If this fails to make you smile and cheer up a rather chilly Monday morning then we don’t know what will!
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!
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
Ingredients:
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.
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!
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!
We 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
Hello all you lovely people! Are you ready for Christmas? Are you hanging up your stocking on the wall … or are you leaving that to Slade? Whether you like it or not, the big day is nearly upon us and what better way to get involved in the festivities than to share the details of our Christmas social for our bakers with you. It actually took place in November, but hey, we’re busy people and we had mince pies to eat in December, so November worked better for us.
First things first – a bow of gratitude to Debora who once again let us borrow her gorgeous kitchen in which to host our little soiree. And, sorry, we’re first in the queue if Debora decides to adopt anyone. Idyllic is the word. Idyllic. When we grow up we want to have kitchens like Debora’s; houses like Debora’s; screw it, we want to be Debora.
Moving on …
We are indebted to Jess, who shall from now on be referred to as Super Jess, and who knows pretty much everything there is to know about buttercream. She works at Cakes 4 Fun in Putney, which is a little bit of a trek from Hackney, but it would totally be worth the journey to roll icing with Super Jess. She used to work in the kitchens of the Berkeley Hotel producing their incredible Pret-a-Porteas. Need we say more?
So there was Super Jess and there was mulled wine (of course!) …
… and as we slurped the hot spicy stuff and nibbled on a spread to put any Boxing Day buffet to shame, Super Jess taught us how to crumb coat and ice a cake like a professional; how to make the perfect bear with perfect little ears made from a small flattened round of icing halved (who knew?!); how to create a magnificently pleated bow from decorators paste; and how to buttercream with the best of them – piping it, freezing it, then transferring it onto cakes.
Some of us were better than others when it came to having a go ourselves (and by others we mean the committee!), but you couldn’t fault the enthusiasm and concentration in the room. Tongues poked out of mouths, lost in the moment, as shaky hands gripped piping bags. A+ for effort, and the mulled wine probably helped us to become pros!
We will be sharing a couple of the masterclasses on here in the new year as best as we can so do keep coming back. It’s been an incredible year for FCFK Hackney and the party really topped it off for us so thank you to the bakers who came and celebrated with us …
… and HAPPY CHRISTMAS, everyone. We can’t wait until 2014 already. xxx
If you’ve got zero will power (like us!) then I suggest you look away now.
STOP!
Click away from this page. Go and Google images of celery or something healthy instead. Just, whatever you do, don’t go on reading about the most amazingly chocolaty, gooey, moist, cake, adorned with ball after ball of Malteser goodness.
Too late? Oops. Ok, take a look at this and if you can then override the jungle drum call of a packet of Maltesers you are superhuman and we take our hats off to you. We’re already weighing out the cocoa powder (but may have to go and buy more Maltesers as they seem to have, um, disappeared!).
This recipe was taken from the December edition of Olive magazine. We ate almost a whole one of these cakes at a little gathering the FCFK Hackney committee had. We feel we are well placed therefore to say that it is gooorrrgeous. Forget the Christmas pudding – go and make yourself one of these instead!
Chocolate Chiffon Maltesers Cake
Ingredients:
For the cake –
6 eggs separated
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
60g cocoa
260g plain flour
360g caster sugar
1.5 tsp bicarbonate
1 tsp salt
125ml veg oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
For the buttercream –
500g slightly salted butter
200g icing sugar
50g drinking chocolate
2-3 tbsp milk
5x135g Maltesers
Method:
Line the bottom and sides of a 23cm (at least 10cm deep) cake tin with baking paper.
Heat oven to 180c/160fan/gas 4.
Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until stiff.
Put the remaining cake ingredients into a separate bowl with 190ml of water and blend to a rich thick chocolate mix.
Fold in the egg whites – do not beat.
When the mixture has no more white streaks pour into tin. Bake for approx 1 hour. When it is ready it will feel spongy with a soft crust on top.
Cool in tin for 10mins then remove and peel off paper.
Put the cake on a cake board. Put the buttercream ingredients in a large bowl and beat until soft and creamy.
Ice cake in an even later starting at the bottom of the cake until all is covered.
Starting at the bottom again push the maltesers one by one into the icing – work your way up in circles until you have reached the middle of the cake.
DEVOUR!
Christmas, it’s a time for giving. If you’re feeling generous and are in the market for a little bit of festive shopping then we have got a humdinger of a present portfolio for you. So fasten your seat belts and let the goods unveil themselves before your eyes.
First up, the pinny, or A-mazing apron of awesomeness:
Made from the real deal black cotton twill, our generously-sized aprons feature our FCFK Hackney logo in hot pink in the bottom right corner (not too in-your-face but you’d still stand out in a crowd of Mary Berry wannabes). And if that wasn’t enough, the polka dot pocket, neck band and waist tie are sure to have you swooning. These ain’t no mass-produced pinnies, we’ll have you know. Each one was made lovingly by hand (by a member of our FCFK Hackney committee no less) and with a batch of just 20 in existence, they truly are limited edition. If you’re serious about keeping the icing sugar off your clothes, but always need to be a cut above the rest, then this is the apron for you.
A snip at just £15.
Thank you to baker Shelly for modeling our apron and for being an all-round good sport!
Bringing up the rear, but no less great, the t-t-t-totally top tote bag:
What can we say? Totes are everywhere. Every man and his dog has their logo on a tote and they’re all vying for space on your arm, but ours are different. Well, not so different really – they’re the same standard cream fabric tote, universal in their usefulness, but ours are emblazoned with our FCFK Hackney logo, again in hot pink, and that is most definitely different. Different enough to have Strictly’s Richard Arnold getting his mitts on one, anyway! If you want to turn heads when out buying your groceries* then you know what to do: buy, buy, buy! (*Our totes are in no way limited to carrying groceries. They have been known to be used for swimming kits and even a knitting bag. What do you use yours for?)
A bargainous bargain at a measly £5.
Email us at hello@freecakesforkidshackney.co.uk if you would like to purchase either an apron or tote bag.
All profits made from both products go back into extending the work we do at the heart of Free Cakes for Kids Hackney.
Read all about it! Read all about it!
We’ve only gone and got ourselves a double page spread in today’s Guardian! What are you doing still reading this? Why aren’t you rushing out to the shops to get your copy?
Impressed?! We are!
Naturally we are thrilled and delighted that Eve at the Guardian liked what we do enough to feature us (thank you, Eve) . And it was all the more special that the Guardian’s photographer, Michael, could join us for our first ever community baking workshop with kids (hi Michael! … have you recovered yet?!). And, of course, that the parents and staff at Morningside Children’s Centre were so accommodating.
We are funded completely by money we raise or that gets donated to us and run completely by volunteers, so budgets for publicity don’t exactly exist. It is therefore amazing that we’re able to spread the word about our organisation a little further than you, me and the next street post.
We are already lucky enough to have a fantastic brigade of bakers who respond to emails calling for cakes to be made faster than the speed of light, but it is important to us that more people who might need our service, or people working with those families, hear about us so that we can grow the work we do. And, even though it may not be the done thing to discuss money, donations are always, ALWAYS appreciated. If you go to our Local Giving site and give a tenner, not only do you make us very happy, but your money gets doubled, which is pretty cool. And the more money we get, the longer we can go on making sure that kids in Hackney who might not otherwise get them DO get cakes on their birthdays.
If you are only just hearing about us and have your heart set on becoming a baker then we don’t mind you joining our waiting list if you’re happy to, err, wait. Please be patient with us though. We have already been inundated with contacts since the Guardian went to press – and the twittersphere has gone a little crazy too. We will try to respond to everyone, but we are just five ordinary people with jobs and families and Christmas trees to put up, so we may not be as quick off the mark as you’d hope, but our cogs are definitely turning.
If you’re not a Hackney resident but are interested in what we do and would like to be involved, then why not check out the Free Cakes for Kids national site and see if there’s a group near you. If there isn’t, maybe you could set one up?
Right, we’re off to read the rest of our copy of the Guardian. We see that “grumpy” Ruby from Great British Bake Off is featured and we’re dying to know what she’s up to now!
Thanks for stopping by and being interested in little old us. We promise we’re not going to turn all diva-ish now we’re famous!
WARNING: This post contains images of cute kids baking. If you have a low tolerance for cute then you may want to look away.
We thought we’d share the muffin recipe we used at our kids’ baking workshop here with you as it is frankly just so simple that the whole world should have a go. One of the mums, Raby, who joined us on the workshop sent us some lovely photos of her children baking the muffins at home with the kit they’d got in their FCFK Hackney goody bag. She said it was the first time she’d baked with her children and now, as we’re sure you’ll be able to tell from the pictures, they are huge fans and it’s a new family activity for them. We couldn’t have made it up.
Long live the fool-proof muffin!
This recipe makes around 12 muffins.
3 CUPS PLAIN FLOUR
1 TABLESPOON BAKING POWDER
1/2 TEASPOON BICARBONATE OF SODA
1/2 TEASPOON SALT
2 EGGS BEATEN
3/4 CUP LIGHT BROWN SUGAR
1 CUP YOGHURT OR BUTTERMILK (we used yoghurt)
1/2 CUP BUTTER MELTED
1 TEASPOON VANILLA EXTRACT
1 CUP BLUEBERRIES
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5
1. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a large bowl.
2. Place the eggs, sugar, yoghurt, butter and vanilla in a second bowl and beat until blended.
3. Add the egg mixture to the flour with the blueberries and fold together gently until just combined.
4. Divide the mixture among muffin cases, placed in a muffin tin.
5. Bake until the edges shrink from the sides of the tin and a toothpick inserted into the muffins comes out clean (around 12-15 minutes).
Then … ? EAT! Yum, yum, yum!
VARIATIONS
Spiced Banana Yoghurt Muffins: replace the blueberries with 2 diced bananas and 2 teaspoon cinnamon.
Cranberry Nut Yoghurt Muffins: replace the blueberries with 1 cup cranberries and 0.5 cup chopped pecans or walnuts.
Lemon Pear Yoghurt Muffins: replace blueberries with 2 diced pears and the grated zest of 1 lemon.
Our cakes just get awesomer and awesomer. What do you mean that’s not a word?! Check out this cake – it’s the awesomist!
Name of baker: Jennie
Name of cake: Rainbow Dash rainbow cake
Ingredients:
6 eggs
Weight of the eggs in butter (or margarine), caster sugar and self raising flour
Vanilla extract (for the cake)
Pinch of salt
Rainbow coloured gel food colours (I used red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple – no indigo – I’m not totally sure I know what indigo even is) – these are fantastic – much better than the liquid colours of my youth – unbelievably string colours even when baked.
Jam
250g block of butter
650g icing sugar
Vanilla extract (for the icing)
Edible lustre sprays in pearl and sky blue (optional)
Method:
For the cake:
I made the cake in three batches (partly because I only have one set of sandwich cake tins and one oven).
– *Weigh two eggs and preheat the oven to 180 (165 fan).
– Weight the same amount of butter (margarine) and sugar into a bowl and add a splodge of vanilla extract. Cream this until it goes white and fluffy (I did it with a stand mixer, but a hand whisk or wooden spoon is also totally viable).
– Measure out (separately) the same weight of flour and add the pinch of salt.
– Add the two eggs to the butter/sugar mix gradually and beat in (not too much, just till it’s all combined well).
– If the egg/butter/sugar mix starts to look a bit curdled, just chuck in a little handful of the flour between egg additions.
– Chuck in the flour and fold it in to the mix – keep it quick and only fold until combined – don’t overmix.
– Split this mixture in half and colour each half with one of your rainbow colours.
– Stick these two coloured batters into your sandwich tins and stick in the oven for about 15 minutes till they are cooked – they will be fairly thin cakes – this is a good thing – you are going to end up with six layers, after all.
– When the cakes are cool enough, turn them out onto racks and leave to cool completely.
– Frantically wash your bowls and tins and start again from * with the next two colours until you have six lovely layers.
– When all your cakes are cooked, level them off as necessary (it matters more with more layers – you don’t want a Leaning Tower of Pisa cake for this one) and layer them up on a board with jam in between to stick them together nicely.
– Refrigerate while you make the icing (for an hour at least).
– To make the icing, stick the butter (at room temperature) and icing sugar into a bowl and beat (slowly at first – icing sugar is messy stuff) until all incorporated (it might be a bit crumby – that is fine at this stage). Again – you can do this by hand if you’re feeling strong, but icing is where those stand mixers really come into their own.
– Add a good splodge of vanilla and possibly a splash of milk if things are looking a bit dry and beat frantically until it’s lovely and fluffy – it takes about 5 minutes in the stand mixer – probably more by hand.
– Use up to half the icing to crumb coat your cake, making a nice smooth layer and locking all the crumbs in – it’s fine if it doesn’t look nice – it just needs to give a good base.
– Refrigerate the whole thing overnight (or at least for a couple of hours) for the icing to set and chill.
– The next day, spread the rest of the icing over the crumb coat – this time, make it as beautiful as you can!
– I decorated the whole thing by spraying the icing all over with pearlescent lustre and then using stencils (cut of old bits of paper) to make clouds and spraying with blue. This is obviously optional, but I thought that since Rainbow Dash is a proper flutter pony, she’d probably quite like a sky background and it makes the cake a little bit interesting on the outside as well as being a rainbow inside.
– Finally, I stuck my Rainbow Dash figure on top (she’s just plastic – I contemplated icing her on, but thought that, if it was my birthday, I’d probably prefer something I could actually keep afterwards) and chucked a couple of packets of Skittles round the cake to reemphasise the rainbow theme.
– Et voila – Rainbow Dash rainbow cake! Obviously these are at their best when they’re actually sliced and you get the whole rainbow effect, but I didn’t get to see that here (it always looks awesome, though).
About the baker:
I am a slightly obsessive baker (and occasional and slightly lame blogger) in my spare time (such as it is), which is a little at odds with being a type 1 diabetic who doesn’t really eat cake.
As such, I am always keen to find new cake victims, and the waistlines of my friends, family and coworkers, who have tended to bear the brunt in the past, are grateful to be sharing the burden with Free Cakes for Kids Hackney.
In all seriousness, when I heard about FCFK, I raced to sign up – in some ways it’s a small thing – there are maybe bigger, more important causes, but the impact of small things, like cakes and parties when growing up, shouldn’t be underestimated, and I am keen to share some of my own childhood birthday experiences with people who might not otherwise get them – unthinkable for so many of us. And, on a purely selfish note, it has been really lovely to be able to make someone so happy with something so very easy!
Free Cakes for Kids Hackney 