These Two Imposters

Fortunes up and down at the moment. I've tried new cakes, old cakes, and my first ever tiered cake (the prospect of which scared the pants off me) with both triumphs and disasters. As Kipling instructs us, I need to take both in the same spirit.

Life's been pretty hectic lately. This is no surprise - self-employment from the house, 3 kids, 11 chickens, bits of decorating to do in the house, veg beds to tend in the garden and all the other things that are part of family life mean that if it weren't hectic I'd be surprised. But it's been even more so than usual over the last month while my fabulous Number One Son has a break from formal education and we dabble in a period of Home Education. It's been wonderful but requires time I am struggling to give.

So, as the cake club weekend approached I had not done my usual recipe experimenting to come up with new treats for the subscribers. It'll be fine, I thought. I was wrong.

My rash attempt to tackle the dreaded flapjacks went properly wrong twice. TWICE. I hate my flapjacks, so I don't know which demon moved me to try again. I don't even like the flapjacks of people who make them beautifully all that much, not when I could have cookies or cake. Perhaps I should just admit they are not something I can make. Nah. I will plug away every year or so and one day I'll make flapjacks that I like.

I tried to make a Victoria Sponge following a recipe different to my usual one. Actually, cocky that it would be fine, I made a double batch and popped them in together. Both collapsed; four 20cm sandwich tins full of sunk cake. Great.

Overtired by the time I tackled the meringues, I made a basic error that I could have slapped myself for. The results were just delicious but not the sort of thing I was after. Fantastic; what was I going to do now? Only the Battenburg cake turned out well.

A wonderful thing about baking is that most mistakes can be transformed into something else. Not the flapjacks, unless we fancied unusual roofing tiles, but the others. The meringues suggested Eton mess to me, so the cake clubbers got Eton mess cupcakes. They were utterly scrumptious, they really were.

If you fancy a go, here's how -

12 vanilla cupcakes
100g soft butter
200g icing sugar
splash of vanilla
2 handfuls of berries (I used raspberries, red and black currants and blackberries)

20 small meringues (about the size of a jammy dodger) or equivalent amount of larger ones

Beat the butter until white, beat in the icing sugar and keep going until it's all fluffy and whippy looking. Stir through the vanilla, and if the icing is a bit stiff add a splash of milk.

Bash all but 6 meringues into big chunks. If you're using frozen berries, defrost them and drain any excess juice before folding into the icing with the meringues.

Generously ice the cupcakes with the berry/meringue/buttercream mixture and top each with 1/2 of one of the reserved meringues.

I've made cake pops with mixed success a couple of times before; I certainly wasn't particularly impressed. Having bought a few from different places to sample them, I've found them over-sweet, a claggy texture and pretty disgusting, really. However, I had lots of spare cake thanks to the collapsed Vic Sponges and I do love Bakerella's blog, so I thought I'd have another go.

I aimed at a drier, less sweet mix than I'd had elsewhere and I was far more happy with the result. I dipped them in pink coating with a few pastel coloured sprinkles or glitter on each. The cake clubbers got a pair each, alongside the Battenburg, Eton mess cupcakes and some VERY fragile but rather tasty home made jammy dodgers.

Incidentally, I'll try a different recipe for the dodgers next time; something slightly more robust so they'll be less breakable. Sorry, guys.

Once the cake boxes were delivered I could concentrate on a large order for an 18th birthday. I needed to make 12 vanilla cupcakes, 12 lemon cupcakes, 24 chocolate cupcakes, 60 mini cupcakes, one chocolate malteser cake, one lemon drizzle cake, 24 plain scones, 12 fruit scones, 12 lemon scones and finally a 2 tier cake with hand made butterflies, glittery polkadots and ribbon.

I had been fretting about the cake for days. My very lovely distant cousin in New Zealand had given me the business advice of steering clear of tiers and brides, and I'd generally followed her advice. Lesley, my rather fabulous college tutor, assured me it was a doddle and I'd be fine. And you know what? I was!

I did make mistakes with the cake. I was thinking about the tiers individually, so made them proportionally high, rather than as levels of the same cake, which should have the same height. The top tier needed an extra layer. I'll get that right next time.

My experiences at college had taught me to make spares of all icing details. This was A Good Thing as several butterflies broke when the lid balances across the top of the cake, erm, stopped being quite so balanced and touched them. Knowing my clumsiness, I'd made HEAPS of spares, so could make repairs, keep spares on hand for any damage transporting the cake, and still had enough to top the cupcakes as well.

I'm still pretty pleased with it, but I could really rather do with rest now!

Delish!

Chocolate and nuts - could there be anything nicer? Whether it's almonds in milk chocolate, hazelnut praline, good old Cadbury's Whole Nut or Reece's peanut butter cups, I think nuts and chocolate make a wonderful match.

After seeing a recipe in a cupcake magazine on holiday (the Americans have cupcake magazines, gosh!) I was keen to try chocolate and peanut butter cupcakes. I didn't fancy the recipe as they gave it - too much sugar and not enough butter for me - so I spent a happy time faffing about to get one I was happy with and by George I think I've got it!

Have you bought the Annie Bell book yet? Here's the link -

because if not, you really must. It's great. I use the chocolate traybake for my chocolate cupcakes. They remain moist and delicious for several days and it is an incredibly easy recipe to do. The batter does 18 cupcakes using a 1/4 cup measure, which is about 60ml, to fill each large cupcake case and they take about 22 minutes to bake at 180 degrees Celsius

The recipe for the icing is :

100g softened butter
250g icing sugar
70g smooth peanut butter

Beat them together until light and fluffy. It should have a gently peanut-y flavour. I found it crucial not to have too much peanut butter because it becomes a bit overpowering after a couple of bites and it can lead to an oily, claggy texture, so gently does it.

I was faffing about melting chocolate in the microwave, pouring it in a piping bag and squiggling flowers and stars onto some butcher's wrap, which I then popped in the fridge to set. I plopped one of the shapes in the top of each cupcake and the effect amused me. no good for eating in the garden on a sunny day but kind of fun anyway!

Back to reality

That was one hell of a holiday!

Florida was fantastic fun. I fed a dolphin! By hand! Stroked its chin and everything! I may need to use some more exclamation marks!!!! I was (and am) very excited about that.

I would calm down but I also need to tell you how truly awesome New York was as well. The kids managed to tear themselves away from playing on the Big piano at FAO Schwartz, riding the ferris wheel at ToysRUs and spending the year's pocket money at the Lego shop long enough to come with us to the Top of the Rock, to the glory that is MoMA, to the Natural History Museum (of Night at the Museum fame), to be wow-ed by the marvellous Hayden Planetarium (in the Rose centre, as featured in Spider-Man 2) and then around Central Park to look like extras from Enchanted. New York is like every film you can remember - "except dirtier and smellier" said my daughter.

We rode the Staten Island ferry, had lunch in Greenwich Village and visited the very lovely High Line Park. We saw the actual, original Winnie the Pooh and pals at the New York Library's Children's centre. (Said library appear in Ghostbusters, in case you were interested). The whole trip was about this good - !!!!!!!!!!!
Aren't you glad I saved all those exclamation marks for one little outburst?

Anyway, horrid jetlag and messy unpacking aside, I was straight back to work. It's not been too busy, thankfully. I need to get my body clock sorted before I embark on a major bake-a-thon.

I am inspired to try things based on the cakes and baked goods I sampled in the US. Candy apples - who knew? Apparently they're the new Big Thing. Whoopie pies and cake pops seem to have pretty much disappeared, cupcakes are still very popular despite 5 years of articles in the foodie press claiming they are SO over every couple of months. Tiny little portions of things were very popular too - mini cakes, 'bitty bites' and so on.

I went a little bit mental in the sprinkles store again. How is it possible to spend £120 on sprinkles? I am clearly a nut, but it was all so very tempting. I could have happily spent hundreds of pounds if only I could get it all home again. Still, my customers will get some very fabulous looking cupcakes and when I run out I have a great excuse to slope off to NYC again.

I feel so lucky to come back just before two long weekends and some astonishingly gorgeous weather. It makes it so hard to stay in the kitchen, it's true, but it does make life feel so much more pleasant.

On the down side, my fabulous son has had a tough week, our house is a total tip because we are still in the middle of decorating and have nowhere to actually PUT the clothes we're unpacking, Buffy the lovely hen and Lola our favourite guinea pig died while we were away, both were very young and it was very sad.

Looking at positives, we now own Amy Pond, Donna, Martha, Sarah Jane Smith, Leela and Ace the new chickens and Doctor Who returns to the telly this weekend. As the 11th Doctor might say, Hens are cool.

And so are cakes.

The final push

I'm going on holiday. An actual away-from-the-oven holiday. Soon. If I can last that long, which is in no way a sure thing.

My business has several different types of customers. I have a bunch of private commissions, where someone rings and requests a cake for a specific date. Easy peasy, I just tell them I'm unable to take the commission for that period. I have the Cake Box Club customers, who get a mixed box of lovely things once a month: again, I can schedule that to suit myself. And I have two wholesale customers who have regular weekly orders to sell on to their customers. And therein lies the tricky bit.

They still need cake to sell. I've tested every one of my products so I know which cakes freeze well and which don't - a freshly baked cake, frozen, is still very nice when defrosted - so as long as I can bake enough cake/cupcakes/biscuits to tide them over, they will have stock to sell. But I work pretty flat out most weeks. How can I fit in an extra fortnight's work in at the last minute?

(It is a truth of clients that they want the freshest possible cakes at the last possible second)

In order to fulfil this, I have been baking like a woman possessed for the past 5 days. Yesterday I made 15 chocolate cakes and 90 scones. Today I baked 7 cakes and 250 iced gingerbread men. It's been a bit manic.

Unfortunately, I managed to get a chest infection as well, so I've been a bit unwell. This has added to the strain somewhat. My knees ache because I've been on my feet for so many hours in a row and I'm not sleeping well because my endless coughing keeps waking me up. And of course there's all the stuff that needs doing in order to facilitate a family holiday.
Much of that seems to be paperwork or laundry. Laundry, like the poor, is always with us.

Mark keeps telling me that self employed people don't get to take holidays. (It's remarkable that he doesn't get the odd smack about the chops, isn't it. I am a shining example of self restraint.) I know LOADS of self employed people. Most of them take holidays. Surely it's possible if you just plan enough and slog through the tricky bit.

Anyway, I'm not quite at the finishing line but I reckon I can see it from here. And it is a sunny, gorgeous finish line.

If I make it, I promise to send you a post card!

Quick update - I did it! I'm so immensely relieved and a bit giddy with excitement.

RND hijinx

I do love an excuse to fund raise. I hate selling, I hate plugging my wares and charging people money (although I do LOVE getting paid) and I get all self-conscious about it. However, give me a cause I believe in and I am a shameless hustler demanding cash from everyone I see.

When I was just starting my business two years ago I raffled off this cake to raise money for Comic Relief

I wasn't very good at cake decorating back then and covering a cake in sugarpaste scared the bejeesus out of me, but I persevered. I raised £89 and was so pleased!

For Red Nose Day this time I decided to raffle a box of red-nosed smiley cupcakes. They'd retail at about £15 (including decent donation to Comic Relief) so my initial goal was to get at least twice what I'd sell them for in raffle tickets. I no longer go to toddler groups and other places with a nice captive audience so I thought I'd struggle to sell as many tickets this time. And to be frank, I didn't have much time to spend on flogging tickets because work has been pretty busy.

After the first go at selling tickets it was obvious £30 wasn't going to be a challenge, so the kids and I decided to aim at £50. By Wednesday that seemed far too easy, so we thought £75 would be better. My fabulous 11 year old got selling on my behalf and we passed the £85 mark. Had we the chutzpah for try for £100?

Damned right we had! After 4 days of pouncing on all the other parents in the playground and shaking our tin at them we reached a grand total of £126. Coo! That's a lot of ticket selling. Yay us!

Ever the enterprising soul, my able assistant explained he should get 10% of all ticket sales he made because Comic Relief getting 90% of something was much better than 100% of nothing and his hard work deserved a reward. I pointed out that virtue was its own reward. He looked unimpressed. Upon realising I'd saved a cupcake for him, however, he thought himself to be adequately recompensed!

I felt a bit bad that the chances of winning had become so slim because I'd sold so many more tickets than I thought I would, so I added a 2nd prize of a box of 4 cupcakes and a 3rd prize of one in cellophane with a red ribbon. The winners were chuffed to bits - it's always a nice feeling when people love your cake, isn't it - and I feel very proud of our little bit of fundraising.

Sick days

How on earth do other self-employed people manage when they are poorly?

I feel rubbish. My throat feels like someone's been at it with a cheese grater, it hurts when I breathe, never mind when I talk. My chest is sore from coughing, my eyes are gritty and I am so tired I could collapse.

However, it's a work day. So I dragged myself through yesterday to get the biggest order of the week done and I've baked for 6 hours today. My teeth are gritted, I'm counting down the minutes to being finished but I am trudging through it. I've not been at my best for weeks (months?) now and although this is just a minor ailment, it feels enough to push me near breaking point.

I'm lucky it's not a stomach bug, or I'd be forbidden to handle food for 48 hours after the symptoms stopped and I can't afford to stop for that long.

So, how do self-employed people handle sick days? With contracts to fill and inflexible deadlines, we can't pull a sicky and spend the day in bed. If we don't do the work it doesn't get done, and if the work isn't done we don't have a business after all.

Is it all about pushing through regardless? Taking lots of medication? Chugging coffee and coke to keep alert just long enough to get the work done? If there is a secret to it, I'd love to know.

Learning from my mistakes

I really like Meet The Robinsons. It's one of Disney's less well regarded movies but for several reasons I'm very fond of it. One is that it was the brand new film when we were in Disney World last time and a tiny toddler Miss B was transfixed by the character of Lewis who was meeting kids. Another is because it talks about how you learn from failures. And WOW I've had plenty of learning opportunities lately.

Here are some of the lessons I've learnt:

• Do not bake when overtired. I've messed up 2 chocolate ginger cakes (same batch) and a chocolate malteser cake in the past few days. I had assumed I could bake them with my eyes closed by now but it turns out that when staggeringly tired I forget raising agents or miscalculated when scaling recipes up or down.
• Do the accounts every month, not every 6 months. This ought to be a no-brainer but as work, builders, decorating and general family stuff ate up all available hours I got dreadfully behind. It's a tedious process catching up that much and it's possible I've forgotten some cash purchases so am not accurately reflecting my true earnings. I also hadn't realised I was owed £300! That's been paid now, I believe - I can check on Monday (Nice surprise though!)
• It is not a good idea to experiment with recipes or new techniques when overtired (are you sensing a theme?) To use up one of those wrecked cakes I did some experimenting. The same bleary-eyed hard-of-thinking befuddled state of mind that caused me to mess up a cake in the first place pretty much ensured the experiment was a disaster
• Green and Black's white chocolate does not melt to a thin enough consistency to make a good dipping coating. Adding butter to thin it curdles it, adding a tiny splash of milk makes to go a horrible colour. I think cheaper chocolate might be worth a go.
• It is OK to say no to commissions. If I am overtired (ha!) or over-committed (double ha!) it could be the smart move to turn down some work, whatever Mark says. (Mark is a keen fan of Always Accept Work but as I am the one working myself into something of a stupor, I have decided not to take his advice.)
• If a customer changes the rules at the last minute it is OK to say No to the whole job. I'd accepted a job for a Sunday which, on the Wednesday before, was changed to a "I need to collect it tonight and forgot to tell you." I was already baking 14 batches of cakes and cookies that day and it was demented getting a celebration cake made as well. It was nice to satisfy the customer and she's a lovely woman but I pushed myself to tears of fatigue getting it done. Not smart.
• I need to account for my time when costing things, and do so at a proper wage. Earning £5 a hour when I am an experienced, skilled professional is ridiculous. That's under the minimum wage.
  - as a self employed woman, does that mean I'm exploiting myself? probably!
• It is good practice to ask for some detail about the person for whom a cake is intended if the customer has no design brief other than "make it nice." Having a selection of themes to get me started on a design is a big help.
• I am not a lazy person. I think I am, because I hate exercise and am a messy slattern in some respect. However, my Mum pointed out that I work pretty much non-stop from waking up until 8 o'clock ish most nights, and that is not being lazy.
• It is very important to keep my laptop calendar and my iPhone calendar synched. I nearly missed 2 appointments and did miss a talk at the school because the calendars weren't synched when I assumed they were both up to date.

See? Isn't that a lot of important stuff to have learnt? I think so. But then, I've not managed more than 5 hours sleep for most of the last month, so it's possible my judgement is impaired!

;-)