pat-cakes | cake design

Peanut Butter Dog Treats

2012-02-12T21:28:00.001Z

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1/2 cup oat meal
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 cup water
1 1/2 tablespoons corn oil
Mix all the dry ingredients then add the peanut butter, oil (i know oil is sometimes considered a dry ingredient) and the water.
Mix using your hands or a mixer with hook.
Once well mixed, knead the dough for about 2 minutes. It should feel bouncy and elastic.
Using a rolling pin, open the dough to about 3-5mm. Use cookie cutters. Place cookies on baking tray with greaseproof paper. Bake at medium oven for 15-20 minutes. Should be golden on the edges.
Let it cool and keep for 5-7 days in dry air tight Tupperware.
Treat you dogs! They will go nuts for it :)

Treats for the dogs... and for us too!

2012-02-12T00:11:00.001Z

My latest interest has been creating wholesome, organic dog treats for our dogs. They love getting a treat when we come back from our walks, but the ones we find here in South America are not that great and seem to artificial...
So I took on the challenge. Can't really call it a challenge because it was quick and easy.
I made 2 types - savoury (using chicken stock) and sweet (using peanut butter). Our dogs looooove peanut butter! Note that I never use sugar or salt - it's not good for dogs.
Recipes to follow soon.

Google cakes

2011-11-26T02:08:00.001Z

Halloween Cake Pops

2011-10-10T15:42:00.003+01:00

Cake lovers are raving about cake pops all around the world. And the Queen of Cake Pops, Bakerella, has some inspiring versions for the holiday season - including these cute Jack-O-Lanterns for Halloween.

Cupcake toppers

2011-06-12T21:27:00.000+01:00

I'm loving creating varied cupcake toppers. Inspired by my friend, Lynlee's Petite Cakes, and instead of decorating cupcakes all the same, I chose a theme - in this case, Ffiona's restaurant, and created 6 cupcakes on that theme (and gave Ffiona the cupcakes as a gift). This is much more fun to do and tests your creativity!

Pink sprinkles...

2011-06-12T21:00:00.003+01:00

Pink crystal salt from the foothills of the Himalayas

Decorating cookies

2011-05-11T18:37:00.005+01:00

Want to make your tea or coffee break a bit cuter? Just bake some very simple butter biscuits and decorate them! It's so easy and fun, even your kids can have a go at it. Here are some I did today, just playing around with some patterns.

It's great to practice piping skills! I got a bit carried away and also decorated these other ones to celebrate some great work by a friend of mine and his team. :)

I like this recipe from Williams Sonoma, but I just don't use the chocolate (I like to keep things simple). Also, in the UK, if you use a fan oven you may need to bake them for 3-5 minutes more.

Happy baking!

London's Chocolate borough

2011-04-30T15:04:00.006+01:00

I know you have probably had enough chocolate over the Easter break... but Stoke Newington and Dalston seem like the "go-to" places for chocoholic Londoners (like me!).

Places to check out:
Coco&Me - at Broadway Market
Jaz & Jul's - 'proper' handmade hot chocolate

Niko B. Chocolates - hand-crafted, organic chocolate truffles, confections and desserts

Enjoy!

Berry Nice!

2011-03-26T21:00:00.001Z

Chocolate Cupcake

Vanilla Toffee Frosting

Strawberry &

A Touch of Chocolate Fudge

Whoopie recipe with a twist

2011-03-22T14:02:00.002Z

Following last week's post on my 'whoopie adventure', I'm posting the recipe here. Please note that it wasn't a common whoopie pie - it was a brownie whoopie pie with red food colouring ;)

Here's the brownie recipe:

1 cup of butter
3 eggs
2 cups of caster sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
3 tablespoons of cocoa powder
1 cup of all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 tea spoon of red gel food colouring

Mix everything and use an ice-cream scoop to pour into a greased whoopie pie pan (one scoop per circle). Bake for approximately 15-20 minutes at 170C.

Now... I've done this brownie whoopie pie because I did not have buttermilk for a proper red velvet recipe.

Frosting

1/3 cup of butter - softened (room temperature is fine)
3 cups of icing sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon whole milk

Blend the butter with the sugar (add the sugar carefully!). In a separate bowl, mix the vanilla extract with the water and milk and pour the mix into the butter/sugar. Beat until frosting is smooth and forms peaks. Add more water if required.

Secret tip

The difference between a cake, a cupcake and a whoopie pie is basically the shape and the fact that it is filled with frosting. And it's the pan that makes things easy. You can even try using a boxed cake mix (sin!), reduce the amount of water or oil that you use by 1/4, and pour the mix into the whoopie pie pan. Bake for around half of the time you would for a regular cake.

Let me know how you go!

Whoopie! there it is!

2011-03-13T22:40:00.009Z

I walked into Starbucks yesterday and found out they now sell cake-pops and whoopie pies. The cake-pops didn't look that good, but the red velvet whoopie pies looked and tasted "delish".

So tonight I decided to do some whoopie pies, but since I had no buttermilk, red velvet was out of the question.

As usual, I improvised.

I made a simple brownie mix, but used only 3/4 of the usual amounts of vegetable oil and water to make the dough a bit thicker. Not fully satisfied with the red velvet fiasco, I added a teaspoon of red gel food colouring to the dough. And voila! Crunchy, chewy whoopie pies with basic vanilla frosting = delicious sweet snack!

Tip: use a whoopie pie pan if you have one, makes things much easier and pies look nicer ;)

Super quick dessert - sweet tooth alert!

2011-03-03T19:18:00.005Z

My official cupcake tester is a bit of a sweet-tooth and suggested I did a very chocolatey, sweet dessert today - and I obliged :) Now, this is such a simple dessert that I decided to share it with you.

Let's say you have a dinner party and, as you're only human, you may have forgotten to sort out dessert. Here's a recipe for Brigadeirão - a traditional Brazilian sweet - which is super easy to prepare and takes 15 minutes from start to finish!

Ingredients:

3 eggs
1 tablespoon of butter
1 can (~395g) of condensed milk
200ml double cream*
200ml single cream*
5 tablespoons of caster sugar
1 cup of cocoa powder
Chocolate sprinkles

*In Brazil, just use one can (approx 400g) of creme de leite; in the USA, just use 300ml heavy cream and 100ml whipping cream.

Preparation:

Blend all the ingredients, except the chocolate sprinkles.
Grease a microwave-safe mold, such as the one below, with butter.
Pour the mixture into the bowl and bake in microwave for 8-10 minutes on high power.
Let it rest for 1 minute and transfer the Brigadeirao to a serving dish.
Add chocolate sprinkles to decorate.

Sweet London...

2011-02-27T20:07:00.001Z

I just love this city and how can go into your local market and get immersed in the sweet smells of freshly baked homemade pastry, ...

... or walk around the corner to get inspired on new flavours of top chefs...

aaaa London...

Cake Bites

2011-02-24T18:56:00.001Z

Along the lines of cake pops, today I made some cake bites. Looks like a truffle, but is--in fact--a cake pop without the stick. I didn't do this intentionally though ;)

It so happens that I used dulce de leche instead of normal cake frosting, and it ended up giving the dough a softer consistency. I thought about maybe adding flour to stiffen the dough, but thought that this would alter the taste too much.

So I decided to go through the same cake pop process, skipping the stick. And here they are.

Delicious!

The People's Supermarket

2011-02-21T19:22:00.000Z

There is just so much I want to blog about this week, so I'll control myself and publish a post a day.

Today it is about an alternative to high-street supermarket chains. Launched recently in London, The People's Supermarket is a genius idea that I can't wait to try out. I'm tired of the same boring experiences and this promises to give me more motivation to do groceries shopping :)

The People's Supermarket is a sustainable food cooperative that responds to the needs of the local community and provides healthy, local food at reasonable prices. In order to take advantage of that, you need to become a member. And what does the membership entail? It means volunteering a few hours of work per month. This way they save on staff costs and can offer more affordable prices!

Check them out! The People's Supermarket - London

Cake Pop DIY!

2011-02-19T13:17:00.000Z

The step-by-step photo guide to making cake pops is finally here! It's only 20 simple steps - why don't you give it a try? ;)

Scrumptious recipes :)

2011-02-19T11:08:00.000Z

My official cupcake tester stumbled on this site -- mingmakescupcakes -- with a number of scrumptious cupcake recipes. Just running through the list, my top three favorite recipes are:

Cupcake 2 | Eton's Mess Cupcake - Yellow Cake with Cream, Meringue and Strawberries (an interesting take on a traditional British dessert)
Cupcake 6 | Banana Cupcakes with Maple Brown Butter Frosting
Cupcake 27 | Vanilla Almond Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

I'll definitely give them a try and report my experience :)
Happy Cupcaking!

PoP! Goes my heart!

2011-01-23T13:37:00.001Z

Just like Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore in the movie Music & Lyrics (click here to see the clip), my heart just popped with these yummy cake pops. My first cake pops ever!

I will soon publish a step-by-step photo guide for making cake pops, but for now, relish on this delectable devil's food chocolate cake pop, with chocolate fudge frosting, strawberry melt & rainbow sprinkles, topped with a good dollop of milk chocolate... oh my!

Beautiful and scrumptious

2011-01-22T00:51:00.005Z

I wish you could smell and taste this millefoglie alle fragole. Flaky puff-pastry interlayered with zabaglione and strawberry slices. Zabaglione is a simple Italian custard made with egg yolks, sugar, and Marsala wine. I might even dare say that this is likely my favorite dessert of all time. More than cakes, cupcakes, cake-pops... even more than ice-cream!

I first had this "scrumptious experience" (because that's what it is) in 1993, in Rome, at Cafe Canova at the end of Via del Babuino on the Piazza del Popolo. I went there again in 1999, 2005 and 2006. This means I'm due another visit soon, but in the meantime, I'm happy to have found this, here in London, just a short taxi ride away :)

Heaven on Earth - there's no other way to describe it.

Bee my valentain?

2011-01-20T01:45:00.007Z

One of my favorite cake blogs is Cake Wrecks - it's about professional cakes that went horribly wrong... and it gives me my daily dose of LOL :) With Valentine's Day coming up, I had bring up some of the master-wrecks from last year's post.

Hilarious :D
Cake Wrecks has gained such a following that they now have a NYT best-seller book and are also selling a super funny 2011 calendar. If you see any wrecks out there, snap a photo and send it over to them here. Well done to Jen Yates & team :)

Find your perfect match :)

2011-01-16T23:58:00.000Z

My extremely talented childhood friend and master cupcaker, Lynlee, from Lynlee's Petite Cakes in Las Vegas, has created the most adorable cupcakes for Valentine's Day! I had to share it here. Check out her website to see some more of her awesome cupcake designs :)

tart au chocolat with a latin twist :)

2011-01-14T19:52:00.001Z

No need to decorate this gooey chocolate torte smothered in dulce de leche, giving it a latin twist. I got the recipe here. It was very easy to make and the only different thing I did was to add 4 table-spoons of chocolate vermicelli to the dough, which gave it a deliciously crunchy texture :)

Try some DIY?

2011-01-12T01:50:00.000Z

It is not rocket science, although cake decorating requires lots of attention to detail and creative thinking :) Why don't you try doing it yourself? Here's a step-by-step photo guide I created on flickr to help the adventurous. Happy caking!

Dream on a stick :)

2011-01-12T01:40:00.001Z

Today I was touring Selfridges & Co with my sister Stella and we came across the most decadent chocolate cake pops. Suffice to say that one was not enough... and we are craving for more! The baker of this dream on a stick is Molly Bakes (according to the tag). Well done Pop Princess - you have inspired me :)

9 years ago

2011-01-10T17:12:00.000Z

Decorating one of the first mini-cakes that was later going to be sold at a stall in a street fair with my great friend Juliana. Good memories :)

careful frosting...

2010-11-06T02:56:00.000Z

So my dear readers... I came across this image... and although it must be a delicious cupcake, I can't help but think about not-so-delicious things when I look at the frosting - which is beautifully done, by the way... Am I being too harsh? Should this go to the Cake Wrecks blog? I'm just saying it!

Chocolate Cinnamon Nut Brownies

2010-10-19T23:47:00.000+01:00

fresh batch baked today - delicious and moist in the center ;) yummm

Gourmet Odyssey - London Restaurant Festival

2010-10-17T01:06:00.002+01:00

I know this is not quite about cakes, but I had to share this. Today I embarked in a Gourmet Odyssey at the London Restaurant Festival. This awesome tour was led by another celebrity restaurateur (owner of one of my favorite restaurants - Smiths of Smithfields) and MasterChef presenter, John Torode.

Pat & John Torode @ Hawksmoor
http://www.johntorode.com/

The Gourmet Odyssey works like this: a group of roughly 30 people have a starter in one restaurant, then the main course in another and finish off with dessert in a third and final restaurant. The tour started at L'Anima where we were greeted with champagne and canapés, and then proceeded to the main salon to have our starter. We then walked over to Spitalfields market and had our main course at the FA-BU-LOUS The Luxe - newly opened and owned by John - where we had the most delicious, mouthwatering must-go-back-for-more signature dish: Lavender Chicken.

Lavender Chicken @ The Luxe
Spitalfields, London

After that we followed on just a few blocks to Hawksmoor to have a berry trifle for dessert. All paired with the most fantastic bubblies and wine. Our group of brazilians will definitely re-book for next year :) Check-out their website:London Restaurant Festival

Halloween Cookies

2010-10-15T22:31:00.000+01:00

I just LOVE these 'Nightmare before Christmas', Jack Skellington, Halloween cookies as posted on CakeJournal... just had to put it here for future reference :)

In the search of the perfect frosting

2010-10-09T19:22:00.005+01:00

I baked a batch of Banana-Nut-Cinnamon cupcakes and filled them with Dulce de Leche (toffee/caramel).

Banana, Nuts, Cinnamon & Nutmeg Cupcakes
Filled with Dulce de Leche (Toffee)

So I wanted a fairly light a fluffy frosting to decorate it and came across an "Italian Meringue" recipe on Google. It is actually pretty easy to prepare (takes less than 10 minutes), it tastes good and is easy to pipe.

Italian Meringue

Cupcakes piped with Italian Meringue

But I must have messed up somewhere, because I didn't get that 'glossy' meringue look. It looks full of air bubbles a couple of hours after you use it. I went with it anyway.

1/2 Dozen Cupcakes, handmade for Lorella & Erico

Cupcake packaging

2010-10-05T17:43:00.001+01:00

I'm looking for a cool cupcake package for 2, 4, 6 and 12 cupcakes, but it is not that easy to find in the UK. Since my logo is black & white, I'd like something either white, or black, or brown kraft, with a white insert. I had a delivery today so I had to resort to a Wilton Halloween package - but am desperately looking for something that's usable past October 31! Didn't look bad though ;) These were a 'treat' for Aapo & Miia Bovellan.

I finally found some decently priced cupcake packaging online. Amazon.co.uk has quite a few suppliers - which were quick to deliver. I also bought some packaging and other baking equipment at Blue Ribbons.

Halloween

2010-10-04T16:32:00.000+01:00

Pecan, Nutmeg & Cinnamon Cupcake
Vanilla Toffee Frosting
Black Fondant Bat

Fluffy, moist & simply delicious!

2010-10-03T22:58:00.002+01:00

Pecan, Nutmeg & Cinnamon Cupcakes | Takes approximately 40 minutes for prep and 15 minutes to bake a batch of 18 - but SO worth while! My 'official tester' has approved this cupcake with and without frosting - 5 stars :)

Pecan, Nutmeg & Cinnamon Cupakes

Kitchen idols

2010-10-03T17:23:00.001+01:00

Living in London has its perks. Last month I met Nigella Lawson - the kitchen Goddess. Today I met the master of Italian cookery, Antonio Carluccio. Who will be next?

www.nigella.com

Antonio Carluccio & Moi
www.antonio-carluccio.com

Baking Buddy

2010-10-02T22:41:00.007+01:00

Baking gingerbread cookies with my lovely buddy André :) He is a very diligent apprentice and the cookies turned out great! Miss you guys :)

André & Pat

Baby shower cupcakes

2010-09-19T22:18:00.000+01:00

These were described as 'indecent' by someone who ate them - in the good sense ;) These were marbled cupcakes with a filling of dulce de leche, topped with ganache and decorated with fondant. Made for a double baby shower (boy and girl). Hope you like it!

Filled with Dulce de Leche

Covered in ganache icing

Topped with fondant decorations

Cupcakes coming soon!

2010-07-12T08:42:00.003+01:00

I have just baked a first batch of Red Velvet cupcakes with a sweet cream cheese frosting that is 'to-die-for'! My official 'tester' says it's delicious :) I'm still perfecting the recipe, with a few tweaks here and there, but it's pretty yummy! Soon you'll be able to order these babies for your party :)

What's this about?

2008-04-13T17:26:00.031+01:00

My designs are fun & funky so please do not expect rococo decorations... See some of my cake designs: click here
Yummy Cakes & Cupcakes
I like to focus on the design, so I keep my cakes and cupcakes very simple.
Dough
- Marble (Vanilla & Chocolate)
- Chocolate
- Vanilla
Frosting
- Toffee / Dulce de Leche
- Vanilla Buttercream
- Chocolate
- Nutella
Sizes
I generally stick to ONE size for cakes: 15cm diameter - serves 10-12 people. Unfortunately, due to my oven size, I cannot bake larger cakes. Cupcakes are all standard size.
Price
- £50-80 for my 15 cm cake - depending on the complexity of the decoration.
- £2.50 per cupcake (max 25)
- £1.50 per cake pop (max 40)
- £1.20 per cake bite (max 50)
Delivery
I can usually deliver in central São Paulo. There is no extra charge for delivery. Outside this area, orders are for pick-up only. Sorry!
How to order
Complete the enquiry form by clicking here or e-mail me at: pat@pat-cakes.com
Let me know your choice of cake/cupcake, type of filling and desired delivery date. Your message should also include your contact details and a brief description of the occasion and of the person for whom the cake is for. Please put forward any ideas you have for a design. I will then contact you to discuss your order!