Vintage and Cake - About us x

Vintage & Cake

Two things we love.

One is timeless, the other… well, hopefully lasts as long as it takes for
the kettle to boil.

When we were young, life was all about dressing up and having fun

Then what happens?

You wake up one day and your life’s become about as exciting as a
conversation with a microwave.

Or maybe not?

Maybe the imagination is still there…

a tune can take you to a 1920’s tea dance… a smell to a sunny day cycling
along the lanes; a song to one last twilight glance in the mirror before you
hear his knock at the door.

Maybe you prefer life with stories, not barcodes. Maybe you like being an
individual, good, so do we...

Vintage and Cake hires out vintage tableware for afternoon tea parties and
bakes cakes for all occasions, let us help you create your perfect party or
event.

Afternoon tea parties
Why not take some time out in this ever busy world and recapture a bygone
age with an afternoon tea party. We hire out elegant vintage tableware and
bake cakes for the occasion, we also offer a unique styling service. We can
cater for as many people as you need us to, there is no limit.
What a wonderful way to spend an afternoon; just imagine... cake stands
laden with delicious cakes, tables luxuriously decorated with vintage china,
fragrant flowers, nostalgia and of course all of your friends and family
engaging in the delightful art of conversation.


Tea dances
We can help you to organise your own tea dance event; the live band, the
vintage china, the cakes and the dance workshop. Can you imagine a more
civilised way to spend your day? Sipping tea from your Royal Albert china
cup, eating cucumber sandwiches and perhaps a slice of light as air Victoria
sponge. Time to head for the dance floor to dance to those wonderful old
time classics. A Waltz, the Jive, a Rumba perhaps or maybe a jaunty
Quickstep? - Truly elegant! So let us help you
put on a tea dance, you will certainly stand out from the crowd.

Cakes

Keep calm and eat cake! that’s what we say...

If you just want cake, we do that too...

..we bake delicious cakes for all occasions, from the classic Victoria sponge
to an elaborate celebration cake. All of our cakes are made with free range
eggs, we know they are free range as the chickens roam free in our back
garden. We believe in being as environmentally friendly as we can at Vintage and
Cake; we don’t use excessive packaging and always use the finest local
ingredients where possible. There is minimum wastage and lots of recycling
and composting too.
All cakes are baked fresh and made to order especially for you.

Busy doing nothing...

Hi,

Still in Wales, I hope to be home to Derby next week, my dad had to go out this morning to the hospital and the car is now stuck at the end of the long drive, oh well at least he made his appointment ok!

So January is shaping up to be a good month, I am going to be positive as I have realised there is simply no point in being negative, simple as that! I have confirmed a few weddings already; all of the consultations I had in November/December have confirmed, so yey! I also have an afternoon tea party for a hen party on the 31st January and a baby shower afternoon tea too, so a very good start to 2010 for the business.

I decided to make some vintage inspired wedding place cards with the help of my wonderful mum, they are pictured for you to have a nose at. I am going to use them for the vintage wedding fair on the 14th February, so bride and grooms to be can get the chance to see how they can set out their vintage afternoon tea weddings! I say I made them, my mum did really, I had the idea, sourced the fabric and she made them with her ace and VERY old Singer sewing machine that was my grans! I am also knitting a scarf, I have never really knitted... but well I do now!

I am looking forward to getting back and staying positive and inspired!

x

Snowed in!

Well I came to Wales which is where my mum and dad live and I am stuck here! It has snowed so heavily and wont stop, so there are no buses and we cant get out of the drive in the car! Its an hour to the train station and 5 hours on the train. I am stuck and its ok, now that I am over the initial frustration of it, its quite fun. We have been togoganing down the hill in something we found in the shed... a sheep foot dip tray which does amazingly well as a togogan, very fast indeed! and going for lovely long walks in the snow with Rhos our brilliant Lurcher. We dont have any water either which is a bit of a joke so I havent had a bath or shower for over a week now.. whoops!

Do not fear I will be back soon with lots of cakes and vintage tea parties to share with you.

Yours snowed in

Vintage and Cake x

Naming cake and Birthday rose

Just a quickie, to show you the naming cake and Birthday cake I have made this week, they are the last celebration cakes of 2009 for me!

enjoy x

How to make a teapot cake

I love teapots, its a very big obsession of mine, so big that sometimes I feel like taking one out with me just because they are so pretty but you would look very silly holding a chintzy teapot on a night out, but then I suppose it could be passed off as a bag...mmm, that's something to think about for the future! anyway! so I loved making this cake and was so glad when I got the order, I was planning it in my head immediately. I wanted to share how to make it as its too lovely not to made again by someone!

The sponges.

I used 2 1.1 litre bowl cakes using this recipe:

225g butter or Stork
275g self raising flour
225g caster sugar
5 eggs
1 tablespoon of whole milk

half the mixture between the two oven proof bowls and bake at 170c or 150c if you have a fan oven for 40 to 50 minutes or until its firm and springy to the touch and a cocktail stick comes out clean.

The buttercream part.

When these are baked and cooled, leave them for a day as they are better to work with the next day. Then level off the tops of each cake and sandwich together with lovely light fluffy buttercream, making sure you fill in the gaps with sugarpaste so you create a round shape, cover the round cake shape completely with buttercream and smooth. Place in the fridge to form a 'crust' for 20 minutes.

The icing part

Then take the cake out of the fridge and using a palette knife and boiling water, smooth the cake again to get that final finish ready for your icing.

Measure out your cake and board so you know how much you will need to completely cover it, then roll out your sugarpaste and cover your cake, very much easier said than done, but you can do it!!! smooth it down with cake smoothers and your hands, then comes the fun part... the decoration!

The decoration part

The handle and spout are obviously very important and I would make these with flowerpaste the day before so they can set, just model the shapes (the more ornate the better) you want and then push 3 small pieces of spaghetti into the base of the spout so you can insert this into your cake and it will hold better, make sure you do this when they are still soft though as flowerpaste dries rock hard! You can use cocktail sticks to do this but if you use spaghetti it makes it completely edible which is better I think. Then use some edible glue to stick on your handle, you might have to use something to hold it whilst it dries, once its dry though it will be very secure.

I decorated mine with pink dots and flowers but you can of course do whatever you fancy, hearts, a pattern whatever really. Using a doily on your cake drum looks lovely and very vintagey which is quite frankly right up my street, anything vintagey and I am there!

You can get different shaped teapots of course so you could try 2 round 6 inch sponges sandwiched together to get another shape, I think next time I will go for this shape rather than round, just for some variety.

The eating part

Then cut the cake.. you know what to do here but it will so nice you just can't cut it!!

I hope you will make one yourself and if you do please send me a photo. x

Vintage and Cake wedding cakes

I thought I would share with you the latest wedding cake I have done. I delivered and assembled it to Donnington Park Farmhouse, which is a lovely venue for a wedding.

80 vanilla cupcakes with an 8 inch chocolate top tier, the sugarpaste people are on laptops as the couple met on the internet.

The next cake I am doing is for a 60th, and its a teapot cake so I will be sharing photos about that soon, I have baked the cakes ready so now need to ice the thing! I cant wait actually, I am planning it all in my head, just hope it actually turns out ok!

Then its a naming cake and 12 Birthday cupcakes for a lovely lady with 2 young boys, Timmy the sheep will make an appearance!

I have lots of weddings already booked for next year, lots of cakes and afternoon teas. Its mainly cupcakes and a top tier that people want these days, but they do look so lovely don't they!

Hope you enjoy the photos x

Christmas cakes - exploding crackers, glitter and pink

This week and last week I have been finishing off all of my Christmas cakes for delivery next week and the week after, as Christmas is round the corner, yey! I love Christmas, its just so lovely although I do tend to peak at around this time and then dont feel excited at all on the actual day!!! The cracker cake is one that I have been working on within my sugarcraft course that I do every week, it took a while and is very elaborate, not my usual style but it certainly tested my sugarcraft skills, it was so detailed. The rest of the cakes are for orders and will be delivered next week.

I am spending my 1st Christmas away from home this year so that will be weird, I am going to my boyfriends mums and we will be surrounded by all his nieces and little brother so it will be ace being with kids on Christmas eve and Christmas morning!!

Back to the Christmas cakes... they are all made from fresh ingredients and local where possible, the eggs being very local (our back garden) the flour is from Caudwell Mill and Heage Mill in Derbyshire. I make the cakes 3 months in advance so they have plenty of time to mature and be fed with lots and lots of brandy.

I love making and decorating Christmas cakes its my favourite thing to do, as the smell is amazing, I dont really eat much cake but I will definitely be eating lots of Christmas cake this year. I'm also very excited about the eggnog cocktails that my boyfriend makes!