Speckled Egg Easter Cake

How's this for an alternative Easter Cake. No fondant was used during the making of this cake! Have a break from the traditional Simnel cake and chocolate nests and try a "Speckled Egg Cake". It's just a simple 4-layer Victoria sponge cake with vanilla buttercream & apricot jam in between the layers. You can just use your favourite sponge cake recipe, I like to use Mary Berry's.

To a get a smooth finish on the buttercream, you'll want to make it quite thick in consistency but still spreadable. After spreading it evenly over the cake, use a hot palette knife (dipped in hot water then cleaned on a dry cloth) to smooth over the cake as best you can, scraping the excess icing off the palette knife as you go. Using a turntable really helps. Then after leaving the icing to form a crust for 30mins, gently smooth out any imperfections using a piece of parchment paper and your fingertips, or a fondant smoothing tool. To get the speckled effect, mix cocoa powder with a little hot water, then flick it at the cake with a pastry brush. Finally, decorate with mini eggs (or mini-mini eggs for an extra cute finish!).

Children's Fairy Cakes

Kids just love making these, ok so they might cough and sneeze all over them but it's the process that's important - not the outcome! Decorating fairy cakes is a really fun activity for kids and if you're lucky they might save one for you. This recipe for fairy cakes works every time and makes beautifully fluffy and vanillary fairy cakes. If you don't like cupcakes with masses of butter icing on this will be perfect for you too.

White Chocolate & Cranberry Cake

You have to try baking this. I wasn't expecting anything special with this simple-to-make-cake, but I was blown away by it. It has a wonderful moist texture, and the combination of sweet white chocolate with sharp cranberries is just awesome. A simple white chocolate drizzle on top and a sprinkle of cranberries make this cake perfect for an occasion too. If you don't have a nice round bundt tin, just use a large loaf tin or two small ones. You may need to adjust the cooking times accordingly. I bet this would be nice with dried apricots too.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

I know... it's beautiful right? Elegantly simple doily inspired cake decoration for an elegantly simple (gluten-free) chocolate cake. Now, this cake is not a cheap one, so make sure that you really like your gluten-free friend before you go baking them this. Ever tried a bain marie? I was a little apprehensive about "bathing" my cake but it works! As there is an extreme absence of flour in this cake, you'll be needing an electric whisk to get lots of air into it.

Sticky Toffee Cupcakes

This is definitely the cupcake that you will want to shove in your face this Autumn. I made these for a charity cake-stall and they flew off the plate. They taste very autumnal with warm fudgy flavours and the dates in the sponge make it nice and moist, as well as surprisingly light and fluffy. You can top them with toffee pieces, fudge chunks, or even drizzle a toffee sauce over the top.