baking log

Orange chocolate cake // Recipe from Mary Berry's Baking Bible

This was made for my mum, for mother's day! Except I started really late, so it was nearly the end of the day when I finished it...

The icing was very thick? It looks similar to the one in the book, so I think it's supposed to be like that, but it feels weird. Next time, I'll melt the chocolate just enough, cream the butter and sugar, and then melt the chocolate one last time before adding it in. I'm not sure if that'll change anything, but it's an idea.

While creaming I was thinking 'why the hell is this taking so long...' and it's because I wasn't beating hard enough! If your icing isn't forming: make sure you're doing super fast full-circle motions. :3

I tweaked some of the recipe, by the way. I subsituted butter for baking spread, since that's what I had, and added a half more of orange zest, since my mum said I should. I saw something about swapping butter in recipes to vegetable oil, for a moister cake. I'd like to try that since I think my cakes turn out dry... I wish I could see through the oven door.

Victoria sandwich // Recipe from Mary Berry's Baking Bible

My niece was very insistent in helping me with this, so I let her pour the dry ingredients in.

I made this at my nana's request, my mum said she was really happy with it! I'm glad. I was nervous it wouldn't turn out as good as the previous cake I gave them (for my grandad's birthday) and I'd dissapoint, aha.

This one looks very.. deflated... compared to the last one. I think I took it out a little too early, so it might not have risen as much. There looks to be less cream too, but I think that's because I whipped it better this time. There was still some in the bowl, though. I figured I poured too much in since I eyeballed it. Hmmm.

I like seeing what can be improved! It's very easy to see improvement when it comes to baking. Consideration for next time: add icing sugar and vanilla extract to the cream?

Chocolate chip brownies // Recipe from Mary Berry's Baking Bible

I made these with my friend! Maybe love really is the most important ingredient because OMG THESE WERE SOOOOOO GOOD. Normally I don't like brownies, but I couldn't stop eating these.

When setting the timer, I forgot to set it to play a sound when done. I remembered but my friend was talking. I didn't want to look at my phone since that might seem rude, and then I forgot about it again. Thankfully she said something and my oven is ass, so we had to wait 10 minutes longer anyways.

Gingerbread men // Recipe from Mary Berry's Baking Bible

Made at my little sister's request. No icing, because she doesn't like it and I hate piping anyways. These were good! Very soft. Homemade baked goods are usually softer than store-bought ones, which is actually why I usually prefer store-bought. However, these were really nice soft (which is nice for my braces).

Butterfly cakes // Recipe from Mary Berry's Baking Bible

Very pretty!

Victoria sandwich // Recipe from Mary Berry's Baking Bible

My mum liked it. It looks good, aside from the smudged cream (which is maybe not whipped enough).

White cottage loaf // Recipe from Mary Berry's Baking Bible

BREAD!!! I need to bake more bread. I love bread. My friend said it looked like a duck that has its head bashed in (affectionately). There's room for improvement looks-wise, but it tasted great.

Vanilla cupcakes with buttercream icing

My teacher jokingly asked for cupcakes after discovering I baked, and I thought 'why not, I'm baking anyway'. Blue food colouring for fun. You need to add so much for it to be vibrant, sigh.

Vanilla and chocolate pinwheel biscuits // Recipe from Mary Berry's Baking Bible

This was in the 'Baking for Children' section... Mary claims children can make these EASILY...

Lemon drizzle traybake // Recipe from Mary Berry's Baking Bible

Very yummy looking. I didn't have a cooling tray when I made these, so it got a bit soggy.

Shortbread biscuits // [Recipe]
Chocolate chunk cookies // [Recipe]

My cookies are basically perfect now!

Red velvet cupcakes // Box-mix

GIR CUPCAKES!!! These turned out looking so, so great! They tasted amazing too. Well, I thought the icing tasted kind of funny but it was a 'so bad it's good' thing.

These were my friend's idea (from Pinterest) and we made them during a sleepover at hers. Thing are always cool with her, hehe. I need to start decorating things alone too...

Iced buns // [Recipe]

These were good if you couldn't tell, haha. Though, my iced buns are never as soft as store-bought ones. :( Is it me, the recipe or the packaging?

Banana bread // [Recipe]
Vanilla cupcakes with buttercream icing

I think I ran out of icing...?

Chocolate chip cookies // Recipe from Cookies & Bakes from Gina Steer

I tried out a different recipe. My mum said she preferred the other one.

Banana bread // [Recipe]

I didn't have a loaf tin so I used a traybake tray(??) instead. My mum loved it. #improviseadaptovercome

Chocolate chunk cookies // [Recipe]

To turn into teeth: snap cookie in half. Add buttercream (coloured pink/red with food colouring) around inner edges. Add marshmallows on bottom half, then sandwich other half on top.

I didn't want to bother getting almonds just for some small slithers for vampire fangs, so they're dentures instead. The others said it was creepy to eat them, haha.

Chocolate cake

I DROPPED IT ON THE FLOOR </33333

These new cake tins were much too big, which meant the cakes were comically thin! My mum got these because the cakes kept getting stuck in our regular tins. The solution to this is to trace around the tin on baking paper, cut that out, grease all of the tin with vegetable oil, and stick the baking paper to the bottom. When cooked, turn it over and peel off the baking paper. Beautiful! (Though it smells really gross... is it supposed to? Now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't put oil on the bottom.)

Chocolate chunk cookies // [Recipe]

Viennese fingers

SO MUCH SMOKE FROM THE MICROWAVE... Uh. Make sure you mix your chocolate every 30 seconds, folks. Even if it doesn't seem like it needs it.

These tasted nice. Piping them was a pain.

Vanilla cupcakes with buttercream icing

I got a piping bag! Some look good, some look bad.

Iced buns // [Recipe]

Improvement! Yippee!!

Iced buns // [Recipe]

Oughh looking at this is ROUGH. I'm pretty sure I didn't add all of the water, I didn't knead enough so the dough wouldn't come together, and I left them in way too long since I wasn't sure what constituted as 'lightly golden'. However, considering everything, they weren't THAT bad taste-wise.

Chocolate chunk cookies // [Recipe]

Getting more circular!

Chocolate chunk cookies // [Recipe]

My mum really loves these cookies, so I baked them A LOT. I haven't made them in a while now. I prefer trying new recipes from my books, and she's on a diet.

Lemon cake // Box mix
Brownies // [Recipe]
Chocolate chunk cookies // [Recipe]

This was my first time baking from scratch on my own. The lemon cake is a box mix, made for my cousin's birthday. Everyone said everything turned out great! I wouldn't know, because I don't eat most things I bake. Woes of a picky eater...

Sugar cookies // [Recipe]

My first time baking from scratch! These were made with my friend during a sleepover. Designs included Spider-Man (eyes were added later), Hatsune Miku (I broke a cookie in half to make her hair :3), Gloomy Bear, Weezer, and a very cute cat. They tasted really good, and it was really fun decorating them with my friend!