Loner Brigade: London Edition

Meeting 20

Date: 21st January 2011
Place: Neilan's (London Branch)
Members: Neilan. On her own. Like a loser.

On Friday, I got a text message from Neilan, telling me how she was jealous of our brigading without her, and so had endeavoured to brigade on her own, making a Cheesecake WITHOUT A RECIPE. Although it looks to have turned out well, if Neilan would like to send me details, I could make this post less skeletal. *hint hint*

WHITE CHOCOLATE, HONEY AND BANANA CHEESECAKE:
 I have nothing to write here, having neither made it nor tasted it. Neilan mentioned lots of Philadelphia, she could let us know if she used light or full fat. She could also tell us any problems she may have had, or anything she particularly was proud of. For example, did Detective Vlad the kitten like it? Why did she put celery in it?

RATING: ??
It does look good though.



That's all, kids. Neilan, if you weren't expecting that, you're an idiot.

<# x

New Year: New Bakes (Almost)

Meeting 19 - New Year: New Bakes (Almost)

Date: 18th January 2011
Place: Bradley's
Members: Bradley, Faulkner, Polson


Welcome to 2011, fellow Cake Brigaders! I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I redesigned the CB Blog a little, what do you think? I'm going to change the content somewhat too, to make it somewhat more instructional rather than documentary. I'm also going to link what recipes we use, in addition to Faulkner and I making our own Cook Scrapbooks, so as to avoid loosing the recipes we liked!

Welcoming back Polson from her travels, we started off the Cake Brigade this year with hope in our hearts and excitement in our eyes. This year, we are going to make NEW THINGS and be more adventurous. After all, the whole point of the Cake Brigade is for the enjoyment of baking just as much as it is for the eating, if not more so, so we came to the conclusion some time ago that we needed to branch out somewhat. So, this meeting, we intended to make Chocolate Fondant, Lamingtons, Coffee & Walnut Cake, Flapjack (for old times sake) and an entirely new thing for the Cake Brigade by baking something savory, BREAD.

However, obviously we once again overestimated what we could achieve in the time we had, so only made half of these things.


CHOCOLATE FONDANT:
We used this recipe from the BBC Food website, and they turned out quite well. The only problems we encountered were that the flour didn't settle into the mixture particularly well, and even though they were in the oven for at least the suggested time, they still seemed a little undercooked, being more fondant than sponge. Other than this, they were surprisingly easy to make, and tasted great both hot and cold. They looked great when they first came out of the oven, but obviously dropped after a few minutes, which was disappointing but to be expected.

RATING: ****
Recommended and would make again, but some adjustments needed to the original instructions.





FLAPJACK:

An old favourite, this idea was thrown in at the last minute purely because we fancied it at the time. We don't use a set recipe for our CB Flapjack, instead just throwing together the melted butter, sugar and golden syrup with the oats then baking for half an hour, which is why it turns out different every time. This one, in my opinion, wasn't particularly good or up to our usual standards. It was a bit too dry, which is surprising as the mixture was stickier than normal.

RATING: ***
You cant really go wrong with Flapjack, but maybe we should start measuring the ingredients rather than just throwing them all in. We should add something new into them to make them a bit different.




BREAD
We used the basic white bread recipe from the Women's Weekly 'Muffins and Bread' bakery book, and were very happy with how it turned out. We were a little apprehensive as none of us had ever done anything like baking bread before, and we didn't have particularly high hopes. We didn't follow the recipe exactly, as it was meant to be our dinner and we were hungry, so couldn't be bothered waiting for it to rise as long as we should have done. Also, even though we topped it with oats, they didn't stick, but this was due to us cutting corners again, but despite this, it was soft and fluffy with a good crust.

RATING: ****
Highly recommended and would defiantly make it again. There is a whole host of options open to adapt this recipe, from toppings to shapes, but to get the best result, it is probably best to follow the recipe!



<# x

Culinary Creativity

Meeting 18 - Culinary Creativity

Date: 2nd December 2010
Place: Cake Brigade Member Bradley's Unit Base
Members: Bradley, Faulkner, Palmer


You may remember how a few posts ago, I mentioned how we were bored of always making the same things. Which is true, as without anything to challenge us, we have lacked the ambition to brigade over the past few months. However, following my discovery of this and this, we found some inspiration, and gave our newest cake brigade member; Member Palmer, a baptism of fire.


As you can imagine, even though the Rainbow Cake is a simple enough thing to bake, it look time. We had to bake 6 cakes of different colours, and allow them all to cool completely before we could frost it. To begin with, we struggled with the colourings, as it is hard to tell what colour the cake will bake to and we didn't want any of the layers to be too similar. We needed it to stand out; to look as vibrant as possible without the amount of food dye compromising the density of the cake itself. The most problematic layer was the orange, but in the end, they all turned out well. We left the cake to cool overnight, and then I frosted it with a ridiculous amount of chocolate butter cream. Originally, we had be unsure about using a dark frosting as it might dull the effect of the coloured layers, but chocolate butter cream being the most tasty, there really wasn't much else we could do, so in the end we had no choice but to submit to the chocolaty goodness.


Here follows some animated GIFs. Yeah, they're cool.

For the Cupcake Stuffed Cupcakes, we first made mini plain cupcakes, and left them to cool before we frosted them with chocolate butter cream (what else). We then made the batter according to the recipe linked earlier, and filled the normal cupcake cases with the mix, squishing in a mini cake and covering with more batter. Originally, we had planned to do cupcake stuffed cupcakes stuffed with cupcakes, but had to reign ourselves in when we realised it was quite late, and so our muffin cases went unused.

In theory, they worked well; they are, after all, cupcakes stuffed with cupcakes. However, the batter did spread somewhat during baking, and the outer cupcake layer was quite thin, so it may have been better if we had used the mini cakes to stuff the muffin sized cakes rather than the ordinary sized ones.

No GIFs this time, you can have normal pictures.

<# x

CBA TBH

Meeting 17: C[an't] B[e] A[rsed] T[o] B[e] H[onest]

Date: 29th September 2010
Place: Cake Brigade Member Bradley's Unit Base
Members: Bradley, Faulkner



For members Bradley and Faulkner, this day was a day of great importance. Having just bade farewell to Polson for her 3 month holiday, we set off on our own adventures. First, we discovered Mountain Dew, and we found that it was good. Following this, we found that party rings being catapulted into the foot well of a fiat punto did nothing to change their yumminess. Then, we discovered that Kinder eggs didn't react well to being posted through letter boxes. After this, we attempted a cake brigade, and found that we couldn't really be bothered.


We started with good intentions, spicing up the usual boring recipe with some bright blue food colouring and splodging it in a target-like pattern. However, by the time that it had cooked, we couldn't be bothered to make anything to fill it with, so we just sandwiched the two layers together. Dry. I said we could lick it and stick it, but Faulkner didn't seem keen, so we didn't.


We called it 'the lazy blue splodge cake'.

<# x

Fake Posh with Randomness

Meeting 16 - Fake Posh with Randomness

Date: 23rd September 2010
Place: Cake Brigade Member Bradley's Unit Base
Members: Bradley, Faulkner, Polson


For Edkins, the last in our trio of birthdays in September, I'll admit, we struggled to think of a suitable theme that we hadn't done already. We had three meetings to discuss this birthday, and Faulkner and I made all the decisions and planning within an hour in the early hours of the morning of the party, after we had made the cake under a completely different theme. However, the cake was still awesome, as was the party, and serves as a testament to what results when Bradley and Faulkner are left alone to make decisions for their best mate!

At the point of making the cake, the theme we had settled on was one of 'Random Mess', which entailed mixing all our previous themes together, from vegetables and farmyard animals to superheroes and the colour purple. Therefore, the cake itself was a plain sponge, which we mixed in food dye to turn it purple. As we used one large cake tin for the double mix rather than the usual two sandwich tins, it needed much longer in the oven, and so we had to keep checking on it at regular intervals rather than leaving it be. As it cooked, it turned a slightly greenish brown, which made it look more like a giant pork pie than a purple coloured cake.

For the decoration, we centered the design around an icing sheep, surrounding it with jelly bears, jelly tots, jelly snakes, chocolate buttons and marshmallows. We used chocolate butter icing to stick everything down, although the majority of it hadn't set even a week later. To finish the whole thing off, we used curly wurlys to create a tipi around the sheep.


As you can see, the cake did turn out purple, if not a little green around the edges!

As for the rest of the night, we started out all dressed up, Jon having kidnapped the birthday girl for us, and Faulkner and I played waitress as we served hors d'urves in the form of bread and butter, cheese and cucumber, mini quiches and pizzas, and cheese savoury stuffed skips. We then got Chinese and ate it off the best china, while drinking coke, sprite and fanta in wine glasses served from wine bottles. Afterwards, we got into our PJ's, and watched 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging' with face packs on.

For a party that didn't even have a quarter of the planning of the others due to the lack of decisiveness and Edkins' creative input, I think it went pretty darn well.

<3 x

Kid's Party

Meeting 15 - Kid's Party

Date: 15th September 2010
Place: Cake Brigade Member Bradley's Unit Base
Members: Bradley and Edkins


Imagine the scene. Bradley is walking home feeling woozy and calls Edkins to talk to her until she gets home in case she passes out in the street. Edkins does so, and then comes round a few hours later to feed her yummy soup. Then they make an epic cake. That, children, is how dinosaurs are born.

Now, we like to push our limits sometimes, and we like it even better when we pull it off.

This dinosaur was born for Faulkner on the anniversary of her birth 23 years ago. Based on the theme of children's parties from when we were little, and of course styled after the ever awesome caterpillar cake, we made a chocolate dinosaur cake, stuck together with chocolate butter cream, topped with melted milk chocolate and decorated with flying saucers and smarties. It really was the VISION OF COOL.

Edkins and I made this cake, and I'll be honest with you, dear reader, we have been more motivated to bake. Due to this, you can imagine our surprise at how well the cakes rose and turned out with our half hearted efforts.

We made the cake in three parts, using one cake for the main body, another for the head and tail, and the remaining cake for the legs. After cutting the cakes into the desired patterns, we covered them in chocolate butter cream to prevent crumbs and help with icing, which is a little tip we picked up from a website which I forget the name of and cant be bothered to find out. We were a bit cautious at first, thinking it wouldn't help, but by jingo, it made covering the cake with the melted chocolate the day after a hell of a lot easier! We used a skewer to hold the head in place on the body, and a wedge of cake under the neck to hold the skewer in place and prevent it from slicing the head in half. Now you know what killed off the dinosaurs. They didn't have cake wedges to hold their heads together.

We coated the pieced together cake in a generous layer of melted chocolate, and then lined the spine with flying saucers and dotted the back with smarties to make it a greater spotted chocosaurus.


We then proceeded to playing waiting for Faulkner to come home, treasure hunts, three legged races, egg and spoon races, throwing egg competitions, pin the nose on the clown, speed eating jelly and other such hilarity.

A good time was had by all.

<3 x

Vintage Tea Party

Meeting 14 - Vintage Tea Party

Date: 12th September 2010
Place: Cake Brigade Member Faulkner's Unit Base
Members: Bradley, Polson, Faulkner, Edkins and Mander



So, its uh, been a while. Umm, so how are you? Kids doing well? Uh ... yeah.

Just because the blog went AWOL for a few months, doesn't mean that we didn't bake, oh no! September is a busy month for us of the Cake Brigade, with three of the 'Zante Six' having birthdays within two weeks of each other. Inspired by a walk in the woods during near torrential rain, we decided to make SURPRISE the theme of the birthdays this year.
The first of these birthdays was Cunnane-Neilan's, and being the first, she got the majority of the crazy ideas, namely kidnapping. Yes, we kidnapped her. bundled her into a car filled with sunglassed suits and blindfolded her before taking her to an undisclosed location, where there was a vintage style tea party waiting for her. It was lovely.
But first, we had to make the cakes! We decided that rather than one large cake, we would make her lots of cupcakes. Lots of cupcakes. So, to do this, we headed to Faulkner's, all Cake Brigaders minus Neilan in tow, and set about making probably close to 100 cakes, both plain and chocolate. We topped them with pink or blue coloured buttericing for the ones going on the cake stand, and cut out letters in royal icing spelling 'Happy 23rd Birthday Elle' or words to that effect for the birthday cakes.

You could tell who had iced which cakes by the amount of icing on them, as Edkins seemed to think that each cake had to be as high as Mount Everest to be acceptable. The rest of us were far more stingy.

Now, I am an idiot and neglected to take any photos of our creations, so unless someone wants to send some to me (hint hint), you'll have to cope with this one solitary photo that I have managed to steal off Twitter.

Edit: Faulkner, you are awesome personified.

<3 x

Had to stop myself from adding my footnotes then ...