Cake of the Month – February 2017

Leave a comment Apr 1, 2017 freecakesforkidshackney

Name of baker: Rebecca Rutt

Name of cake: Surprise smarties chocolate cake

Ingredients & Methods: You can find all the details on Rebecca’s blog https://bakesfromahackneykitchen.com/2017/02/21/surprise-smarties-chocolate-cake/

A bit about yourself and how you got in to baking/ why you chose to volunteer with Free Cakes for Kids Hackney:
For as long as I can remember I’ve enjoyed baking, whether it’s something I’ve made a hundred times before or an experimental recipe. While at university in Cardiff I first heard about Free Cakes For Kids and then in the past year found out there was a branch in Hackney where I live. I chose to volunteer as I wanted to put my baking skills to good use in the local area. Baking a cake is a small way I can help a child in the community and hopefully give them a brighter Birthday.

Cake of the Month – December 2016

Leave a comment Mar 31, 2017 freecakesforkidshackney

Name of baker: Gail Clark

Name of cake: Christmas Party Cake

Ingredients: 225g softened unsalted butter, 225g golden caster sugar, 4 eggs, 225g self-raising flour, 2 level teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon nice vanilla essence. Strawberry jam for filling, buttercream – 75g softened butter 225g sifted icing sugar and a little milk. Fondant icing

Method: This is a classic Mary Berry Victoria sponge cake. Pre-heat oven 160c Fan, grease two 20cm sandwich tins, line base. Put all cake ingredients into a bowl then mix with electric blender. Bake for 25 minutes – cool then sandwich together with jam and butter icing.

A bit about yourself and how you got in to baking/ why you chose to volunteer with Free Cakes for Kids Hackney:
My Mum was a great baker, and tried to teach me how to bake – and although I watched closely and followed all her tips, my cakes were more like lopsided biscuits! So many years later, when my daughter was coming up to her 7th birthday a friend said why didn’t I have a go at making her a cake rather than buying or begging someone else, usually my brother to make one. It worked – all those tips came back and I had a light fluffy sponge! – I’ve never looked back.

My daughter has always had a birthday cake – as has my step-son. I got into Free Cakes for Kids because I wanted to be part of something which helped other children to have a cake. Having a birthday is very special at any age but particularly for a child, it’s a small act but a cake helps to create a memory.

I really enjoyed making a cake for the Christmas party – the perfect excuse to have a good look at Pinterest for inspiration, get the Christmas cutters out and go on the hunt for mini candy canes.

Cake of the Month – August 2016

Leave a comment Sep 15, 2016 freecakesforkidshackney

Name of baker: Kelly Davis

Name of cake: Oreo cake

How did you make the cake:
I have a couple of Oreo cake recipes that I use – depending on whether I can find buttermilk easily or not. This time, I could so used this one. You can find it here: http://www.lifeloveandsugar.com/2015/02/04/chocolate-oreo-cake/*

Tell us a bit about yourself and how you got in to baking/ why you chose to volunteer with Free Cakes for Kids Hackney:
I have developed a bit of a reputation for baking kooky-looking, bright coloured cakes for friends and family. I’ve been volunteering for Free Cakes for Kids Hackney for 3 ½ years. It’s a great opportunity to try out all kinds of cake-making skills. I prefer open briefs, where I can make one of the cakes on my long wishlist of cakes I want to try one day. I still hold out hope I’ll get to make a train cake, bag cake, and a peacock cake some time.

Cake decorating can be stressful and I confess there have been times I wonder why I push myself so hard. Then I’ll hear a story from one of the charities that receive the cakes, telling me that the birthday cakes really do make a difference to the people who receive them. To be honest, that is all the motivation I need.

* Some extra tips for recreating Kelly’s Oreo cake
Set oven to 150c. Grease 9” baking tins. I quite like Wilton’s Cake Release. Some people divide this mixture among 3 tins, some 2, others use one huge tin and cut the resulting cake in two. To play it safe, use 2 tins.

Add all dry ingredients to a large bowl and mix together.
Add eggs, buttermilk and vegetable oil to the dry ingredients and mix well.
Add vanilla to boiling water and add to the mixture. Mix well.
Pour into cake tins and bake until a skewer comes out clean. This could be up to an hour so keep an eye on it. When my kitchen starts to smell like chocolate cake, I know it’s nearly done.
Remove cakes from oven and leave to cool in tins for 10 minutes.
Cool completely on cake racks.

Make icing

Beat butter and shortening together until smooth.
Slowly add 4c of the icing sugar and mix until smooth. Add another 4-5c of icing sugar and mix until smooth. Add a little water to get a smooth consistency if you need it. At this stage it will be CRAZY hard and stiff, like concrete for laying bricks. You will be glad of this, trust me.

Decorate

Level off the cakes by cutting off tops or any bits you don’t need.
Spread a thick layer of icing between the cakes.
Ice the top and sides of the cake. The icing is so stiff that if you want to create thick layers of icing and nice sharp edges on the top of the cake, you can.
Top with piped rosettes of leftover icing and Oreo quarters.

With a little help from our friends

1 Comment May 24, 2014 freecakesforkidshackney

A whole month has passed since THE CAKE EVENT – our annual fundraising extravaganza – and still we are unable to wipe the grin off our face. Hackney, we cannot begin to tell you just how perfect it was. The sun shone, the crowds came, there was cake (obvs. – we’d have looked pretty silly if there hadn’t been), and beer (mmm), and people bought cookbooks and teatowels and raffle tickets, and played the best tombola in the world (Hackney Wicked WI, we salute you), and there were brilliant demos by brilliant chefs and and and and and … ! It was like a mini festival; Hackney at its finest; community with a capital C.

And, the real big AND… we raised an awful lot of money: over £2,300 to be precise. Incredible; just incredible.

We’ll let you into a little secret: we were nervous, so very nervous. We thought that nobody would come, or maybe only us and a few mates.

We’d made dozens of gingerbread men (and women, or men in dresses) for children to ice and we envisaged having to take them home with us again, unsold, unloved, but they were gone almost faster than we could get the lids off the tubes of icing. And the tables groaning with cookbooks groaned less and less by the second. And slices and slices of cakes sold in double quick time as we struggled to replenish our counter top.

Oh my, it was a whirlwind, but so, so much fun.

We have struggled to write this post because we barely knew where to begin; how to say thank you. When we think of how the community came together to help us make the event possible – from donating cakes, cookbooks, raffle and tombola prizes to coming along to support us in person on the day – it makes us teary. At the heart of Free Cakes for Kids Hackney there are just five individuals and we can’t get over what we were able to achieve with a little help from our friends. We were left buzzing. Knowing that we have a secure financial future and can expand our service, and potentially put on more community baking workshops, is simply fantastic.

And so we come to the thank yous. We have tried to include everyone, but, as it seemed like the whole of Hackney (and beyond) was rooting for us at one point or another, we have probably forgotten to thank someone and for that we apologise. If we’ve missed you, we don’t mean to have. Thank you from the bottom of our heart to everyone. If we could, we’d come and give you big sloppy kisses!

Special thank yous go to:

Crate Brewery, in particular James, for lending us the space and putting on a great quiz.

Natalie Coleman, Elliott Lidstone and Hayley Edwards for keeping the crowds entertained with chef demos.

Debora, our lovely Debora, for amassing a cookbook mountain and presiding over a stall to put a bookshop to shame. Cookbook thanks also go to Divertimenti (and their customers), Richard Ehrlich, India Knight, Jojo Tulloh, Persephone Books, Quadrille Publishing, Grub Street, Cico Books, Ryland Peters, 4th Estate, Bloomsbury Publishing and undoubtedly more …

Divertimenti (again), Victoria Yum Cake, Cakes4Fun (particularly the awesome SuperJess) and Deli Downstairs for professional cakes, plus many more beautiful people who contributed not-so-professional-but-equally-as-yummy cakes.

Hackney Wicked Women WI (especially Grace and her mum, and Lauren, and Cheeka) for putting on the tombola, guess the weight of the cake competition and pin the tail on the Easter bunny, AND for participating so enthusiastically in the beer-inspired cupcake competition (we will now forever think cake when we drink Guinness). Tombola thanks and sloppy kisses go to A&S Cycles, Joe’s Tea Company, Hoxton Mini Press, Isle of Olive, Fabrications, Newton & Pott, Noble Fine Liquor, Dalston Cola, Fur Feathers and Tails, Little Gems, 90 Mainyard, The Lauriston, Love Jam Kitchen, Cheese Cellar, Aubin Cinema, and Murdock’s (each and every one of you has a community spirit that you should be proud of and we are hugely grateful).

The Empress, Young and Foodish, “I Can’t Sing” the Musical, Divertimenti (again, again!), Mulberry and Cakes4Fun for raffle prizes. We wish we’d bought more raffle tickets because we had our eyes on each and every one of those prizes. Hello Mulberry purse!

Sophie Linden, Deputy Mayor of Hackney, for believing in what we do and coming along on a Sunday, without having to be invited. And that goes to every single person who joined us on the day because you saw our event posters (thanks if you displayed one) or our listings or endless tweets and came to splash the cash and support us. You’re all stars. Thank you.

And before we get all Oscars-style emotional on you and start weepily thanking our mums and hairdressers and telling you who we were dressed by (Matalan, actually, in case you were wondering!) we’ll finish up with a few of our favourite memories from the day: the people who came armed with Tupperware to cart cake off in and the woman who won the scooter in the tombola; we’ve never seen someone so happy, apart from maybe us when we cheers’ed over a pint of Crate’s finest IPA at the end of a day that will go down in history (Free Cakes for Kids Hackney history, but history all the same). Cheers to you, Hackney and here’s to us being one step closer to our dream of a future where no Hackney child has to go without a birthday cake.

By popular demand

1 Comment Apr 1, 2014 freecakesforkidshackney

We can safely say that we have never, ever, at any point in our lives, been quite as excited about a teatowel as we are now. There was that one time when we discovered a right beaut of a teatowel depicting the happy union of Prince Charles and Lady Di hiding at the back of our parents’ stash, but that doesn’t even come close to the excitement we feel now, because now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we have our very own blinkin’ teatowels. Dryer-upperers across the land: rejoice!

Teatowels, teatowels, teatowels, teatowels. We can’t stop saying teatowels. TEATOWELS.

We brought you tote bags; we brought you aprons; but you demanded the most humble of all drying-up cloths, the teatowel, so now, we bring you the teatowel… prepare yourself…

Swit swoo, right?

The gorgeous illustrations were kindly drawn for us and us alone by the talented Emily Hadden and have been printed (by the ever-generous Print Club London) in our Free Cakes For Kids Hackney trade-mark hot pink. We reckon the illustrations look similar to the historical line drawings depicting outlandish jellies of Georgian times, except they’ve been put in a time-machine to 2014 Hackney and made PINK.

We are in love! Teatowel love.

And don’t fret, the edges will be sewn neatly by our own lovely Laura, before she gives them the finishing touch of an FCFK Hackney label. This is them in their “raw” form only. We were just so excited that we wanted to show off our tea, tea, teatowels ASAP. They’ll have done their hair and have their make-up on by the time you see them.

Want one?

Come to our fundraiser on Sunday 13th April from 3pm at Crate Brewery then.

We anticipate these bad boys will sell like hot cakes, or cold cakes, or any cake really, so we suggest you get there early to stake your place in the queue to our merch stall. And yes, our tote bags and aprons will also be available to buy on the day. Why not collect the trio?!

PS: Teatowel.

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

A cake to make you weak at the knees

2 Comments Dec 16, 2013 freecakesforkidshackney

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!