I hold my hands up and admit I never bake. I have never once baked a cake from scratch before, the only time my children bake is when I buy a box of ready to make cupcakes with their favourite character on. I come from a family of bakers, my grandparents and uncle ran their own bakeries and my Mam was always baking from scratch but I have never had any interest. However, since having children I keep seeing fellow parents baking their own children's birthday cakes and I often wish I could do that for my own children, as they seem that bit more special then a shop bought one. I honestly had no idea where to start baking a cake though, I didn't even know a cake recipe - that's how clueless I was!
So when I was offered a Baking Mad kit which included everything I would need (minus butter and eggs) to create a Pirate Cake I thought this would be a great chance to have a go at creating a cake from scratch. Baking Mad have a range of party kits such as Peter Rabbit, Princess, Pirate, Superheros and Unicorn designs, each kit will have everything you need to create the cake. You can also buy matching party accessories such as plates, goody bags, napkins and bunting too, meaning you can buy everything all from the one place.
My Pirate kit arrived and we were sent the Pirate Party Cake Kit, which consisted of
- 10' cake board
- Allinson self-raising flour (1kg)
- Billington's unrefined golden caster sugar (500g)
- Silver Spoon icing sugar (500g)
- Nielsen-Massey vanilla extract (60ml)
- Black Icing writing pen
- Pirate cupcake kit with cases and toppers
- Cake decorating sugar paste - white (250g)
- Cake decorating sugar paste - black (250g)
- Chocolate beans (250g)
- Instruction booklet
I was feeling a bit nervous about baking the cake as I obviously have never baked anything like this before. However, the instructions were so simple to follow and everything I needed was already in the box and I just had to measure everything out. One thing worth noting though is that we ran out of icing sugar and needed to buy another box and we also used a lot more butter then was stated too, it would be a good idea if another box of icing sugar was added to the kit.
The children had a great time mixing the ingredients and licking the bowl out, naturally. I found it so quick and easy to bake the three layers needed for the cake and the 12 cupcakes. I left the cakes cooling for a few hours before getting to work putting it all together and decorating it. The cake had chocolate beans hidden in the middle and again this was actually a lot easier to create then I imagined. Decorating the cake was also really easy as you just coat it in buttercream and add some icing balls on the edges. We were meant to add a skull and crossbones to the top of the cake but that didn't work out so we used some of the cupcake toppers instead.
Of course, because we had a cake we had to hold a party, it was not anyone's birthday but I do love any excuse for a party. We invited a few of the children's friends and family around for some party food and of course cake. We had also been sent some of the Pirate themed party accessories from Baking Mad such as paper plates (£4 for 12), party bags (£8 for 8) and party hats (£8 for 8).
Everyone loved the cake and commented on how good it looked and most importantly how amazing it tasted. It really did taste so good and much better than shop bought cake, I was worried it would be too sweet with all of the buttercream used but it did not at all, it tasted really nice.
I could not believe how easy it was to bake this cake and myself and the children actually really enjoyed baking it together. It has certainly inspired me to start baking more often with the children in the future.
The thing that I really liked about this baking kit was that all the ingredients that you need are in the box so you don't need to go hunting them down. It also has really clear and easy to follow instructions which make it perfect for inexperienced bakers like myself.
The Pirate Party Cake Kit is available to buy from www.bakingmad.com and has an RRP of £44.99 but it is currently on offer for £33.74.
Disclosure This is a collaborative post, I was sent this baking kit and was compensated for my time.
Fab looking cake I love the sweets inside! Great pirate treasure!
ReplyDeleteThe sweets inside really do make great pirate treasure x
DeleteWell done, what a fab looking cake. You will have to do more baking now!
ReplyDeleteI really will, the children loved it too x
DeleteYou did a fantastic job! I’m thinking of making this cake for Ethan’s birthday in a couple of months so I’m glad to hear you thought it was relatively easy to make x
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Kelly xx
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