Repeat for all your eggs and scrape the sides of the bowl between each addition. Keep giving short sharp high speed mixes until the mixture is smooth ish. It should not look like scrambled eggs.
Step 7-seive your flour and add a level teaspoon of baking powder per 6 eggs used. I don't use a lot of baking powder as I find the technique of making the cake the recipe mean it's not needed. If you are making 1 x 6 inch cake I would add 1/4 of a tsp. For 4 x 6 inch cakes I'd add 1.25 tsps of baking powder.
Step 8 - gently pour your flour into the mixer all at once. Put your machine on low speed and only mix it until the flour is only just incorporated. I tend to stop before all the flour has disappeared and fold the rest by hand with a spatula. Be very gentle with the mix and don't over mix it.
Step 8 - fill your tin or tins with the cake batter. You can weigh them so they are the same if you want equal layers of a tall cake.
Step 9 - put your cake(s) on the middle shelf in your oven.

Oven times are not an exact science so you will need to play around with times. Every oven is different and the more cakes you cook at once the longer they will take. Until recently I was always baking multiple cakes for customers I would bake 4 x 6 inch cake tins for 1hr 2mins. This took time to get an exact perfect time and I did not need to check my cakes as I knew they'd be done. However please note that I have an amazing oven which is incredibly efficient and I found when I first got it I had to reduce cooking times quite a lot. For 2 x 8 inch tins I would bake for 1hr 24 minutes.

DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO TAKE YOUR CAKES OUT OF THE OVEN.

To test your cakes you can do a few things. Firstly listen to your cakes they make a hissing/bubbling sound when they are done. Lightly press your fingers on the top of the cake and if your finger prints bounce back its done. If they leave an imprint your cake needs longer. You can also use a skewer to stab your cake in the centre and see if it comes out clean. If it's sticky in any way it's not cooked. You need to do all of this with the cake still in the oven as quickly as possible to keep the heat in the cakes. If you pull them out to do this and they're not cooked they will sink and you won't be able to rescue them.

TIP - Open your oven door very very slowly and in small stages. This stops your cakes sinking from the sudden shock of the door opening full and all the heat escaping. This is especially important if you're unsure if your cake is cooked.

You will need to play around with oven times in order to find what is right for your oven. I would say you're looking at a minimum of 35-40 minutes for 1 x 6 inch tin. I will bake one alone at some point and share my timing findings with you.

I hope this is helpful and I look forward to seeing all your bakes! Any questions please let me know! Happy Baking!! 😊

Look at the difference between these two collections of cakes and cupcakes! 😲 5/6 years apart! I've always loved baking, but my decorating skills were horrendous 🙈. I'd bake a perfect sponge then ruin it with my attempts at decoration. This led me to taking classes, watching videos and practising until I improved. I love to look back and see how I have improved. Even before I started my business I would photograph my cakes and cupcakes so I could see what I can improve on.

Are you ready to take your cakes and cupcakes to the next level?

Morning Everyone! I'm busy working on a long list of recipes to share with you all! If anyone has anything they'd really like to bake but don't know how let me know. If I don't have a tried and tested recipe I'll find one and we can test it out together 😊

My next recipe will be vanilla sponge cake as I've had a lot of requests. This recipe can be adapted to a long list of flavours. And don't worry about decoration.... I will be sharing tips and techniques to help you decorate your cakes too! From perfectly smooth buttercream, fondant, ganache and many more. I'll be covering piping techniques, fondant decorations, decorating cake boards etc. You'll find out what tools to use and I'll share links to where I've bought mine from. You'll get advice on the best ingredients and tips that will help you give your cakes not only a professional finish but an amazing taste too! 😊

I can't wait to get started!

PS - Valentines Day Smash Heart treat box recipe and techniques coming next week! 🤫♥️ A truly unique gift idea and delicious 😋