Rainbow Cake

Rainbow cakes are one of those things that you see on Pinterest and wonder how much of an awesome person you would be if you could actually pull it off...

Well, seeing as we are rapidly approaching the season of goodwill and all, I bring you good tidings.

Rainbow cakes are in fact achievable, and reasonably straightforward.

My top tips for making Rainbow Cakies

I made 3 quantities of my trusty vanilla cake & 2 quantities of vanilla buttercream, (click here for the recipes), and divided the cake batter evenly into 6 bowls. 

Rainbows have 7 colours but I made mine with 6; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue & Violet only because I wasn't sure the whole indigo thing was going to work out for me, by all means try it though - be authentic!

So here goes...

• Colour the batter using gel paste. I use either Sugarflair or Americolours. The Sugarflair colours are available from any cake decorating store (& I presume Amazon). I ordered the Americolours online from cake decorating suppliers. I used about a half teaspoon which seems like quite a bit, but I find that it gives the best colour for the sponges. The normal liquid food colours are a bit of a waste of time really.
• Bake the cakes in sandwich tins according to the recipe (about 20/25 minutes until a skewer comes out clean), using separate sandwich tins for each colour.
• Let the cakes cool in the tins, then take them out and freeze them before assembling the cake. This is the crucial part as it stops crumbs from going everywhere when you ice it. Depending on how cold your freezer is, you can probably get away with leaving them in the freezer for 2 hours after they have cooled.
• Cover the cake with very generous amounts of buttercream and cover with sprinkles.
• Easy peasy (ish!!)

The cooked cakes ready to cover with icing

The inside! 

If like me you need step-by-step instructions, then head over to Kerry Cooks here. She gives very clear instructions (and a recipe).

Happy Baking!

Source: weheartit.com

Peace & Love

xx

Things I Love Thursdays... Rest Days

If you know me, you know that I work hard, very hard. But every now & then I give my body what it needs - some well deserved rest & relaxation...

Peace & Love

Xx

Wake Up To Muff!!

So recently I was asked to guest bake for a dope blog called Wake Up To Muff. 

The basic premise of the blog is this...

"One boy, one bike and a dozen muffins."

Tibbs or Count Spatula as he is also known, set up this blog about 4 years ago. Once a month he has a lottery, and 12 lucky winners across London will have a muffin hand delivered to their door, by a man (Tibbs) & his bike. 

The best way to get a feel for how cool this is is to check out his flickr with pictures of the drops. 

Picture courtesy of WUTM flickr

So enter stage left, me. We managed, via the wonders of social media to connect, and he asked me to guest bake for the 40th post. His original plan was to brew some beer, so I wanted to make something alcoholic in order to toast this milestone in the proper fashion. 

In the end I settled for Nigella's trusty Chocolate Guinness Cake recipe and used it to make cupcakes. The recipe will make about 18 muffin sized cupcakes but I doubled the frosting as you use more on cupcakes than you do with cake. 

Click here for the recipe link.

I'm also super, duper into homemade caramel... Given that there are very few ingredients, it's surprisingly fiddly. I had to make two batches as if you leave the sugar for a moment too long, it burns and tastes bitter. But persevere you must, it is worth it.

Click here for a post I did many moons ago with the recipe

Now that you know all about it, I encourage you to get involved! Maybe one day, you too, could wake up to muff...

Peace & Love

xx

Things I Love Thursdays... Esperanza Spalding (Jazz)

Even as I start to write this post, I'm at a loss for words to adequately express my love for Jazz & in particular, Esperanza Spalding...

Sooo. To keep things simple, I very much love this woman. I discovered her some years ago and was simply blown away by her musical genius. She plays the violin and the bass (a prodigy no less), sings like an angel, speaks at least 3 languages and has hair that just won't quit. She is truly inspirational...

I've had the pleasure of seeing her perform twice, although both times I've gotten my ticket really late in the day so didn't get the best seats. Not complaining though, I hasten to add. Just to be able to see someone who has performed so many times for Obama himself is a privilege!

I shall leave you with one of the videos from her latest album, Radio Music Society.

Enjoy!!!

Peace & Love

xx

Photography....

It's been a while since I got behind the camera seriously because I've been sooooo busy but I finally got to exercise those muscles with my homegirl Marie Dahlstrom, the very talented Danish soul singer.

In between catching up on life, eating & drinking wine, we managed to get some pretty cool shots!. Look out for her EP Gloom, coming soon!

https://soundcloud.com/mariedahlstromsound

Things I Love Thursdays

Picture courtesy of http://www.yeshacallahan.com/

Beard Gang! 

You've GOT to love a full beard & if you don't, I got enough love for the both of us! 

Now that it's Movember it's kind of relevant...

Picture courtesy of stupiddope.com

Shout to Twin B (& Twin B) on their beard grind! :)

Peace & Love

xx

Stylist Magazine

A mock Stylist mag cover with my cakies on the front... A girl can dream :)

I love the Stylist Magazine. Every Wednesday when it comes out (and I manage to actually get a copy), I flick through cover to cover and dream of one day getting a mention... Maybe even my own article one day.

They regularly have baking competitions, and this year, they had one called "Bake the Cover". I thought, "This is it, this is my shot..." (cue Eminem...)  

Now to those not familiar with the way competitions like this work; I liken them to playing the National Lottery. I remember when the lottery first came out and people used to cue for hours and spend loads of money buying tickets. You just knew that they weren't winning anything. 

Ever. Ever ever ever. 

And they were always poor, or at least I didn't see any rich people cueing up to play the lottery. 

Ever. 

So at the tender age of 16, playing the lottery became an affront to my principles on the basis that I refuse to accept an exercise in futility as my only shot at getting a million pounds, (or indeed a shout-out).

Futility!

But then I thought about Eminem, being the only white guy in the village, against all odds winning the rap competition and being really famous, so I entered anyway. I even got some help designing my cake and spent loads of time and energy making it & creating a mock cover. In my mind I was like "That could really happen!"

Alas, it wasn't to be. There was no Stylist cover featuring yours truly or even a little mention. 

So I've decided on another tactic; Do me & Be awesome. 

Yes, that's actually the plan. I'm going to be like my man Bill Gates here and get on with it. No more silly competitions. 

How could they resist these cuties???

If anyone has any clever(er) ideas &/or hook-ups then holla me. Otherwise, send me good vibrations and look out for me in a publication near you! :)

Come on Stylist, you know it makes sense!

Peace & Love

xx

Things I Love Thursdays

This week I'm sharing my latest obsession... Brown Girl Ballerinas. If you follow me on instagram (@baileyana), you will know that I love me some ballerinas of colour. I liken brown girl ballerinas to Unicorns - rare but real. :)

I would have loved to have trained as a ballerina when I was a little girl, unfortunately that wasn't to be but I get my fill surfing the internet for pictures of them while I pirouette in my daydreams. :)

Excuse me whilst I adjust my tutu, as you were...

xx

Dia De Los Muertos

Day of the Dead or Dia de Los Muertos, is a Mexican holiday in which people remember family and friends who have passed away.

It's not something I've really celebrated before, but I have lost some close family members recently, in particular my sweet Uncle Lloyd who passed away in September, so it really resonated with me.

As it would so happen, my good friend threw a Day of The Dead party this weekend and it was a great excuse to get dressed up and bake sugar cookies!

I became a little bit obsessed with the cookies. In the top picture, I decorated the skulls using fondant cut-outs. In the picture above, I covered the cookies with fondant, left them to dry for 48 hours and used edible pens to decorate them. Click here for a good recipe for sugar cookies.


Peace & Love

xx