I see red, I see red, I see red

My initial interest and now obsession with red velvet cake started with this London bakery which I have the upmost respect for. On my very first visit I remember being dizzy with excitement by the neverending choices of cake on offer.

The red velvet cupcakes grabbed my attention as I vaguely recalled there being some sort of red velvet cake mentioned in the movie 'Steel Magnolias'.

Red is one of my favourite colours.

I love velvet.

Cream cheese icing has long been a favourite of mine so it was only natural that I should gravitate towards buying a red velvet cupcake.

That first bite in 2005 has led to four years of being enamoured with the look and taste of red velvet cake.

It wasn't until late 2007 that I attempted to bake my own red velvet cake. I have used several different recipes and have to say I love them all.

I can't imagine ever getting tired of baking or eating red velvet cake.

I've baked a few for different friends, cupcakes for my sister's birthday a few years ago and cupcakes for my cousin's engagement party dessert.

Red velvet cake is still such a novelty here in Australia that people get very excited when they catch their first glimpse of red.

This cake introduced my good friend Speechie to the wonder that is red velvet cake.

She was hooked on first bite!


I also got to try out my new cake decorating triangle.

I like getting new cousins

The majority of my first cousins are either older than me or around my age.

So that meant that there weren't too many baby cousins born after about my third birthday.

Luckily my mother has a brother who is younger than her by nine years.

This uncle and his wife waited to have a family and had their three sons when I was six, ten and twelve.

I remember being more excited about each of 'The Boys' being born than I was about Christmas.

Apart from the birth of my two third cousins when I was nineteen and twenty-four, there have been no new cousins in the family for quite some time.

Thank goodness for weddings!

Over the last 18 months my first cousins have begun to marry their partners and I have so far inherited two new cousins.

Two more will join them before the year is out.

One of my new cousins celebrated his birthday a few weeks ago.

I decided to welcome him into the family by baking him this cake:

Buttercake with chocolate cream cheese icing, raspberry jam filling and licorice allsort decorations.

Jelly Belly Birthday Cake

Happy to take any opportunity to bake, I offered to make a birthday cake for my future brother-in-law's girlfriend.

Chocolate mud cake with chocolate ganache icing and Jelly Belly Jelly Beans galore.

I had a slight drama in that I stupidly underbaked the cake.

As appalled as I was at my lack of judgement, the mini crater in the middle of the cake worked out well. I simply poured the ganache icing into the mini crater to give the cake an extra chocolatey surprise with each slice.

The birthday girl loved it!

The Inspiration Behind My Baking Is.....

My mother.

She bakes a great cake.

The example below was made by Mum for my auntie's recent birthday

Vanilla sponge cake filled with cream and home-made plum jam. Decorated with whipped cream, almond slivers, grated chocolate and chocolate dipped strawberries

As children my sister and I were spoilt when it came to cakes made by mum.

She made both our communion cakes and our birthday cakes were always chosen from the Australian Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book and made beautifully by Mum.

We quite often got to have two birthday cakes. One for our family party and one for our friends/school party.

Of course my sister and I now have an addiction to eating the leftover cake batter.