Mini Review: Home Sweet Home, Manchester

This will be my first ever food review post so please excuse me if I don't know exactly how this type of blogging goes! This week I visited Home Sweet Home in Manchester's northern quarter with my friends to celebrate the end of our second term at art school. If you live in Manchester, you'll already know that the northern quarter is known for it's distinctive style, alternative culture and quirky cafes. I'd heard good things about Home Sweet Home before and even walked past it a few times, however it always seems to be packed at the weekend so I had never tried it. We visited on a Thursday afternoon and while still reasonably busy, we didn't have to wait to sit down. 

Since we didn't have any I can't comment on the hot food, but what can I say to even begin to describe their incredible cake offerings? The photo here hardly does these masterpieces justice. They were all so creative and unique, and not only do they look spectacular but they also taste amazing. One thing I am always wary about when it comes to over-the-top wacky cake decorations is that the cake itself is often dry and tasteless. I needn't worry though, the sponge was perfectly baked, soft and very very tasty. I had a gorgeous white chocolate sponge cake with mint flavoured buttercream topped with just about everything sweet and bad for you; it tasted exactly like mint choc-chip ice-cream! At £4.50 a slice it certainly isn't cheap, however if you're looking for the wow factor and a good old sit down in a cosy environment, it's so worth it. 

In terms of the service, unfortunately I can't say I was overly impressed. It was quite slow and our drinks order and bill both came wrong. However, both situations were rectified quickly so it didn't impact our lovely afternoon really. To sum up I think the clue is in the name here, such a homely little place to stop, relax and natter. After all, what more does one need to celebrate if not a cup of tea and a slice of glittery cake?

Monster Birthday Cake Bake

I realise it's been a ridiculously long time since I last did a baking post, and that makes me quite sad because I've noticed that lately I've just seemed too busy to bake. But I thought today would be the perfect opportunity to change that so I'm really excited to be posting this! It's my boyfriends birthday today and it has become a sort of tradition that I bake him a surprise cake every year. 

I'd seen similar cakes to this one on Pinterest but when I clicked through they had always been done by a professional baker or baking company, so obviously no how-to instructions! Despite this, I thought I'd just have a go with the skills that I already have and see what I could come up with. So here is my attempt at a monster cake!

I started with four plain sponge cakes, I use Mary Berry's all-in-one cake recipe but you can use whichever one you feel comfortable with. Three of the cakes will be used to stack and make the main body of the cake, while one will be crumbled up to make the cake-pop mixture.

After making the basic cakes I began the decorating process by making the cake-pops, as these are by far the most time consuming part if you don't have a lot of experience with them like me! I have made them before but only once so I don't own a cake-pop tin, so I used the crumbled cake mix method. There are plenty of videos on YouTube of how to do this but really, all you do is crumble up the cake into small bits (I cut off the crust beforehand), and add a scoop of buttercream/frosting so it becomes sticky enough to roll into ball shapes. It's a good idea to use your 'worst' cake for this bit because it doesn't matter if it's a bit misshapen! Once you've rolled them up and added the sticks, I found it helpful to refrigerate them for 10 minutes before decorating so that they were bound together a bit better. I then dipped them in white chocolate and put them in the fridge to fully set.

Next I moved on to icing the cake. I used the same plain buttercream which I added to the cake-pop mix to stack the three cakes on top of each other. Then I made up some more buttercream and coloured it orange (go for whatever colour you want!). I then scooped it into a piping bag and used a nozzle which looks like a star but with a flat edge on one side. Starting from the bottom, I iced little vertical dashes in a circle around the cake, and then made my way up ring by ring, slightly overlapping each row.  This can be quite time consuming but keep at it because it really does look lovely and 'fury' once done!

All that the cake needed then was the finishing touches. I cut out five circles from royal icing that I had coloured black and stuck one to each of the cake-pops with a small blob of buttercream. Then I arranged them into two rows of eyeballs at different heights. The mouth is just cut from royal icing, a black strip and four white triangles for the teeth.

And voilà! This was such a fun cake to make, and although it can be time consuming with the extra element of the cake-pops, it isn't too difficult at all and the result is well worth it because it went down brilliantly with my boyfriend!

If you have any questions about how I created this cake just leave a comment below and I'd love to answer them. Also do let me know what you think about the cake and if you decide to give it a go!

x

Super Duper Cadbury on Cadbury Cupcakes

These are the kind of cakes my dad likes to describe as 'a heart attack on a plate', which to the rest of us just means a big treat! They certainly don't last long in my house, here's how to make them...

For The Cupcakes You Will Need...

100g (4oz) softened butter

150g (5oz) self-raising flour

3 tablespoons milk

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2-3 tablespoons coco powder

To make the cupcakes simply whisk together all of the above ingredients, spoon the mixture evenly between 12 muffin cases and bake in the oven (180 degrees/Fan 160 degrees/Gas mark 4) for 20-25 minutes. Once baked, transfer the cupcakes onto a wire cooling rack and leave the to cool completely before decorating.

For The Chocolate Buttercream Icing You Will Need...

100g (4oz) softened butter

225g (8oz) sifted icing sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon coco powder

Milk

For the buttercream icing, whisk together the above ingredients. The milk can be added if the icing is too solid or you are struggling to get the ingredients to combine (it also helps to reduce the mess of icing sugar flying all over the place!).

Now, spread a good amount of the icing onto each cupcakes. To decorate my 'Cadbury on Cadbury' cupcakes I used...

Chunks of Cadbury Dairy Milk

Cadbury Wispa Bites

Cadbury Dairy Milk Buttons

I piled on a mix of each of these goodies onto each cupcake, pushing them slightly into the buttercream icing. I then drizzled some melted chocolate on top of each of the cupcakes to finish.

DONE!

Hope you enjoyed this recipe, feel free to try different variations on these cupcakes, maybe try using different toppings, whatever you like best and can get your hands on, or you could try baking plain vanilla cupcakes and decorate with vanilla buttercream icing and white chocolate toppings!