Jessie's Birthday

Since it's Jessie's birthday today, I would do the right thing, and bake! 
Her birthday is a day after a long weekend, so I made the effort to make the trip down down south! 
But, I did time it , and it does only take me an hour to get there! (trust me, last time it took me a lot longer) 


And this was the results: 

I did have another idea for these cupcakes... I was going to make cute little sheep with them.  But they didn't really turn out.  

I need to practice more with the fondant. But, guess what! I'm going to a Planet Cake's Cake Decorating Course next Sunday! YAH!! 

And since it was 30% off (yes, they have discounts! they had a 50% off one, except that was on a weekday), I was more willing to pay the $280ish course fee for a 1 day course! 

Hopefully then, I will learn how to use fondant better... and next time around, my cupcakes / cakes will look a little better! 

But I do love the colours! and did buy a pack of 8 Wilton colours for $42.  I did probably get ripped off, since I bought them in Chatswood, but I didn't have any other choice.  

Moving on... And again, since I didn't have much to do this long weekend, I wanted to bake again! This time, I can finally start crossing off the things on my "To Bake" list!  

This is my version of Nigella's Torta Alla Gianduia.  No idea what it means, I think it says so in her book.  But essentially its a Nutella cake!

One of the loves in my life is Nutella.  There's no one time that I can refuse Nutella.  But, this cake needed 400g of Nutella, and even for the Nutella-obsessed, that is hell of a lot! I only managed to scrape 250g from my HUGE jar already, and the cake was definitely sweet enough.  So, very glad that I didn't have enough, or else I may have overdosed and MAY (just may) have been turned off Nutella! 

Another change... since I had HEAPS of left over chocolate ganache from the cupcakes (per above), I used this as the topping, instead of MORE Nutella, which is what the recipe says. 

But, here is my version:

I think I had a bit of a problem with the whipping of the egg whites, and think it resulted with the cake sinking a little.  You can probably see the dent in the middle of the cake, kinda looks muffin-top like.  Which was disappointing, but must say, the cake was great! It was so sweet, that you can only eat a small bit, or eat it with vanilla ice cream! 

Hope they enjoyed it! 

xoxo Michelle