And it's not your birthday.
(Unless...it is...).
And you haven't lost a tooth.
But I am giving you the gift of a double blog post today.
Part One: I went to Cake International in Manchester.
In case you're not familiar, Cake International is a cake show in which many different companies/bakers/chefs gather to show their wares and celebrate baking with enthusiasts like me. The show was made up of lots and lots of different stalls. Some were selling all kinds of different bits and bobs to make and decorate cakes, and some were run by people with some amazing skills.
Take, for example, this stall in which the display-cake showed that you can make freaking LACE out of sugar!
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Or these flowers made solely out of butter icing. It's amazing what a piping nozzle and some cool angles can achieve! The good thing about some of these stalls was that they were putting on free demonstrations, showing us how the effects could be achieved at home.
Another big part of the show was the competition - there were many different categories in which people competed. From wedding cakes of three tiers or more....
....to novelty sculpted cakes...
....to themed cupcake displays.
The things that people had achieved with their cake decorating blew me away. Look at this one! This cake won Best in Show:
LOOK AT THE BABY ONES! LOOK AT THEM.
...anyway. The show was also attended by some biiiig names in the baking world. Mary Berry, the Queen of Cakes, attended on the Friday and the Saturday. I've been wanting to meet her for a long time and Cake International was my big chanc- oh I could only make it on the Sunday. Okay. That's the charm of working in retail!
As disappointed as I was to miss meeting the Berry, I did get the opportunity to watch a demonstration by John Whaite, who won the Great British Bake Off in 2012. He made an amazing sounding blueberry and limoncello tart from his upcoming book, John Whaite Bakes.
Lastly, I managed to queue early enough to make it into a practical demonstration, in which I made a traditional bakewell tart under the watchful eye of food writer and chef Sean Bird. And they let me take it home!
I turned up to Cake International on my own and although it was strange to not have anyone to ooh and ahh at the gorgeous cakes with, it meant I could run around and do exactly what I wanted to do. I went to demonstrations, I met John Whaite, I baked a tart and I bought some more materials for this wonderful hobby of mine. The Cake & Bake show is coming up soon and Cake International is going to a couple more venues. Even if you've only got the slightest interest in cakes and baking, you should go. You'll see things that you'll probably never see again and it's a really cool and different day out.
Now for Part Two!
(You can't say I'm not good to you, lovelies).
I made homemade pizzas recently and I highly encourage you to try your hand at it. Obviously this is a little different to the things I have blogged about before but, trust me, you won't regret this one.
Ingredients:
- 650g strong white flour
- 7g sachet of dried yeast
- 2 tsp salt
- 25ml olive oil
- 50ml warm milk
- 325ml warm water
- noms to top it with
- Measure the flour into the bowl and add the salt onto one side and the yeast onto the other. This stops the salt from immediately denaturing the yeast.
- Stir in the olive oil and warm milk.
- Add the warm water in bit by bit until the mixture starts to come together as a dough. You ideally want it to be a little wet still when you begin to knead it, so don't add the water all at once.
- Tip the dough out onto a well floured surface and begin to knead it. You can find a lot of information about kneading on Youtube if you need a visual to help, but I just think of it as pulling the dough in one direction and pressing it back into another. Keep doing this for 5-10 mins (yes! It needs that long) until it becomes smooth and elastic.
- Pop the dough back into the bowl and cover in cling film or a damp towel. Leave it in a warm-ish place for at least an hour - preferably 90 minutes if you can. It should double in size.
- After this time, take the dough out and knock it back. This essentially means knead it a little bit until all the precious built-up air is gone. Place it back into the bowl, cover and leave in the warm place for another 30-minutes to an hour.
- Prepare all your toppings. Obviously you should use whatever takes your fancy - as a basic guide you'll need some kind of tomato sauce (whether it's a tomato puree or a sauce from a jar or a homemade creation) and some cheese, but the rest is up to you! I used ham, mushrooms, peppers, mozzarella and chicken (not pictured)
- Preheat your oven to as high as it goes.
- Take a chunk of your dough (I halved mine because I'm greedy and like thick pizza doughs) and use a rolling pin to roll it into a vaguely circular shape. Mine was maybe a quarter of an inch thick.
- Top your base/s with the tomato sauce, cheese and then whatever wonderful array of ingredients you have lovingly put together and then shove it in the oven for 10-ish minutes until everything looks cooked/melted/crispy.
- Serve with a salad to pretend you just created a healthy meal and voila! an incredibly tasty meal that's way more fun than getting it straight from the supermarket!
A tip! To add to the fun times - if you're cooking for kids (or any big-kids), it's a really nice idea to get people to top their own pizzas. Lay out the rolled out dough, all the toppings and a big mountain of cheese and let everyone do the hard work!
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