Vintage and Lace Ibiza 2013

I hope all is well during our peak hot period. I arrived back on the Island from my travels leaving behind a hot and lovely summer in the UK. I immediately got back to work producing a wedding cupcake tower which I set up on display in the courtyard of the Puig Den Missa Church on the hill in Santa Eulalia, the guests  had a lovely surprise as they spilled out of the church after the wedding ceremony to a very pretty site of the wedding cake and cava…. A real lovely novel idea!!

Now isn’t the perfect time to start baking if you are not proficient at it, as the kitchen is a hot place at the best if times, it can be unbearable unless you have air conditioning running.  I personally prefer to use fans as I find that quite sufficient. The air conditioning is easy to work in, but for making wedding cakes it is not ideal as they do eventually have to be moved out into that hot weather, therefore I find working with them in the warmth allows me the get the feel of how they will respond.  As I have said before wedding cakes can look spectacular when set up at the venue, but the logistics of moving these tiers of soft butter cream filled sponge cakes can be a nightmare especially during this month with the heat and humidity,  I promise you I am totally nervous from the minute I move my cake from its place of creation to its new location wherever that is to be, I hold my breath over every bump on the road and inevitably most cakes are destined to travel over dirt tracks before arriving at the venue!

The relief I feel upon arrival is lovely, then when setting up the cake, again no mean feat especially a couple I have made over the past weeks, Sunday was no exception, the cake of 3 tiers had ‘ruffles’ which were handmade all around the cake of very delicate icing, it looked lovely, but of course was a nightmare to handle as I couldn’t touch any of the sides,  so moving transporting  even just putting it on the stand was a very delicate job.  The finished product looked great in a beautiful location, with a perfect backdrop for this cake.  I set up a very pretty  table of sweeties in lovely glass bowls,  added some lace clothes so that  the end product looked very country garden vintage.

I am not going to give you a recipe this week; I will though remind you of a few of the rules, which are especially important during the heat.  I am sure that almost all of you keep the eggs, butter and milk in the fridge. So please if you are baking a cake remember to make sure that they are all at room temperature before adding them to your cake mixture and in fact warm the milk in a small saucepan before adding, but most importantly cook with love and add a whole heap of passion!!!

Till next week

Ibiza’s Queen of cakes. xxx