Month: June 2015

Frances Auty: Self-Confessed Baking Addict

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Originally posted on It's all about the cake:
Meet Frances Auty: no ordinary home baker… Picture the scene: you’re seven years old, you’re tucked up in bed with chicken pox and you’re listening to the soothing tones of Felicity Kendall on tape as she reads ‘The Bonfire Pudding,’ one of Dorothy Edwards’ ‘My Naughty Little Sister’ stories. It’s about a little girl so scared of fireworks that she stays home to make Christmas pudding with her Gran. As you listen you imagine the warmth in the kitchen and the smell of the lemon and orange and spices being patiently mixed together. Such is your enjoyment of this well loved, comforting story that you listen to time and again that it sparks in you the beginnings of a love affair with all things cake. For Frances, who has been making her own Christmas puddings for twenty years now, bonfire night will forever be synonymous with that time in the year when preparations for the festive season begin and her home is filled with the delicious scents…

Chocolate & Cherry Explosion

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So, I guess this is my first proper post of the blog. I decided to write about my most recent celebration cake that I made for my colleagues and I at the end of our school term last week. I started off with the idea of a Black Forest Gateau. I made chocolate and cherry macarons recently and found myself quite fond of the flavour combination. Normally I am quite averse to combining milk or dark chocolate with most fruits, but this was decadent and well balanced. Anyway, back to the cake. I considered using a chocolate genoise sponge but decided to use my fall back, reliable and favourite chocolate mud cake recipe. This is the cake that I use to make fondant covered cakes and is especially good for tiered wedding cakes because it is moist, keeps very well for several days, and is sturdy enough to hold its shape. Perhaps sturdy isn’t the best word to choose when describing a cake, but I hope those of you who have tried, and failed, to …

Hello world!

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Well, I have finally done it! Welcome to my sparkly new blog and my first blog post. I confess to being a little nervous. I am used to firing up posts on my Facebook page about my latest bakes and feel this should be far more considered. But I don’t want to change who I am and hope to be the same old Frances here as I am on FB, Twitter and Instagram. I hope you enjoy my bakes and words. Frances 🙂