Showing posts with label charity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charity. Show all posts

Tuesday, 16 July 2013

Lorna's Pecan Cake

For our Cake 'n' Bake charity picnic/tea party i decided to make a pecan cake, with fudge icing, decorated with lovely glittery butterflies! 


So shiny!
Anyway, too the  recipe;

Ingredients:

Cake:

150g margarine, softened
120g caster sugar
3 eggs
270g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 heaped tbsp golden syrup
45ml milk
50g pecans, chopped

Icing:

30g butter
15ml milk
20g brown sugar
2 tsp golden syrup
200g icing sugar

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C, and line a deep 8" round tin (a 7" would also be fine but you'll get a tall cake).
Cream together  the butter and sugar, then beat in the eggs one at a time. If you want, add a squirt of vanilla extract but it's not necessary if you don't have any in - the cake will still be super tasty! Beat in the golden syrup, then stir in half the flour along with all the baking powder. Mix in the milk, then the remainder of the  flour. Finally stir in the pecans until well distributed. Bake for 40-45 minutes (if you're using a 7" tin then increase the cooking time by 10-15 minutes).

For the fudge icing, melt together the butter, syrup and brown sugar (i blasted them in the microwave for 30 seconds). Then stir in the icing sugar and milk. Beat until smooth. It will be a little runny while it's still warm, but will solidify as it cools.

When the cake is cooked, take it out of the tine and let cool completely. Cut in half and spread your icing in the middle, then sandwich back together.

I finished my cake with some melted dark chocolate, and glittery butterflies (made from white chocolate modelling paste). You could alternatively top with more fudge icing, or just a simple glace icing.




Thursday, 20 June 2013

Birds Vs Bees Bake Sale




A few weeks ago we were contacted by our new friends at the National AIDS Trust to ask us to take part in their Bake Aware Campaign. Raising funds and awareness for the charity through baking? Just our cup of tea!

The campaign aims to get people talking about the birds and the bees, and so that became the theme for our bake sale! We split into two teams, Teams Birds and Team Bees, and a number of our members donated baked goods to the cause. On Sunday 19th May, Joy and I spent the day selling cakes to the lovely folks at the Cambridge Nursing Centre.




Representing Team Birds:
Jennie's Duckie Shortbread
Wendi's Snicker-Dodos
Stacey's Chicken and Bacon "Sausage" Rolls, Birdy Jam Tarts, and Bird Cake Pops

Representing Team Bees:
Catherine's Fridge Cake and Guinness Cake
Joy's Honey and Chocolate Cupcakes and Honey Spiced Cupcakes
(And standing in for Ruth, who had to drop out of Team Bees at the last minute...) Stacey's Bee Cake Pops



We had a fantastic time at the sale, and raised a respectful £47.15 for the charity - not bad for the club's first ever bake sale! If you too would like to raise funds for the National AIDS Trust, just head over to their website to find out how to get involved.

Happy Baking!