Day 4 – Chocolate Christmas Cake

Posted on December 4, 2014 by The Pink Whisk

A super rich dark Christmas cake. I’ve been making this for a few years now and I’m always asked for the recipe. The chocolate isn’t an obvious flavour but it is what makes this cake so rich and luxurious. It’s a great cake to make as the fruits only have an overnight soaking and it doesn’t need any feeding – bargain! Try it, I know you’ll love it!

Plus there’s a couple of bonus projects with this recipe too – have a look here for these individual cakes, perfect to give as gifts and these cute little mini ones too – Santa Please Stop Here!

Ingredients:

200g butter

200g light muscovado sugar

150ml brandy

150ml water

Juice and zest of 2 large oranges Continue reading →

Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Christmas, Treats, Twelve Days of Christmas | 16 Comments

Mini Cakes – Santa Stop Here!

Posted on December 4, 2014 by The Pink Whisk

How about these miniature cakes – teeny tiny cakes made in mini baking cups from Iced Jems. Just like the cupcake sized Christmas cakes then one full batch of 8” Christmas cake mix is going to make a ton, 50+ of these teeny tiny ones so just make a part mixture or mix up your baking with a variety of sizes, unless of course you want to make 50?!

You will need:

Chocolate Christmas Cake Mixture – recipe here

Mini baking cups (Iced Jems)

Cake pop or plastic lolly sticks

Snowflake Straws (Iced Jems)

Flags printout – here

Snowflake and mini pearl sprinkles Continue reading →

Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Christmas, Gifts, Treats, Twelve Days of Christmas | 1 Comment

Individual Christmas Cakes

Posted on December 4, 2014 by The Pink Whisk

This is a lovely project to make for gifts – Individual Chocolate Christmas Cakes. Waitrose is heading a #BakeItForward campaign, something lots of us do for Christmas – creating something special for friends. I’m sending some of my individual cakes to Helen at Casa Costello and Jenny at Mummy Makes Cakes – lovely cakey friends with great blogs that I met up with recently.

Baked in baking cups from Iced Jems, decorated with retro Christmas decorations and packaged to perfection in boxes and bags from Elite Packaging Company.

The 8” cake recipe makes plenty – approx. 24 so only make a full batch if you need plenty or are gifting them to a Christmas Fair! You could also make a smaller 5 or 6” cake and using the remaining mixture for these cupcake sized cakes.

You will need:

1 x Chocolate Christmas Cake mixture – recipe here

Festive Baking Cups (Iced Jems) or silicone cupcake cases

Retro Christmas decorations

Marzipan

White sugarpaste Continue reading →

Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Christmas, Gifts, Treats, Twelve Days of Christmas | 5 Comments

Day 3 – Marshmallow Snowflakes

Posted on December 3, 2014 by The Pink Whisk

These seem to be all over the place in the shops at Christmas time so I thought it was time I figured out how we do them at home – and it’s easier than I thought. You will need a sugar thermometer and a silicone snowflake mould (or any other kind of Christmassy silicone mould if you prefer)

They are easier to make in a stand mixer if you have one, it makes the hands juggling a lot easier but it can be done with an electric hand mixer too.

Ingredients:

2 large egg whites

450g caster sugar

1 tbsp liquid glucose

200ml water

1 tsp vanilla extract

8 leaves of gelatine

2 tbsps cornflour

2 tbsps icing sugar

Continue reading →

Posted in Children, Christmas, Kids, Treats, Twelve Days of Christmas, Vanilla | 4 Comments

Day 2 – Gingerbread Reindeer Barns

Posted on December 2, 2014 by The Pink Whisk

How much fun are these? When Lindt sent me a chocolate delivery (yes I know, that’s a great delivery to get) I knew I had to come up with something Christmassy – there was no way I was melting those Reindeer down for truffles!

These are great project to get you feeling festive and a fab activity to do with the children – not to mention they look blooming fabulous too! Every barn ends up a little bit different and you can be as creative as you like with the decoration. The kids love having free reign with a piping bag and a good selection of sprinkles.

I like to get the girls round whenever I get a chance, all gathered round the table and making something a little bit different so getting them round to build reindeer barns had to be done, it’s lovely to share a bit of Christmas fun together before everything gets completely manic! We had a ball, lots of laughs, collapsing houses, eating icing and gingerbread crumbs and everyone took home their own reindeer barn or two. Christmas Magic!

Continue reading →

Posted in Biscuit, Biscuits, Children, Christmas, Cinnamon, Ginger, Kids, Treats, Twelve Days of Christmas | 4 Comments

Day 1 – Ideas for Decorating your Christmas Cake

Posted on December 1, 2014 by The Pink Whisk

The Pink Whisk 12 Days of Christmas 2014

So here it is, with the dawn of the 1^st December along with the children cracking open the advent calendars and the annual rummage in the loft for the Christmas decorations comes the start of The Pink Whisk 12 Days of Baking Christmas – one Christmassy kitchen adventure each day until the 12^th December. I have plenty of treats for you in store but today we’re kicking off with a couple of ideas for decorating your Christmas cake.

A lovely easy peasy Festive Lights Cake

and a stunning Ice White Snowflakes Cake

Click on the links to take you to the tutorial for each. You’ll need to begin with your cake marzipanned and iced and I won’t leave you floundering there’s a tutorial for that in the archives which you can find just here.

And before I nip off back to the kitchen, if those designs don’t take your fancy then perhaps some of these will help….

Purple and Snowflakes Continue reading →

Posted in Cake, Christmas, Decorating, Sugarpaste, Twelve Days of Christmas | 4 Comments

Ice White Snowflakes Cake

Posted on December 1, 2014 by The Pink Whisk

This is a stunningly simple cake and can be adapted to suit your own selection of cutters and kitchen implements! The snowflakes are made from modelling paste instead of a regular sugarpaste as it dries harder much more quickly and can be rolled extremely thinly.

You will need:

1 x 8” cake, marzipanned and covered with white sugarpaste

White modelling paste or Sugar Florists Paste

Both Sainsburys and Tesco sell their own brand modelling paste which can be picked up easily and fairly cheaply. If you have a specialist stockists near to you then Squires Kitchen Sugar Florists Paste is a great option.

A selection of cutters to use as snowflakes

Look through your cookie and cake decorating cutters for anything relatively snowflake like – often flowers, calyx and star cutters will work a treat as well as any snowflake cutters you may have.

A selection of cutters to create the small holes in the snowflakes

You can get really ingenious here – the obvious choices are small circle, heart and rose petal cutters but you can also use the different sized round openings of piping nozzles – both ends! (no.s 2,3,4, small cupcake piping nozzles etc.) Continue reading →

Posted in Cake, Christmas, Decorating, Sugarpaste, Twelve Days of Christmas | 6 Comments

Festive Lights Cake

Posted on December 1, 2014 by The Pink Whisk

You will need:

1 x 8” Christmas cake, marzipanned and covered in white sugarpaste

A black edible ink pen (available from Lakeland, Amazon here or your local Hobbycraft)

Sugarpaste in festive colours (red, blue, yellow and green)

A little royal icing

A piping tip or a small round cutter.

Festive lights template – click here Festive Lights The Pink Whisk Template

So you’ve marzipanned and covered your Continue reading →

Posted in Cake, Christmas, Decorating, Sugarpaste, Twelve Days of Christmas | 2 Comments

The Pink Whisk curated sale at Joss&Main Today!

Posted on November 13, 2014 by The Pink Whisk

I love hunting down beautiful baking equipment and kitchen accessories and I’m always on the look out for something a little bit different. I couldn’t resist the opportunity when Joss & Main approached me to work with them on a festive baking sale! Christmas, baking and shopping my 3 favourite things all rolled into one.

The sale starts at 11.00am this morning (Thursday 13th November) and lasts for 3 days only so you’ll have to get your skates on!

You can take a look and sign up for membership via my personal invitation here

HTTP://WWW.JOSSANDMAIN.CO.UK/INVITE/THEPINKWHISK

Come and have a look at my top festive baking picks and see what will be making an appearance in The Pink Whisk Kitchen shortly.

(and don’t worry you can set your subscription preferences so that you don’t receive update emails if you don’t want them)

If you haven’t heard of Joss and Main before it’s huge in the US and has now made it’s way to the UK. It’s a members-only site that holds limited-time-only sales on homeware. Come and see my top picks perfect for your festive baking right here.

Oh and if you do indulge yourself in a treat or two be sure to come back and let me know what you bought!

Continue reading →

Posted in Christmas, In The Pink Whisk Kitchen, Ruth's Chat, Twelve Days of Christmas | Leave a comment

Why do cupcake cases peel?

Posted on November 11, 2014 by The Pink Whisk

Oh the scourge of every baker – peeling cupcake paper cases!

They’re fine one minute, beautifully risen golden cupcakes on the cooling rack, turn your back for a minute and they’ve made a bid for freedom with the cases sagging and splitting right the way away from your cakes.

Or worse still, they’re decorated and waiting lovingly for their recipient, a sneak peek back in the box (just to check they’re as lovely as you thought they were – yes own up we all do that) and 2 of the blighters have peeled themselves off out of the batch.

Well I’m here to tell you why it happens in the hope that you can give yourself the very best chance of avoiding the dearth of the peeling cupcake case! Continue reading →