So, I think this blog is well overdue. I tried to be pretty good at doing a blog once every week, but I just enjoyed my holidays at home. It was so relaxing and I did have the stress and panic when am I going to find time to write my blog this week. I’ve baked two bakes since Christmas and I thought it only right to talk about them now, along with a little summary of the year. When it comes to New Year everyone seems to reflect on the year they’ve had and what they want to achieve by this time next week. When we went away for New Year we had a lot of discussions and 2019 flew by but so much happened. I now have a proper website that I’m quite proud of and have so many ideas where I want to take it. I’ve baked so many wonderful things and I’ve messed some bakes up. I can say I’ve certainly learnt new skills last year and actually put time into my Instagram, getting 1600 followers. Considering this was only for me to record my journey I’m pretty impressed with that. On a personal level, I’m still surviving uni and planning my next solo trip after the amazing adventure that was Canada. One of the proudest moments of 2019 was completing the Great North Run and raising over £500 for Parkinson’s. It was a massive personal challenge and considering I got injured and still finished it, maybe a goal should be to try it again in the future. It’s crazy that in the three weeks I’ve had at home my train ride home is the first time I’ve had to reflect. I might even put some aspirations in this blog and then I can look back on it this time next year. I know I’m very critical of my bakes and even the best things I’ve made I don’t like, but I’m actually so proud of what I have achieved at the age of 19. Never did I imagine that people would ask me to make cakes for special occasions and actually live up or exceed their expectations. It’s nice to be able to bake at uni still and then take more care and planning when I bake at home, saying that my baking collection at uni is always increasing. It seemed right reflecting on my top nine bakes from last year.
The first bake I want to talk about is a cake I made for a raffle. Now if you said to me I would’ve made this I would probably have laughed because I hate making my life easy for myself. I got asked to make a Christmas themed cake for a raffle. I had absolutely no ideas, then decided the perfect idea would be to try and make an igloo. I had a hemisphere tin and filled it just over half full with cake mix. It was a nightmare as always to use and I reminded myself why I rarely use that tin. I baked it for nearly 40minutes. I left it to cool and then started decorating it. I cut it in half once I got it out of the tin. I filled it with strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream. I actually managed to get the sphere pretty smooth. I then made countless blocks out of icing I had from my gingerbread Christmas tree. I thought I’d made loads but it took a lot to cover it completely and make it look like an igloo. I even made a door out of black icing and didn’t mix it fully so it looked marbled. I was actually so impressed with how it turned out. I then made a little snowball path and I needed to make something to live in the igloo. I coloured some icing black and orange and made the penguin the best I could with the help of my dad. I stuck the parts on with a little bit of water then stood the penguin in front of the igloo. I dusted the whole igloo with white glitter so it made it look frosty when the light hit it. Even I will admit I was so proud of this cake and the glitter was the perfect final touch. I didn’t really bake anything else before Christmas apart from a Christmas tree cupcake centrepiece.
Then we went away for New Year, I wanted to make a cake to celebrate. As per usual doing everything last minute, I ordered the topper to Keswick where we stayed and it came New Year’s Eve, just in time. I just didn’t plan this cake and didn’t get the topper I wanted but was still happy. The cake had 3 layers which was more than enough and far larger than I anticipated. This was established by the 3 trips to the shops to get ingredients for the buttercream because I kept running out. I filled the cake with Biscoff spread and pieces of Keswick fudge. It was certainly sweet enough but it was pretty good in the end. I got tired of trying to make it smooth so I went for the rustic look and then just decorated it with some silver sprinkles and glitter. I’ll be honest I wasn’t happy with how it turned out because it was so different to what I had imagined but, its fine because everyone enjoyed eating it. That’s been my little baking series since I last wrote a blog, a highlight for me was easily the igloo.
My baking goals for 2020:
* Try baking things I’ve never baked before instead of relying on cakes, take inspiration from natural flavours and be creative
* Finally master Swiss meringue buttercream
* Work with fondant more, it's not as scary as I thought
* Have 3000 Instagram followers by the end of the year
* Run my own bake stall to raise money for charity
I couldn’t imagine my life not baking and I sincerely hope that by the end of 2020 my skills and passion have only increased. I hope you have a lovely week. I can’t believe I’m back at uni already. I never stick to resolutions but I hope that when I look back on this blog in a year’s time I’ve achieved some of them and so much more.
Lots of love,
Hannah x
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