Oh my! We’re in My Weekly!

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If you’re an avid My Weekly reader then you may have spotted this week’s article about the Free Cakes for Kids UK network. If you’re not, it isn’t too late to get a copy from the shops. We picked ours up from a rather helpful woman in WH Smiths yesterday so we know they’re still about.

FCFK - My Weekly

The keener eyes among you may spot a few FCFK Hackney faces (not to mention one of our stylish tote bags!) in one of the photos featured in the magazine. If you can identify us all then we’ll treat you to a muffin. Actually, we’ll push the boat out and get you a slice of carrot cake!

Shining happy bakers, baking cakes

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If this fails to make you smile and cheer up a rather chilly Monday morning then we don’t know what will!

FCKF - happy bakersFCFK - group bake b&wFCFK - proud bakersFCFK - 6 cake

It’s got it all … happy bakers (wearing stunning aprons we might add!), getting together to do a group bake, resulting in a simply schmazing six cake. Happy bakers, happy recipient, happy us.

Thank you to FCFK Hackney bakers Shelly, Gail and Kitty-May for sharing your fun group bake with us. We {heart} you and we hope to get an invite round yours next time the mixing bowls come out!

Cake of the month – December 2013

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Late again.  It just won’t do!  We promise to try harder next month.  Our lateness takes nothing away from December’s cake of the month though – a Barbie-tastic creation that made one eight year-old with a Christmas Eve birthday very happy indeed.

Name of baker: Amy Jarrold

Name of cake: Hannah’s Barbie

IMG_20140117_202827Ingredients:

For the cake:

250g butter, softened
250g caster sugar
4 eggs
250g self raising flour

For the buttercream:
140g butter, softened
280g icing sugar
3 tbsp lemon curd
Pink food colouring (for the external decoration)

For the decoration:
A doll that you don’t mind chopping the legs off (I got mine in a pound shop)
Pink fondant
White fondant
Stencil and edible silk

Method:
I used a giant cupcake mould and the following sponge recipe.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/spongecake_1284.

The cake was assembled by turning the bottom half of the mould upside down and sandwiching the two pieces togetherwith the buttercream and some lemon curd (this is additional to the lemon curd in the ingredients above). Some trimming was needed to give a good rounded shape.

There is a basic buttercream recipe here (I just replaced the milk with lemon curd).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/basicbuttericing_73263

You’ll need to cut a small circle out of the centre of the top layer of the cake and then cut some of ‘Barbie’s’ legs off so her waist lines up comfortably with the top of the cake. I wrapped the bottom half of the doll tightly in cling film and put the top half in a food bag which keeps her clean but can be easily removed when you’re ready.

I watched this tutorial for decoration and copied it as cloesly as possible but left of the ruffles.

Instead , I just added a little pink food colouring to the leftover buttercream and piped ruffles over any joins around the waist. I also added some pearls around the bottom and waist.

About the baker:
I volunteered for FCFK Hackney after being told about it by Katie Forsythe (a fellow FCFK baker and friend from work). I immediately thought it would be a brilliant thing to be involved with and thought the way it was organised was fantastic. I hadn’t long moved to Bow when I signed up and was looking for some sort of local volunteering – it just seemed perfect.

I spend all day working on books (I’m an editor at a publishing house) all about children’s earliest years and so it is fantastic to think we are making a small difference to lots of childhoods.

LDN East is where it’s at

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FCFK - LDN East
News just in (well, not exactly just in as this magazine came out before Christmas! But…):

we’re featured in LDN East magazine and we’re pretty chuffed about it.

Just because we made it to the hallowed pages of the Guardian’s awesome Cook section (saying that does not get old!) doesn’t mean we’re not happy to be written about in more local publications. In fact it’s often the more local publications that actually reach our target audience and get us the referrals, donations and bakers that we’re after.

So thank you LDN East. You made our rather soggy Wednesday!

Happy not-so-new year

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We’ve been a bit slow off the mark this year but, still, we don’t think it’s too late to wish you a happy 2014. Fourteen days in, hey?! How’s it been so far? For us … not too shabby actually!

On Saturday we had our FCFK Hackney committee “away day,” which didn’t actually take place away and didn’t last a day, but we’re not going to nit-pick! Apart from stuffing our faces with amazing Ottolenghi-inspired hazelnut and white chocolate brownies (what January detox?!), we came up with some great plans for the coming year. We’ve already got a baking workshop taking place this week at Ann Tayler Children’s Centre, but we’ll be putting in some grant applications to hopefully get us the funding to enable us to do more, and we have some very exciting ideas for another cake decorating event and a monster fundraising extravaganza. We will reveal more as soon as we can but let’s just say that a cafe takeover may be on the cards. Eeee!

FCFK - wreath cakeWe cannot not mention how amazing our bakers were in those final crazy few days before Christmas…

While some of us were running around doing last minute shopping, wrapping and last minute last minuting, a few bakers stepped in to make some cakes for a children’s centre’s Christmas party, including this, frankly beautiful, wreath cake, as well as a cake for a child who had her birthday on Christmas Eve. It would have been so easy for that child to have been overlooked but, as you’ll see in our forthcoming Cake of the Month feature, that most certainly did not happen.

The referrals have been a bit thin on the ground so far this year but we have a strong army of bakers with wooden spoons at the ready just waiting to tackle any cake request thrown at us, so if you work with children or families and know of people who could benefit from our service then please do get in touch.  The more cake referrals the merrier, as they say.

We’ll leave you to get on with your second Tuesday of 2014 shortly, but firstly, three quick links:

One: Did you know that if you donate £10 to us through Local Giving then that tenner will be matched so we get £20 instead of just £10?  Pretty awesome, yes?  The pot of money is running out though so you only have until 28th February to double your donations to us if you’d like to.

Two: Remember we mentioned that we now have aprons that you can buy?  Well those aprons were expertly printed by the lovely guys at Print Club London and they’ve gone one step closer to ultimate loveliness and written about us on their website.  (Thanks again guys!)

And three: Can’t get enough of us?  We’ll soon be sending out our quarterly newsletter.  If you aren’t signed up to receive it then why the hell not?!  Sign up now … pleeease!

New year admin: done!  Over and out.  FCFK Hackney xxx