Here is a step by step tutorial of how to make a Mini Cooper car cake! These basic principles are easily transferrable to any car cake.

1. Bake two 8 x 10 cakes and stack them straight on top of one another. I’ve used a chocolate madeira cake based on the recipe here.
2. Cut a length off the side to make a better car width.
3. Round off the corners.
4. Carve the back of the cake in a slope for the boot.
5. Carve into the front of the cake and slope down from the top to create the bonnet.
6. Carve two indents into the bonnet to create the shape of the headlights.
7. Split your cake into however many layers you would like.
8. Fill your layers with your desired filling. I’ve used chocolate buttercream (recipe here)
9. Stack your cakes back onto each other and leave to set. Then cover your cake in a thin layer of buttercream/ganache in a ‘crumb coat’.
10. Roll out your icing to 5mm thick.
11. Cover your cake with your rolled out icing smoothing it down with your hands as you go and lifting out any pleats and folds. Use smoothers to get a great finish.
12. Add on your details with a little edible glue.

Step back and admire your awesomeness!

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

Happy baking (& decorating!)

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 A Car Cake (Mini Cooper) appeared first on She Who Bakes.

It’s Throwback Thursday time!

The first picture is a cake I made in 2011. The second, last month (2014!)

I can remember making the first cake. I was so proud of it and I loved my penguins! Now, three years later, I still look upon it fondly. I would never have got where I am today without trying, practising and more importantly not giving up. 

Proud to say my latest igloo cake will be featured in a magazine this winter. More details to follow.

Britt xo

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Here are some of the cakes I have used the tappit set on.

The cutter is an FMM Block Upper Case & Lower Case. You can get these cutters here at Party Animal Online.

1. Roll out your flower or Mexican paste on a cornflour dusted surface very thinly and cut into strips. Then leave it to dry a little, go make a cup of tea or something.
2. Press down your chosen letter firmly and putting pressure on the back, wiggle it from side to side for a clean cut.
3. Pull the cutter away to make sure it has come out cleanly.
4. Gently tap your cutter onto your counter.
5. The cut out letter should just pop out! If it doesn’t, use a scribe to gently ease it out. If it’s really not budging, let the paste dry out a little more and try again. If this doesn’t work, then you may not have rolled your paste thin enough. Continue with the rest of your message and leave to dry on some foam

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!

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

Happy baking!

Britt xo

The post How To Use Tappit Letter Cutters On Cakes appeared first on She Who Bakes.

Afternoon all!

The other day I was told about a Jane Asher range of bakeware at Poundland. So, I of course had to go check it out! I’m not going to lie, I was very impressed. Even in my local store which isn’t that big, there was a large range of baking equipment from tins to whisks to liners.

Now, if anything costs £1 you are obviously going to be skeptical. I was. So I picked up 5 items I actually needed as it’s easy to go a bit mad when things are so cheap!

I got a tin, a cake set complete with slice and cake forks, a zester, a cake pop set (20 sticks, bags and ties) and 40 cake tin circles.

Having opened and used all the products, I must say they are good quality and I’m especially impressed by the cake tin circles! Pre-cut for the lazy cow in me and they work perfectly!

The tin is small but great for storage. The cake slice & forks and zester are sturdy and work great. And the cake pop kit is fab, everything you need for 20 cake pops.

I don’t know how they have done it, it must be witchcraft in my opinion but I’m really impressed and will be stocking up before they sell out!

To see the full range you can check out the Jane Asher section of their website here.

Happy baking (for £1!)

Britt xo

The post REVIEW – Jane Asher’s Kitchen Range at Poundland appeared first on She Who Bakes.

She Who Bakes goes to France – the vlog!

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Hello muffins, hope you are all well.

So, last week my good friend Travis and I went on a French adventure. We got an early ferry from Dover to Calais and spent the morning driving along the French coast. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. On our drive we stopped at Nord-Pas-De-Calais and basically had the beach to ourselves!

We drove down to Boulogne, parked up and went for a walk. Found a fab place to have lunch and started to discover! We found a beautiful patisserie called MTD Lestienne where I picked up some colourful and delicious macarons (with one ‘o’ because you can’t get more french than a macaron made and bought in France… But let’s not start THAT debate again…)

We continued onwards only to fall into a beautiful chocolate shop called Leonidas. I bought a selection of chocolates and went on my merry way happy with my purchases!

After more shopping, sun and sweets, we headed back to Calais for some duty free before getting an evening ferry back to England.

After a fun filled day in France, Travis and I were shattered!

But I had an amazing day, met some lovely bakers and chocolatiers, did some networking (never a day off…) filmed some short videos too and you can see my fabulously edited vlog on YouTube here.

Britt xo

*Some photos shamelessly stolen from Travis’ Instagram which can be found here.

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Monday – Woman’s Own issue with the article about She Who Bakes goes on sale;

Tuesday – I was lucky enough to attend the first #AOcooks event at the Neff HQ in Milton Keynes. Check out the AOathome article on the day here. My FULL report of my amazing day will be up soon (promise!) but here is something to tease you with for now;

Cheeky scone selfie with the always awesome John Whaite. (I always want to say John Whaite Bakes, damn you!)

Wednesday – Bake, bake, bake. Gotta pay them bills, girl. Here is the cake I made for a lovely lady who makes cards;

Thursday – I went onto the fabulous Look Good Feel Good Show on Channel Radio with the beautiful Trayc Randall and Leah Buckingham-Warner. The show this week was all about body confidence, something I am very passionate about! If you missed it or just want to listen again, you can find the link here.

Here are some pics from the morning!

Friday – When the gorgeous Kaddy Lee-Preston (BBC TV/Radio Presenter & Broadcast Meteorologist) picked up a birthday cake from She Who Bakes HQ!

So what of Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday I hear you cry? Well, tomorrow I will be finishing a cake for my lovely friend Lydia whom I have known for 547 years, Sunday I’m going on a pub crawl and if last year was anything to go by, Monday I will be drinking pints of water and eating many bacon sandwiches!

For more photos and details of anything I have spoken about in this blog, make sure to check out my Facebook and Twitter.

Happy baking,

Britt xo

The post The week of awesome appeared first on She Who Bakes.

Hello muffins!

Right, it’s been grey and drizzly outside today in Kent so I thought, what better way of brightening up the day than making a rainbow rose! And, because you lot always brighten my day, I thought I’d share the tutorial with you all.

1. You will need; a small and large rose petal cutter, ball tool, paintbrush, edible glue, foam pad, rolling pin, working board. (Or dusted surface)
2. You will also need flowerpaste. I’ve gone with the colours of the rainbow by Beau Products Ltd. (N.B The pink I’ve used it in the wrong pot, it’s clearly not poinsettia red. I was recycling!)
3. You first need your rose cone. Roll a small ball of whatever colour you will be using in the middle of your rose.
4. Shape this into a cone shape like so and leave to dry.
5. Cut out two small petals and transfer to your foam pad. Use your ball tool to frill the edges of your petal by pressing it down half on the petal, half on the pad and running it around the edge. This can take some practise, so don’t worry if you don’t get it on the first go.
6. Paint the back of the petal thinly with glue.
7. Wrap it around your ready made cone.
8. Repeat the frilling for the second petal and glue this slightly inside the wrap of the first petal.
9. Repeat with your next colour, so cut out and frill.
10. Glue these petals slightly inside the wrap of the previous petal.
11. Repeat for your third colour and when you get to the fourth colour, switch to the bigger petal cutter.
12. Keep going until you are happy with the size and shape of your rose.
13. Leave to dry then use as desired!

And there you have it, a rainbow rose! Perfect to brighten up any cake. Obviously, this tutorial works with single coloured roses too.

Give it a go and let me know how you get on as always either on Facebook or Twitter!

Happy baking (and decorating!)

Britt xo

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WOW. What a brilliant time I had at the Cake & Bake Show in Manchester!

I had been invited to a VIP press show courtesy of Neff that was presented by the gorgeous John Whaite who won Great British Bake Off in 2012. Now, I’ve wanted a Neff oven for as long as I can remember, they have the sexy Slide and Hide feature. That was enough for me but I learnt they have a ton of other features that make them fantastic. They have a technology called CircoTherm. Now this means;

• Cook a three course meal at the same time with multi-level cooking and, better still, have no flavour transfer across dishes.
• Get cooking faster with little or no pre-heating of the oven.
• Better cooking results because of even heat transference through the oven cavity AND no loss of heat when opening the oven door.
• Moist, succulent roast dinners are achieved easily thanks to the speed at which the heat is delivered throughout the oven.
• No need to turn food on the grill, the air circulates to give perfect results EVERYTIME.

John gave a great demo of the ovens in action and I must admit. I’m sold!

Here is me, John and my wonderful PA Colin at the Neff stand snacking on the Bake It Yourself with Neff logos! Ha!

The show was everything I expected and more. There were imaginative creations, baking demonstrations from industry experts and a plethora of samples to tease you.

It wasn’t just sweet treats on show at Manchester Central, with pies and breads available to buy and TV chef Simon Rimmer teaching a masterclass on baking pie at The Bakery Stage.

Next to The Bakery Stage was The Cake Kitchen Stage – with demonstrations from ITV’s Britain’s Best Bakery judges cake queen Mich Turner and baker Peter Sidwell chocolate expert Paul A Young, Master Patissier Eric Lanlard and TV cook Rosemary Shrager (who was wearing some fabulous pink shoes!)

This year, a talking point of the show was the Welcome to the Jungle display by CakeBomb.

The installation is created solely out of cakes and treats and stepping inside an edible jungle is a unique experience smelling sweetly of chocolate!

The detail is intricate and shows realistic crocodiles, bugs and scenes straight out of the Jungle Book including a working waterfall and smoking pipe!

Me on the Competition Theatre Stage with Mich Turner. Peter Sidwell, Wendi Peters and the winners of ITV’s Britain’s Best Bakery. I had to judge a rhubarb inspired bake off between David and Lindsay. (Lindsay won!)

This is one of my favourite selfies of all time. Me, Colin, John Whaite and Cat Dresser. 

Here are some more photos from the day including selfies and me judging the bake off.

Above are some photos from the ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ exhibit. I am always amazed by the sheer talent of cake decorators. It’s art.

Above are pictures from the Neff demo with John Whaite, a few selfies, some more jungle pictures and a bake off between John and Cat Dresser. John dragged his lovely mum up on stage! 

One amazing feature at the show was the Cupcake Dress made by Cake Masters. It was made up of 800 cupcakes and over 5000 sugar flowers!! You could get into it for a photo and of course, I had to have a go!

It was completely brilliant. I can’t recommend the show highly enough. Get your tickets for the London Cake & Bake Show in October here.

Below photos courtesy of Elisabeth Kurtis at elisabethkurtis.co.uk

Did you go to the show? I’d love to hear from you if you did! Contact me as always on Facebook or Twitter.

Happy baking!

Britt xo

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