Contrary to popular belief, most birthday cakes aren’t a ‘Victoria sponge’. A Victoria sponge is a soft light sponge, baked in two sandwich tins then put together with jam and fresh cream. Lovely for an afternoon tea, but doesn’t lend itself well to be covered in sugarpaste (ready to roll icing). For this, you are better off using a madeira recipe. It’s close textured and firm, whilst still being light and soft to eat. The inclusion of plain flour makes it stronger and better for decorating.

It’s also perfect for carving cakes too, although if you are carving, I recommend popping the cake in the freezer for about 15-20 minutes before starting work. This will reduce crumbs and make your life a lot easier! For more about freezing cakes, click here.

Below is my 7″ round (my most popular size of birthday cake ordered) vanilla madeira recipe and vanilla buttercream recipe. It also is perfect to make 12 cupcakes, for more on cupcakes click here. Make sure all of your ingredients are room temperature as this will help make a better bake! I also recommend lining your tins. I bake one deep cake and use a cake leveller to cut my cake into there sections (see lemon cake below) as opposed to using individual tins, however, this recipe can be used in sandwich tins, just lower the baking time to 35-40 minutes. I use 3″ deep PME tins that are seamless tins made from professional quality anodised aluminium.

If the cake isn’t baked fully when you cut into it, or it’s squidgy in any way, it needed longer in the oven. Ever oven is different and these timings are an approximation. If in doubt, leave it in a further 10 minutes. Due to the low temperature it won’t dry the cake out and will ensure it’s fully baked. The cake needs to spring back to the touch, be golden brown and a skewer come out clean. This will come with experience, the more you bake, the more you’ll know a fully baked cake on sight.

Should you wish to scale the recipe up or down, a number of helpful charts to work this out are easy to find with a quick google. The convertor on CakeFlix is great and they also have a handy app.  I also like this one found on The Pink Whisk or you can use the water trick I explain here.

To make the cute owl toppers in the above picture, check out my tutorial here.

For more information on how to decorate your cake and go from home bake to showstopper, check out my list of latest online cake decorating courses here.

Vanilla Madeira Cake Recipe

• 200g self raising flour
• 200g caster sugar
• 200g Stork/butter
• 50g plain flour
• 4 medium eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Cream together the Stork and caster sugar.
2. Add in your eggs and mix.
3. Add in your flour and mix.
4. Add the vanilla and mix again.
5. Mix the whole thing for 2-4 minutes on a high speed.
6. Pour mixture into a greaseproof paper lined, 7″ cake tin. 
7. Bake at 140C (fan assisted) for 1 hour 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean, the cake is golden brown and springs back to the touch. (Check after 1 hour)
8. Once baked, after 5 minutes on the side, turn out onto a sheet of greaseproof paper and leave upside down to cool. This ensures a nice flat top.
9. Once cooled, wrap in clingfilm overnight to ‘settle’.
10. Once split, filled and iced, this cake will last 7-10 days and will freeze well for 3 months.

NOTE: This recipe is for a 7″ round tin. It is not enough mixture for bigger tin sizes. For this, you will need to convert the recipe here.

For a chocolate madeira;

Follow the recipe above and replace the plain flour for cocoa powder and add 100g melted dark chocolate. For chocolate buttercream, follow the recipe below and add two tablespoons cocoa powder and 50g melted dark chocolate.

For a lemon madeira;

Follow the recipe above and add the zest of one lemon plus two teaspoons of lemon extract. For lemon buttercream, follow the recipe below and add two teaspoons of lemon extract and the zest of one lemon.

Vanilla Buttercream Recipe

• 250g unsalted butter
• 500g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Cream the butter on it’s own for a few minutes.
2. Add icing sugar.
3. Add vanilla.

You can watch me bake this cake in real time on my Facebook page here; PART 1. PART 2.

Give it a go and let me know how you get on, either on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram.

For more information on how to decorate your cake and go from home bake to showstopper, check out my list of latest online cake decorating courses here.

If you want to turn your baking hobby into a career, check out my book Cakes, Bakes & Business for everything you need to know about running a successful baking business, including pricing, marketing, insurance and much more!

Happy baking!

Britt xo

Topped with Scrumptious Sprinkles Lemon Crunch & Lemon Jelly Squares! I LOVE them!! xo

The post Classic Madeira Birthday Cake Recipe appeared first on She Who Bakes.

This is the best way I’ve found to get black buttercream while still having it super tasty and firm enough to decorate with.

If you’re interested in how to make white buttercream, check out my blog here.

Cut your butter into cubes and pop it in your mixer bowl. Then beat it on a high speed for about 4-5 minutes. This will aerate the butter and create a neutral colour.

Next, add in your icing sugar and make your buttercream as usual. I use 250g butter to 500g icing sugar. Try not to add liquid as it will make it too soft, instead just keep mixing until you get a nice consistency. You want a firmer buttercream for piping onto cupcakes so they hold their shape and a softer buttercream for filling and covering cakes so it doesn’t rip the cake apart. If it’s too hard, put the mix in the microwave in 10 second bursts until you get the consistency needed for your bake.

Then, we’re going to turn it into a chocolate buttercream as it’s a lot easier to get from brown to black than yellow to black!

To your buttercream, add in 100g melted and cooled dark chocolate and 50g cocoa powder.

Once you have a nice chocolate buttercream, then it’s time to add the colour. With black, (as well as red and navy) I’ve only found one colour to get a true black, and that’s this stuff! Sugarflair Black Extra. Add a small amount and then keep adding until you have achieved your desired colour.

*TIP* – The colour will darken over time so I suggest adding a small amount, mixing it in, covering the bowl with cling film and popping in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour. Once you take it out of the fridge, pop it in the microwave in 10 second bursts and mix well until it is a good consistency to spread.

You can see the awesome black cake I made using this buttercream here!

Give it a try and let me know how you get on either on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Happy Baking!

Britt xo

If you want to turn your baking hobby into a career, check out my book Cakes, Bakes & Business for everything you need to know about running a successful baking business, including pricing, marketing, insurance and much more!

The post How To Make Black Buttercream appeared first on She Who Bakes.

I recently used this method for the filling in my Creme Egg Cake.

Cut your butter into cubes and pop it in your mixer bowl. Then beat it on a high speed for about 4-5 minutes. This will aerate the butter and create a paler colour.

Next, add in your icing sugar and make your buttercream as usual. I use 250g butter to 500g icing sugar.

Here’s where we get clever. To neutralise the natural yellow colouring in the buttercream, add a TINY amount of purple. For best results, you need to use a concentrated food colouring, I’m using Sugarflair Grape Violet. I need to emphasise how small an amount you need, what you can see on the cocktail stick in the above picture is about right for the amount of buttercream I had but I would start off with an even smaller amount. The key is to add just enough to see the yellow start to turn white, we don’t want purple buttercream.

And there you have it! White buttercream. Perfect for colouring or enjoying in all it’s pure glory!

Alternatively, if you’re interested in how to make black buttercream, check out my blog here.

Give it a try and let me know how you get on either on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Happy Baking!

Britt xo

If you want to turn your baking hobby into a career, check out my book Cakes, Bakes & Business for everything you need to know about running a successful baking business, including pricing, marketing, insurance and much more!

The post How To Make White Buttercream appeared first on She Who Bakes.

Iced Jems sells these in a set of 7 and they come adorable packaged in this cute pink slide out box with rainbow plastic separating them. This alone could sit on my shelf as a decoration quite happily!

I baked some vanilla cupcakes (my recipe can be found on my Cupcake Conundrum blog post here) in red and white Iced Jems Baking Cups (naturally…) and set to work making my buttercream.

I normally make quite a soft buttercream to use inside cakes but for cupcake piping I usually make a firmer version. Having spoken to Jemma from Iced Jems, she told me to use a 1:2 ratio to make my buttercream so I mixed 250g butter to 500g icing sugar. I was also told for best results, not to add water or milk as this will make it soft and that temperature not liquid, will make the right consistency.

I made up my buttercream and it was rather solid. I’m blaming the cold British weather!! So I popped it in the microwave on the defrost setting for 10 seconds and it worked a treat. I then separated this into 7 bowls ready for me to colour.

The nozzles are larger than your average, so I found disposable piping bags the way to go here.

I found this handy tip on Jemma’s website;

When piping onto a cupcake, simply spread a thin layer of buttercream over the top of your cupcake, then pipe the flowers on top. This will help the buttercream flowers to stick down and not come away with crumbs.

So, that’s exactly what I did!

As with all cupcake piping, I found it was easier to hold your piping bag directly over the top of the cupcake.

Again, I followed the instructions to the letter – You need to squeeze gently whilst your piping tip is nearly touching the cake surface, this will ensure the base of your flower sticks to the cake. Now continue to squeeze whilst lifting the piping bag upwards for about 2 seconds, then release the pressure and pull the bag away.

I’ll be honest, the first one didn’t go so well! I did get covered in red buttercream. Haha! BUT! Not to be deterred, I tried again. The second time was a lot easier. Practice, practice, practice!

I used all of the nozzles with different colours and these were my findings;

• Temperature of buttercream is key. At the start I was struggling a bit but it was due to my buttercream being too cold and therefore too hard to push out. A quick zap in the microwave on defrost sorted that!
• Darker colours don’t work as well. I used a very deep purple for one of the nozzles and I couldn’t see the definition of the petals very well.
• Mixed, light colours work beautifully! One bag had a slight mix of lilac and cream (mainly due to my hasty mixing) and this looked really nice. I think a deliberate mix of two or more colours really brings these to life.
• The roses are my favourites.

I like them! I think they are cute and add something a little special to the top of your cupcakes and cakes. A must-have for any baker! You can buy a set of 7 for just £28 on the Iced Jems website.

Have you used them? What do you think? Let me know your thoughts, either on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram!

Happy baking!

Britt xo

The post Instant Flower Nozzles from Iced Jems | A Review by She Who Bakes appeared first on She Who Bakes.

Make up your buttercream first. We want white a pale buttercream so the yellow doesn’t affect the food colouring. To make it pale, we need to whisk the butter for approximately 5 minutes. Then, add in your icing sugar, half a teaspoon of vanilla and a dash of milk. The amount of milk you will need to add will depend on the temperature outside and the temperature of your kitchen. If it’s hot, you will need quite a firm buttercream and won’t need much milk at all. Add little bits at a time until the consistency is right for you.

You will need a large piping bag fitted with your choice of nozzle. (I’m using a JEM 1J), your choice of food colouring and a paintbrush. Paint a line of colouring up the bag, starting in the nozzle. You can do more than one line for added colour. (I did two!) Then spoon in your buttercream and squeeze down to the end of the nozzle. Twist the top of the bag so it’s secure and you are ready to pipe!

To make a rosette, start in the middle of your cupcake and squeeze buttercream out anti-clockwise until you reach the end. Then, very important, STOP squeezing and THEN pull away.

You can then add any decorations you like. For this wedding, each cupcake was topped with a personalised heart for each guest!

There you have it! Dyed edge buttercream rosettes.

Enjoy and let me know how you get on, either on Facebook or Twitter. (Oh! I’m on Instagram too!)

Happy baking!

Britt. xo

The post Dyed Edge Buttercream Rosettes Tutorial appeared first on She Who Bakes.