Maple leaf wedding cake

This is the wedding cake and cupcakes I made for a lovely couple at the weekend. They had various Canadian links and wanted to reflect that in their cake. Although they also wanted it to be very simple.

 

They had come up with the idea of maple leaves, so we decided to make the cupcakes maple syrup flavour. The cake was chocolate mud and they had plans to whisk it away to share between them!

xxx

HAPPY BIG BIRTHDAY ME!

Yes the day has been and gone, I am no longer the Birthday Queen (boo).  Although I still have few celebrations in the pipeline.  Mostly though, I am feeling exhausted from a huge lunch yesterday.  It was a buffet style meal in a very exclusive hotel (Mr LD though it was a bit footballers wives) and I wanted to try everything.  So today I am on a soup and chocolate diet!

Anyway I decided to take some time to review my life so far, and so far so good.  I have lived a very blessed life and I don't know why, I'm not especially good or talented, I'd put myself down as more of a plodder!  

My parents are and have always been amazing, loving and very supportive.  They never pushed me to do anything I didn't want to do and were happy as long as I had tried my best.  They have definitely instilled in me a love for creating and cooking and baking and gardening and making!  They are fun, and I know that even now would help me with anything I need.  

I have a lovely brother, sister-in-laws, in-laws and nieces.  We are all easy going and enjoy spending time together.

Then, of course, there is the fabulous Mr Lemon Drizzle, he makes me laugh, alot.  And more importantly he thinks I'm hilarious!  He is kind and thoughtful (incredibly handsome!)  I am very lucky to have found him, as he likes to remind me.  We have our gorgeous kidlets who bring so much laughter into our house, there is nothing better than a six year old giggling uncontrollably!

And I also have some really lovely friends who I know I can rely upon in a crisis, or for a great night out.  

I live in a gorgeous town, in a lovely house.  Really the only thing I am lacking is some more sun and a cake empire, but I'm working on that!

Finally a big thankyou to my lovely blog followers.  You really cheer me up with your lovely comments, and inspire me onto better things.

Gosh that reads like an Oscar speech!  

(Drips tears onto the keyboard, imagines cheering.)

Enough of all this and onto the most important thing, the cake!

I have devised a gorgeous decadent chocolate cupcake for you.  It was inspired by a chocolate tart Heston Blumenthal made for Christmas.  I have to admit the popping candy didn't pop after it had been put into the chocolate but still gave a nice crunch.  You could use chopped nuts instead!  But for a really special occasion you must have the gold leaf!

I hope you enjoy!

All I can say is YUM!

ps. see here for last years birthday cakes.

BOOK CLUB CAKE OF THE MONTH.

You may recall that I'm in a book club and endeavour to produce baked goods for the gathering, relevant to the book we are reading.  See here for last months offering.

This month book was 'Room' by Emma Donoghue.

It was inspired (the author says 'triggered') by the notorious Fritzel case which makes it sound a lot more morbid than you would think.  Although I have to admit the begining was a difficult read and at one point I wasn't sure if I could read on but I was glad I did. For me it was more of a novel about motherhood than something more salacious.  If you have read Lionel Shriver's "We Need To Talk About Kevin" it was reminiscent of that.

As a group we gave it our highest mark out of ten so far.

I was hard pushed to find a cake in such dark material but at one point there is talk of a banana chocolate birthday cake.  So this is what I made and it was very gooey moist and delicious!

Next month is Freedom by Johnathan Franzen.

I'm two thirds the way through and somewhat at a loss!  If you've read it I'd be grateful for hints.

SYD SPECIAL

 This is Syd.  

He was my Grandad.

These are some facts about Syd;

He liked to dance.

He wore pink polyester shirts.

He loved gardening.

 He became outraged if he had to spend more than 50p on a cup of tea.

He watched Bullseye.

This is not a blog about Syd.

This is a blog about Syd Special.

My family would always have an Easter break in the Lake District, and we would go to a cafe at Skelwith Bridge as a treat.  This is where we partook of Syd Special for the first time. 

 A chocolatey treat but with a healthy(ish) edge. Fortunately the cafe sold recipe books so we could recreate SS at home. 

It is also known as Chocolate fudge, but my brother and I thought it was hilarious that a.. well it's not really a cake or a biscuit, is it a tray bake? was named after our Grandad (it wasn't of course there must have been another Syd lurking about!)

  I have tweaked the recipe a little and feel free to use any cereal you want.  I'm sure my Mum used to make it with Shredded Wheat.

Enjoy with a cheap cup of tea!