Stork Baking Liquid Review

Please note that I brought this myself as I wanted to try it, I've not been paid or asked to do this review.

I love baking cakes and offered to make cakes for a meeting at work off my own back as we no longer are able to claim expenses or get refreshments for our meetings.

I always use stork for my cakes as my Nan always used to and she was always making cakes with me as well as my Mum (who was a professional cake decorator). I saw the stork baking liquid and just thought it was a fad but always forget to get my stork out to soften so thought I'd give it a try. It did work out more expensive than normal stork but thought it was worth a try.

It comes in a bottle and you use the same weight as you would for normal stork/butter/margarine.

I use the sponge recipe my Nan always swore by, her 6663 recipe:
6oz stork/butter
6oz caster sugar
6oz self raising flour
3 medium eggs

She would also replace 1 tablespoon on flour for corn flour to make it much lighter.

I simply replaced the 6oz stork for 6oz if stork baking liquid.

Usually I beat the sugar and stork together with a mixer but with the liquid I just beat it by hand which was so easy. It looked really yellow and runny which was worrying but I carried on and folded in the flour and eggs. It all seemed too easy....

The cake batter seemed really runny and sloppy so was hard to spoon into the cake cases (it got messy!)

I put the cakes in the oven and went off for 12 minutes to iron and then came back and put them on for another 5 minutes. When they came out they were perfect! Better than any I'd made before and raised evenly.

The proof was in the eating so I tried them prior to the meeting and they were amazing and they went down so well at the meeting.

I will be using Stork Baking Liquid always from now on!

Yes...I was baking in my dressing gown!

The Stork and Sugar mix

The Stork and sugar mix

Cupcake batter ready to go in the oven

Straight out of the oven and onto my cooling rack

All decorated

Airy and very yummy

Cookie Monster Cupcakes!

Just a quick post to show the cupcakes which I made for my sisters 21st today. Very yummy!

Recent Card Makes

Last week it was my Dads birthday and parents wedding anniversary (on the same day so it's very easy to remember!)

I forgot to photograph them (although I will try to remember when I go around there on Friday) but did remember to take a photo of the card I made for my sister for my Dad (she told me what she wanted and I put it together)

It was made using Boofle toppers and. ribbon I got as a free gift with a craft magazine.

I also made my Dad some superhero cupcakes as he love superheroes from DC and Marvel. It was my first attempt at making these and was very pleased with the finished items! Also very pleased with my 99p cupcake holder so the decorations didn't get ruined.

Tomorrow I should hopefully be able to post about my first Crafty Creatives box! A monthly craft box for £12.95 (I think) a bit similar to beauty boxes but with craft items and a kit to make a full item. Can't wait to see the theme!

My First Makes on my Sizzix Big Shot

I received my Sizzix Big Shot on Wednesday morning, but unfortunately had lots to do so didn't get to play with it until later in the day for a short while, but had a proper play with it yesterday morning.

I brought a second hand Big Shot on eBay with some die cutters included. The one thing I would say is to be careful when buying Sizzlets second hand, or as part of a bundle as the ones I got were not smooth on the spongey background so left a pattern on the pieces I cut so they weren't smooth. This isn't a biggy though as the Sizzlets were a nappy pin and a bouquet of flowers (which are a bit abstract....you can't really tell what they are).

At the same time as buying the Big Shot I brought 2 Marianne Designs die cutter sets, a cupcake and a flower (shown above). With these I made the below cutouts.

It was only while showing my husband these that he said he thought that the cupcake would have the patterns on as shown on the dies. I was a bit confused to but after looking online found that I needed an embossing mat for these type of dies and purchased one from ebay. It came yesterday and I'm getting much better results now! Just have to remember to cut first and THEN emboss as I did it the other way, forgetting it wouldn't cut it out and had to then fiddle getting the paper and die to line up. The embossing mat I purchased was £8 and does not need extra card to thicken the 'sandwich' up so it's much easier to use.

You may notice in the background of the photo a very heavily used cutting mat. The Big Shot I purchased came with 3 cutting mats, 2 heavily used and 1 new mat. This was due to one of the ladies original mats shattering so she brought a new set and just used one new one and an old one. I have purchased another set of mats as the old ones look like they're going to break at any moment, but I did pick up a great tip online. I found that it was hard to lay the dies and card easily on the mats before cutting as both plates were warped, but a video online said to use a new mat on the bottom and never to use it on the top as the bottom plate will then not warp and also not get scratched! This means the mats/plates will last much longer.

I also received my GlossyBox yesterday and after packing away my items, I used the packaging to make the below flower!

The pale pink back petals are from the information card, the smaller petals are from the tissue paper the items are wrapped in, and the GlossyBox logo button was from the information card. (I was still using two warped plates/cutting mats, so the card slipped while going through the Big Shot so it wasn't perfectly in line).

I am going to have a massive Big Shot day over the Jubilee Bank Holiday I think! I purchased another die yesterday of a hedgehog, and holographic and glitter card from Home Bargains (79p for 16 holographic sheets and 79p for 6 glitter sheets!).

Now off to make Sunday dinner! Not sure I really want to in this heat but it'll be nice once cooked.