Fool-proof family cake recipe

All celebrations, be they birthdays, engagements or weddings tend to require cake- so I thought I’d share our family ‘standard cake recipe’ which makes a lovely moist spongecake, ideal for cupcakes or celebration cakes.

Its very simple, and can be adapted and modified as necessary to give a whole host of flavour variations. The beauty of this recipe is it really has never failed me.

You will need:

eggs, sugar, baking margarine (I find Stork works fine!), self raising flour.

The difference between this method and most usual recipes is that you make a decision on the size of you cake, choose the number of eggs required, and measure everything else against the weight of the eggs.* As a guideline:

2 eggs = 24 cupcakes

4 eggs = small victoria sponge

6 eggs = larger celebration cake

So, for a small celebration cake (half size) I chose 3 eggs and weighed them (in their shells):

I then put in the same weight of marg’ and sugar, ‘creamed’ them together, added the eggs and flour- and mixed together (wooden spoon or a blender are fine).

You should end up with a ‘dropping consistancy’ mixture (add a few drops of milk if it’s too stiff). Put into cupcake cases/lined tins, and you are good to go!

Bake for around 12-15 min if cupcakes and 30-40 min for larger cakes (this mix wont drop, so feel free to open the oven and check if your cakes are done).

Like I said, you can adapt the recipe to any taste/occasion. Here’s a ‘berry and almond’ twist, with frozen red berries, 1 oz flour substituted for ground almonds, plus a drop of almond essence.

Almond and berries: for decoration add flaked almonds to cupcakes, or cover in marzipan and berries for a celebration cake

*This method works because eggs vary massively in their weight/ moisture content and you may end up with a very dry cake following standard 2 eggs = 4 oz recipe

Eco- wedding food?

How can we help you?

Can you be green on a budget? Often it feels like the ethical options come at a premium, so we were delighted to find a wonderful catering company who manage to combine eco with value.

“How can we help you” is run by a lovely man called Darren, and we were attracted to them because

a) They were offering very good value paella options

b) They were (unlike many catering companies) very upfront on their website about their costs and exactly what those costs included (no hidden extras)

c) When Darren came to cook for us it tasted AMAZING

d) They donate 10% of your bill to your chosen charity (added to our red nose day donations, this meant hundreds of pounds of our wedding costs went to good causes)

e) They have a gold eco-award, meaning they’ve been audited and go the extra mile to recycle, use local produce and to invest back into the community.

With all this going for them and for a cut price deal (we got a discount due to our high numbers) per head, we started to wonder what to catch was. Would something go terribly wrong??? Surely this was too good to be true?!

They were, it has to be said, late setting up the night before, but on the day the food and the service were faultless. We’d HIGHLY recommend!

Looking back at the photos even now makes me ravenous!!

Fabulous food!

 

French cruise and bargain booze

A spot of celebratory french fizz

Some would say that a dash over the channel for cheap wine isn’t worth it any more because the exchange rate isn’t what it used to be. However, when we were investigating buying the wine for our afternoon reception, it definately looked like you could still make a significant saving- especially if your wine superstore pays for your ferry crossing!

We pre-ordered £300 worth of wine and fizz from the Calais wine superstore, they paid for our crossing from Dover, and today we went to France and got all the wine for the wedding. Although we had preordered some things, it was with the understanding we’d be able to taste their wines and change our minds about what we wanted, so long as we still spent over £200.

It was a gloriously sunny day in France too, which topped up our vitamin D stores nicely!

Tasting the wines was essential. (And because we were both sharing the drive, we did a lot of swilling and spitting- very attractive!)

In the end, we hated the Echo Falls wines we had pre-ordered (which costs around £6 a bottle in the UK and only £2 per bottle in Calais) but fell in love with two ‘premium’ wines by a fairly new chilean brand “Gran Tierra” . We saved a good £4-£5 on each bottle by buying from the French wine store compared to UK retail prices. Multiply that up by 60 bottles and even though the Euro exchange rate is not so great, that’s a saving of almost £300 on the table wine alone. We then got some really nice tasting french fizz and saved a further £4 per bottle, making over £400 worth of savings. Not to be sniffed at, and definitely worth the trip.

Wedding cake wonderfulness

The average wedding cake can set you back hundreds of pounds, but thankfully I have a sister who is gifted in the baking department.

For a number of years her particular speciality has been a tweaked version of Nigella Lawson’s ‘Chocolate Guinness cake‘ which is a moist, dark, rich taste of heaven, offset wonderfully by the fresh, slightly bitter-sweet, cream cheese frosting. Yum!

It is my fiance’s favourite cake of all time and as such, my fabulous sister offered to make three tiers worth for our wedding cake. (plus an extra ‘cutting slab’ to cater for the numbers)

Guinness cake also keeps well for a few days and actually tastes even better a day or so after baking, which can’t said for some sponges, so its ideal for what we want.

She’s also been experimenting with some stiffer frosting (nigella’s tends to be quite runny) and has borrowed a cake stand from a colleague who recently got married, so with the addition of some ribbon and a few of those wooden roses around the outside of the stand, I think we are good to go!

The finished cake (and it tasted amazing too!)

Paella, salads and a quality caterer

 

Freshly cooked paella for our wedding 'breakfast'

It was while wandering one Saturday through Covent Garden that we came up with the idea of serving paella at the wedding.  We’d trawled through a few fork-buffet menus but weren’t inspired at the price that most London caterers charge.

My hubby to be was keen on having hot food, so the  minute paella (a classic mass-catering solution!) was suggested, it really clicked with us- we have a fun ‘fiesta’ type theme, and I have a part-spanish background, so it just seemed perfect.

With that idea in mind, we trawled the web for caterers and came across “How can we help you?” a food and events management company based in Surrey. They had their prices advertised with the menus, no added extras (apart for a £55 travel charge for coming up to London) and a real helpfulness about them.

They have a silver eco-award and donate 10% of the catering costs to a charity of your choice, which is something we really liked.

After tasting the food, we definately knew we were onto a winner!

Planned menu:

• Paella ( veg/meat/seafood options)
• Salads (including an amazing roast beetroot, butternut squash and feta salad, roasted asparagus and a classic tomato with mozzerella)
• ciabatta rolls
• Desserts (including a gorgeous chocolate torte and some amazing cheesecake!)

We’re also hiring table linen and glasses, and the team will stay behind and clear away the reception venue when we head to the boat cruise- brilliant!

all for well under £20 a head!

sweet!

We’re providing our own wine- so once we find the right deal on that, I’ll let you know all about it!