Event of the century

2 Comments Mar 25, 2014 freecakesforkidshackney

If you’ve been on a trip to Outer Mongolia then it may have escaped your notice that we are having a mega fundraiser in less than three weeks time.

If you haven’t been on said trip then you’ll have no excuse for not knowing every in and every out of our event.

Buuut… just in case you have missed our excessive tweeting about it, or haven’t yet joined our Facebook event, or have overlooked the listings going up online and in real life around Hackney in the shape of our pretty pretty poster on the right (designed by our own delicious Dale!) then here are the details you need to know…

First and foremost, the date.

It’s on Sunday 13th April. If you’ve got any other plans for that day then we suggest you change them!
We need you with us from 3pm.
Seriously – it’s the only gig to be seen at in town that day (although a few thousand runners might tell you otherwise!).

And where have you got to be?

Why Crate Brewery of course.
You can take a stroll there along the canal, or if you’re coming from further afield then Hackney Wick overground station is literally (and we actually mean literally) a couple of minutes away. We’ll be in the brewing shed at the back.
Come and find us before we drink all the beer!

Admin over; want to hear what’s going to be going on? Say yes, say yes!

Well…
* There’s going to be a bar (it is in a brewery after all), selling Crate’s finest beer plus more.
* But you’ll be relieved to know that you’ll also be able to get a decent cuppa. Why?…
* Because there’s going to be cake, naturally, and lots of it, sold by the slice, either to eat there or take away with you (or both). We haven’t called it THE CAKE EVENT in all caps for nothing!
* And while you sip and munch there are going to be stacks of new, as well as lightly used, cookbooks for you to browse through and buy, if you can’t resist. Cookbook addiction – it’s a thing!

What else? What else?
* From 4pm we’ve got an awesome chef demo stage, headlined by none other than MasterChef 2013 winner – and, we might add, Free Cakes for Kids Hackney’s patron – Natalie Coleman. Elliott Lidstone from the Empress in Victoria Park is going to be experimenting with stinging nettle and beer cakes, and Hayley Edwards of Borough Market fame is going to be showing us how to decorate cupcakes like pros (we’ve been promised glitter!). Plus we may have a few more tricks – or rather chefs for our star line-up – up our sleeves, but we can’t give all our secrets away in advance.

And as if that wasn’t enough…
*The lovely women over at Wicked Women WI are going to be putting on a tombola (roll up, roll up!), as well as a guess the weight of the cake competition and a pin the tail on the Easter bunny game.
* Oh, and there’ll be a raffle, with rather a lot of amazing prizes, including meals out, oh and a Mulberry purse. Yes, you heard us correctly!
* Plus, if you like beer and cake and have a bit of a creative mind then we’re hoping you’ll enter our *beer-inspired cupcake contest*. Don’t forget, you’ll need to make your cake in advance and bring it on the day to be judged. We’ll have our clipboards and freshly sharpened pencils ready to give marks!
* And we haven’t overlooked the kids – this is a family event after all. They will have the opportunity to ice their own gingerbread men and women, or colour in a cake, which should keep them busy for all of, what?, five minutes, until you have to bribe them with cake so that you can stay for another half!

We nearly forgot…!
* There will be limited edition FCFK Hackney merchandise, including our tote bags, aprons and all-new teatowels, to buy too.
* And, finally, from 6pm, it’s pub quiz o’clock. The last time we checked there were only four team entry tickets left so if you want to prolong your festivities with us past 6pm then enlist your mates and sign your team up.

We think that’s it covered! Sound good? Good. We’ll see you at the brewery! And please do bring some money with you. This is a fundraiser for a future where no Hackney child has to go without a birthday cake, which is kind of on the ambitious side, but, thanks to a great number of people’s generosity, all the money we raise on the day will be ploughed back into ensuring FCFK Hackney can keep on baking those birthday cakes. We don’t take your support lightly and we look forward to chinking a pint glass or mug of tea with you on the day. Until then… x

Beer + cupcakes = good

2 Comments Mar 11, 2014 freecakesforkidshackney

As you’ll probably be aware from the amount we’ve been banging on about it on Twitter, this year, our annual fundraiser is going to be ~~awesome~~ on Sunday 13th April.

SUNDAY 13TH APRIL – Diarise that date, people! (And yes, we know, it clashes with the London Marathon, but eating cake is waaay better than running. Until it comes to the Hackney Half Marathon, of course!)

We barely even know where to start telling you about all the fun stuff happening on the day, like the fact MasterChef 2013 winner Natalie Coleman is going to be doing a demo and that there’ll be a spectacular pub quiz in the evening, but we will get to it, when we recover from our excitement. We may be some time!

For now though, we wanted to invite you to get your thinking caps on and consider entering our cupcake contest. It isn’t just an ordinary cupcake contest, oh no!, it’s a *beer-inspired cupcake contest*!

Our fundraiser’s taking place at Crate Brewery so, as a homage to our location, we are challenging you to come up with something that looks/tastes/looks&tastes like beer, or anything beer-related. Let your imaginations run wild – think spectacular creations at county show cake judging contests and you’ll be on the right track!

The rules are:
– bring a beer-inspired cupcake of your own making to the fundraiser and register it before 4pm
– it’s £1 to enter; you can enter more than one cupcake but each entry costs £1
– beer-inspired can be anything from taste to decoration so let your imagination run wild
– cakes will be judged by a *star* baker (fingers crossed!)
– any questions, email: communications@freecakesforkidshackney.co.uk

Image courtesy of the Cupcake Confessional, where you may find a sneaky headstart on recipe ideas.

Cake of the month – February 2014

Leave a comment Mar 11, 2014 freecakesforkidshackney

We have to admit that we totally swooned when a picture of this cake appeared in our inbox.

It is all kinds of awesome and we reckon that even if Arsenal are your team’s deadly rivals – or even if you don’t give two hoots about football! – you’d probably still bite someone’s hand off to have this as your birthday cake, although you may piggle off those Arsenal logos first!

Like we said: T O T A L L Y swoon-worthy!

And we love baker Kelly’s comment about the possibility of one of the cakes she’s made for us forming a happy memory in the life of the child who receives it. (No, we’re not welling up, there must just be a lot of dust in the air or something!)

Enjoy the step-by-step guide…

Name of baker: Kelly Davis

Name of cake: Arsenal football cake

Ingredients:

225g plain flour
350g caster sugar
85g cocoa powder
1½ tsp baking powder
1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 free-range eggs
250ml milk
125ml vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
250ml boiling water

Method:

Mix all ingredients, except water, until well-combined. Slowly add the boiling water and mix until smooth.

I made two batches of this very easy, basic chocolate cake and divided the batter between two hemisphere tins and one shallow rectangular tin. If you’re fancy you will have two hemisphere tins, but I just have one, so I had to bake my hemispheres one-at-a-time, which took a while.

I was a bit worried about having a gap where my hemispheres met, but the secret is to cool your cake in the tin and cut off any excess cake that rises above the rim of the tin before you turn it out. I used Wilton cake release in my tins to ensure they came out perfectly – I didn’t want a sphere that was anything less than spherical!

When the cakes were nice and cool, I iced the rectangular cake with green buttercream icing, as a kind of crumb coat. I then covered the cake with green-tinted desiccated coconut. I have wanted an excuse to make coconut grass ever since I was a kid and my mother made me a log cabin birthday cake, with grass, trees and flowers out the front. It’s easy to do: fill a zip-loc plastic bag about half full with coconut and add in green food colouring a little at a time. Mix it about really well in the sealed bag, until you’re happy that all the coconut looks green.

Next, I sliced just enough off the bottom of one of the cooled spheres that it would sit flat on top of the ‘grass pitch.’ I joined the two spheres together with buttercream, making sure all of the cakes sat on each other nice and securely. Then I covered the football with a crumb coat of buttercream.

If I was a pro, I’d have a set of pentagon and hexagon cutters to make the next step really easy. I don’t so I made some paper templates. I rolled out black and white fondant icing and cut the shapes out using the templates. Be careful to keep the white and black shapes separate, as the white fondant picks up marks easily. I stuck one of the black pentagons on the football first, and placed white hexagons all around it – look at a real life football or use a picture of one for reference. Keep going until you’ve covered the sphere and – voila! – it will look like a pretty convincing football!

Finally, I rolled out fondant icing in the colour of the football team – in this case Arsenal – and draped it carefully around the base of the ball. It’s a good way to disguise the join where the ball meets the pitch. Make sure the fondant is nice and thick so that it doesn’t tear or break when you’re manipulating it. I used white fondant, with slits in it for the tassel fringe on the ends of the scarf. I printed out the team logo in colour and added this to the scarf.

About the baker:

This is the eighth cake I’ve made for Free Cakes for Kids Hackney over the past year. I am delighted to volunteer with the charity and am sure I enjoy making the cakes even more than the kids and families enjoy receiving them. Every cake is a challenge and a chance to try something I would never otherwise have the opportunity to make. I don’t know anyone who would want me to make them a football cake so getting to bake this cake was a wonderful experience for me.

I have very happy memories of the spectacular cakes that I had for my birthday parties as a child. It seems like such a small thing, but if a birthday cake can help make a child’s special day that bit sweeter and more special, then to me that’s no small thing at all. I would be chuffed if any of the cakes I’ve made live on in the memories of the families and children who receive them – but I won’t be offended if they don’t either!

Waitrose Highbury Corner is our new hangout

Leave a comment Mar 3, 2014 freecakesforkidshackney

Pinch, punch, ~~first~~, err, third of the month. Whatever, it’s March. And that can only mean one thing – we are one of Highbury Corner Waitrose’s Community Matters organisations of the month, don’t you know?!

We appreciate that not everybody shops in Waitrose and that Highbury Corner is not in Hackney but there is a saying about gift horses and their mouths which we feel applies here, and, to borrow a completely different supermarket’s catchphrase, every little helps. Through Community Matters we will get a cut of £500 which will mean a more secure future for Free Cakes for Kids Hackney and a heck of a lot more birthday cakes for local children who might otherwise go without.

If you’ve previously had a little green token thrust in your hand with your change at the till in a Waitrose then you might know a bit about how it all works. Basically, we are up against two other organisations/charities. Shoppers deposit their token, which they are given when they check out, in the box on the way out of the store under the name of the one organisation out of the three that they like the sound of most. The more tokens we get, the bigger our share of the £500 fund for March.

So, we’ll cut to the chase and get to the bit where we ask you for a favour: if you live or work near the little Waitrose at 28-32 Highbury Corner, or if you have family or friends who do, or if you just fancy a detour to buy your pint of milk, please consider shopping there and putting your token in our box.

You have the whole of March to give us, give us, give us your tokens, pretty please with a cherry on the top. What are you waiting for? Get shopping!

Sundays at the Russet

Leave a comment Mar 2, 2014 freecakesforkidshackney

The last two Sundays we’ve been hanging out at the Russet.

A week ago we had a committee meeting there, brainstorming over bacon sandwiches (we have so many ideas, events and happenings going on that we barely know where to start telling you about them all), and today we were there to be part of the Hackney Food Partnership launch.

The idea of the Food Partnership is to not only celebrate and promote all the good things about Hackney’s food culture, but also to forge a more sustainable way with food and a reduction in food waste. You can’t argue with that.

It was great to be in a room full of supportive people, each with their own projects and ideas related to food, all working towards making Hackney great, or perhaps greater as it’s already pretty great in our eyes. And we’ll admit that it was also great to receive a boost for what we do.

Right now we are in the fortunate position that we can take on more referrals. We are in the process of simplifying our referrals process, as well as incorporating the option for organisations to do multiple referrals at once in order to cut down on their time and paperwork. To be part of a Hackney food family who would hopefully promote our service so that we can bake more cakes for local kids who wouldn’t otherwise receive them would be pretty special.

If you like the sound of the Partnership and want to get involved email hackneyfood@sustainablehackney.org.uk. And please do keep plugging our service to Hackney schools, children’s centres or anyone working with children locally who might be missing out on birthday cakes. We know we ask a lot of you but we’re always happy to return the favour any way we can.

Here’s to a greater Hackney.

There is no I in TEAM

2 Comments Feb 26, 2014 freecakesforkidshackney

So, we’ve undertaken a bit of an undertaking and signed ourselves up to run Hackney … not the whole of it, *just* a half marathon‘s worth of it, with a whole load of other people on Sunday 22nd June. We’re sure you’ll agree that the route looks pretty spectacular (and takes in a few ~~pubs~~ water stations!).

We have got not one, not two, not three, not four, but five, yes FIVE!, trainer-clad people – including Tess and Sophie from our committee – who will be running for us to hopefully raise us some cash, which will ensure that we have a future as an organisation and that we can keep on baking birthday cakes for kids who wouldn’t otherwise receive them. If you can dig into your pocket and move your wallet out the way to grab your smartphone and go online to sponsor us that would be lovely, thank you.

And, if you are a trainer-clad type too and would like to join our running team then please email Laura on events@freecakesforkidshackney.co.uk. We most definitely won’t say no. The more the merrier! Remember: there is no I in TEAM, unless it’s the sound of us moaning, whyiiiiiiiii did we sign up to do this again?! Cheerleaders on the day would be awesome too. Check out the loudhailer icons on the map and maybe consider standing at one of them and chucking muffins our way, or something. We’ll have our mouths open just in case.

We think that’s it for now but do brace yourself for the fact that we will be pestering you for sponsorship at every. single. possible. opportunity between now and the big day. If we could come round to your house with a clipboard and shake an old margarine tub of change at you then we would! Maybe we should promise to run dressed as giant cupcakes if we raise enough money … what do you reckon?!

All words of encouragement and/or top tips gratefully received 🙂

*** UPDATE ***
One of our amazing bakers, the lovely Lucy Lincoln, has joined our team of runners, so now we are six. Six times the reason to sponsor us!

Buttercream to blow your mind

Leave a comment Feb 23, 2014 freecakesforkidshackney

What do Hello Kitty, Spiderman and Peppa Pig have in common?

Apart from the fact that they are all popular requests for FCFK Hackney cakes, the answer is: we can recreate them in buttercream like pros. And we’ll let you into a secret: we most certainly aren’t pros!

So how to we do it? Well, it’s all down to the humble fridge-freezer. All hail the star of the show, the fridge-freezer!

Confused? You soon won’t be. Grab a cup of tea and a slice of cake and settle down for a masterclass. Don’t say we never give you anything!

Introducing…

THE FROZEN BUTTERCREAM TRANSFER
(Full disclosure: we didn’t come up with this ourselves; we are not that awesome and don’t have those skillz. This was taught to us at our Christmas bakers’ social by Super Jess of Cakes 4 Fun fame; she is that awesome and does have those skillz.)

You will need:
– The image that you would like to adorn your cake with printed/drawn on to a piece of paper. (If it matters which way round the image is, ie. if it includes lettering, then you will need the image in reverse, ie. a mirror image of the true image. Still following?!)
– Some wax paper, or grease proof paper should do the job.
– Some piping bags. Disposable ones are great – you can cut the hole in the end to whatever size you want and a nozzle isn’t necessary.
– Buttercream dyed in as many colours as you want to feature in your image. Note: you don’t want your buttercream too sloppy so go steady if you use milk to loosen it. Also, top tip! If you want black, it’s easier to start with a chocolate buttercream. Yum yum!
– A freezer, and maybe a baking sheet or something stiff and flat and freezer-proof.
– And a cake. Never, ever forget the cake!

What you do:
– Get your printed/drawn image and cover it with your wax paper. If you put a tiny blob of buttercream between the two sheets it can stop them moving around and mucking up your design.
– Fill each of your piping bags with the separate colours of buttercream; twist the ends down; and cut the tips off. Note: you can always cut off more if you need more buttercream to come out, but you can’t stick it back on. Less is more. Didn’t your parents tell you that?!
– Take the piping bag of buttercream colour you’d like to outline your image in. If we’re using the example of Peppa Pig, we’d use a dark pink as the outline.
– Carefully, with as steady hand as possible, trace the outline of your image.
– Build up the rest of your image, using other colours where necessary. Peppa, for example, likes a nice rosy pink cheek, a dark pink smile and black dots in white eyes. Remember that your iced image will eventually be turned out so you need to build it up in layers from the outside in. This would mean doing the black pupil of the eye first and then piping over the top with white.
– Once you’ve created your outlines, you can pipe to fill in the design. Back to Peppa and we’d be using pale pink to fill. To get a nice flat design, or a slightly more 3D image, you can pipe over the entire back of your image.
– Then you just need to pop the wax paper with icing on into your freezer. (This is where a baking sheet might come in handy.) And wait for it to set hard.
– And then? Get it out the freezer; peel the buttercream away from the wax paper; place it carefully on your (iced) cake; and step back and admire your handiwork. You are a pro; queen (or king) of the buttercream; give yourself a pat on the back; you’ve earned your place in the FBCT (frozen buttercream transfer to those not in the know!) crew!

Here’s Hello Kitty (in miniature) step-by-step form (but do bear in mind that the larger the image, the easier it would be, unless you are a Borrower):

And if all that sounds as clear as mud, go and Google videos of frozen buttercream transfer techniques made by someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.

But do trust us on this one!

We may suck at writing instructions, but the icing itself really is relatively easy to do and the results are pretty spectacular, as demonstrated by the Spiderman face on this cake made by one of our bakers for one of our Hackney children shortly after she learnt the technique at our workshop. See! It’s so good that you’ll want to try it out immediately!

FBCT FTW say FCFK Hackney!

Cake of the month – January 2014

Leave a comment Feb 18, 2014 freecakesforkidshackney

When we told this baker that we’d chosen her cake as our “cake of the month” for January she was super happy because, she said, she never wins anything! The thing is though, as cheesy as this may sound, it’s the child who received this cake, not her, who is the real winner. We know, we know, that is Cheddar overload, with a side helping of brie, but it’s true.

PS: How do you get a mouse to smile? Say cheese!

Name of baker: Anna Greenwood

Name of cake: Star cake (victoria sponge with jazzy accessories)

Ingredients:
Cake:
Five eggs
Same weight as eggs of self-raising flour, sugar (well a little less tbh) & butter
2 tsp Vanilla extract
Blue or whichever colour food dye (optional)
Buttercream:
500g Icing sugar, 250g butter
1tsp vanilla extract
Jam
Ready roll blue or whichever colour icing

Method:
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add eggs, beating in one at a time.
Fold in the flour.
When all mixed together divide between two tins and bake at 160 fan or 180 for 30 minutes or thereabouts.
Whilst baking, make the buttercream by mixing all ingredients together.
Remove cakes from oven and leave to cool on a rack. When cool, put a third of the butter cream on one cake, jam on the other and sandwich together. Spread the rest of the buttercream on the cake. Decorate with stars cut out from the coloured icing.
Admire your handiwork.
Eat (unless you’re providing it as a gift, then don’t eat).

If you like you can dye one cake layer a different colour by dying half the batter in a separate bowl. Please note you probably need more dye than you think otherwise it can come out looking a bit grey and sad. Then when it comes to icing, split both cakes into two then alternate them so it’s stripey inside. But you don’t have to. It’s merely a suggestion.

About the baker:
I am a DJ and performer and live in Dalston. I enjoy baking, but don’t do it a lot as I live in a household of one and would end up eating cake for every meal so I tend not to. Even though I would like to. I bake for FCFK Hackney as it’s a great idea and is more personal than making a charity donation. Plus it’s great fun and satisfies my baking urges without compromising my thighs.

Sometimes you’ve just gotta put a sieve on your head

2 Comments Feb 16, 2014 freecakesforkidshackney

Last month we ~~put sieves on our heads~~ hosted the second in our series of family baking workshops, this time at Ann Tayler Children’s Centre near London Fields.

It almost goes without saying that we had fun, a whole lot of fun! The staff were great; our bakers – who helped run the session – were great; the parents were great; and the kids? They weren’t too bad either!

We’re joking, of course – they were super great and it was fab seeing them really get stuck in, taking control of the mixing and measuring, getting creative, and yes, from time to time, sticking a sieve or two on their heads, but we won’t tell Environmental Health if you won’t!

All together now … “Ground control to Major Tom…”!

Sieves on heads weren’t the only funny occurrence mind you. One child added an egg to the mixture. As in, a whole egg, just popped in there with the flour, shell and all. We heart kids!

We got some amazing feedback from the families at the session, some of which we thought we’d share here because it made us feel warm and fuzzy and because hopefully it will give you a little glimpse of why we do what we do, and why we’re so glad that we’ve expanded our service to incorporate these local baking workshops. So, from the mouths of the mums:

“I really liked cooking with my children; it was nice seeing them smile.” (We love seeing them smile too!)

“Doing the workshop helped me interact with my children more. I would usually go home and let them watch television but the workshop gave us time together.” (Baking as a family instead of watching the gogglebox = good!)

“I love cooking but don’t have the equipment so thank you for giving me all the things I need to bake with my children at home.” (Our pleasure! We love knowing that families will go on to bake at home together.)

And finally, a comment that gave us a clue that the workshop went down well… “MORE BAKING WORKSHOPS PLEASE!” (If we can, we will!)

So everyone went home happy, clutching their FCFK Hackney goody bags. And some carefully packaged their precious homemade muffins up to take home, while others just couldn’t wait…!

Oh my! We’re in My Weekly!

Leave a comment Jan 20, 2014 freecakesforkidshackney

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.

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!