brand new blog!

Hello! wecome to my little blog! This is my first ever attempt at blogging, so please bear with me and i'll try to learn as I go along! The main theme of my blog will probably be baking and cupcakes, mainly because I am absolutely OBSESSED with them! I have a little online bakery (www.sugarrushbakery.co.uk) that I am in the process of launching so I will fill you in on the ups and downs of that too!

Let me introduce the people who will probably feature heavily mainly due to their love of cake:

Sugar: Thats me! I am absolutely head over heels in love with cupcakes, cookies and anything of that nature! I love travelling, sunday markets, vintage fairs, baking, family, friends, laughing, my little car, finding cool new things to go on my cakes, Mr Sugar, anything with a bow on it, nautical things, the list goes on......................This is my first ever blog so your feedback is much appreciated!

Mr Sugar: That's my lovely boyfriend and official Sugar Rush taste tester. Nothing leaves the bakery without a little sample passing Mr Sugar's lips! He is very supportive of my business venture, even though he is often puzzled with my cupcake obsession. Footy mad, Mr Sugar finds the best way to watch a match in peace is to encourage me to bake!

Mum, Dad, Little Sugar and Mini Sugar: My lovely family. Mum is a chocoholic (like me!) and Dad will eat anything that stays still long enough (not a very good person to go to if you want constructive criticism as he loves everything I cook!). Little Sugar is my little sister. Three years younger than me, she shares a love of all things a bit old lady, a bit vintage. She made me a gorgeous Sugar Rush apron for my birthday that is sooooo cute! Mini Sugar is my very little brother (four years old) who loves cakes and baking. Whenever I visit, he demands we roll up our sleeves and bake some cupcakes. Always chocolate. Always covered in as many sprinkles as we can find!

Lovely Work People (L.W.P): Even though baking is my first passion, a girl's got to pay the bills (and buy shoes!). Thats where L.W.P come in. They are the lovely people of my day job, my other official taste testers. They never say no to free cake and that's why I like them!

There are many others who i'm sure will pop up from time to time. I'll introduce them as we go along.

So, what to talk about first............................

Lets talk about my latest baking escapades.

I went to the Leeds Farmers' Market two weeks ago, and went a little mad! Mr Sugar was forced to struggle home with bag after bag of amazing, locally produced jams and preserves. Amongst the haul was a beautiful jar of Yorkshire Farmers' Lemon Curd. I couldn't wait to come up with a recipe worthy of this lovely ingredient.

So it was into the kitchen, experimenting with a few different flavour combinations. I wanted something light, moist and summery. White chocolate was one of the first ingredients that came to mind, along with vanilla and fresh lemon. I trialled a white chocolate bun with a lemon curd cream filling but found the white chocolate to be too sweet for the thick and bittersweet taste of the lemon curd cream. Ditto the vanilla. Finally, I settled upon a recipe that used fresh lemon zest and juice combined with ground almonds to make a fresh and zesty sponge with a slightly crumbly texture reminicent of shortcrust pastry. I left the lemon curd as it was (why tamper with perfection?) and spooned it generously into the middle of each cake. I topped this with a big swirl of meringue, make with less sugar and a little butter to make it into a kind of Swiss Meringue Buttercream. The hardest part for me was to get the meringues to brown just right. I really need to invest in a mini blow torch rather than chance it with the grill.

The resulting cake was everything I hoped it would be. The sponge let the lemon curd sing out, whilst the meringue felt amazing on the tongue. The L.W.P voted this cake as one of their favorites (along with the Wimblebun, a picture of which sits proudly on the Gallery page of my website). I christened it Mellow Yellow and Mr Sugar ate about 4 of them (just to check the meringue was cooked properly, of course!). Here is one that didn't end up in Mr Sugar's mouth:







Thanks to Emma (one of my L.W.P) for the pic (my digital camera is kaputsky at the mo!)

I am going to write the recipe up with exact measurements and post it up soon.

Well, thats all I have time for, for now. I have some amazing pics of a cupcake tower I made for Mini Sugar's birthday (he was 5!), lots of recipes and possibly lots of rambling thoughts to post up soon.

Thanks for reading and lots of love

Sugar
x x x x x