Have you been watching the Great British BakeOff Masterclass and last year's competition revisited? Here at Harrison's Fund we are all addicted, partly because we all hope the brilliance of their baking and the inventiveness of their decoration will rub off on us as the Cake Time Party and the Cake & Craft Sale draws near.
Mary Berry always gives the best simple tips, for example, the times when you completely forget to take the butter out of the fridge to come up to room temperature before beating. Now we know to fill a bowl with baby bath temperature water and pop in the butter cut into cubes for about 10 mins, and it works, we've tested it!
I wonder if anyone's been trying out some of the bakes, rum babas, treacle tarts, plaited loaf, hand raised pie or a fondant fancy? Love to see some pics.
We enjoyed seeing what the 2011 contestants are up to now, probably most bakers that watched the GBBO last year have bought the Jo Wheatley's Passion for Baking Book but it was great to see so many of the others had found outlets to use their skills, from teaching in college, advising on historic recipes that could be brought up to date and used in a delightful tea shop, to teaching baking classes and becoming a radio presenter. The common factor between all the bakers was how down to earth they were, how much they loved spending time baking even if it could be stressful, their cameraderie as a group and their ability to shed tears over their bakes including the macaroons!
So there is still time to have a Cake Time Party, small or large, wiz an email to info@harrisonsfund.com and we'll send you a Cake Time Party fundraisers pack to download by return. And don't forget to take lots of pics so that we can add them to this blog.
So who's missing the Great British Bake Off already? Have you been inspired to do some baking? Why not join 'Harrison's Cake Time Party' from the 1st-8th November?
We have a great fundraiser's pack full of useful resources and fun ideas available. From posters and invites to cake stencils and recipes we've got it covered. Whatever you need to hold a Cake Time Party at home or work or for a Cake Sale in a hall we've got everything you need apart from the cake!
If you would like a pack please send us an email via www.harrisonsfund.org, tweet us on Twitter, @harrisonsfund or @jennijjs, and we'll email one out to you.
If you don't have time to host your own Cake Time Party, and haven't been able to persuade a friend to do so for you then we'd like to tell you about two great Cake Time Parties because I know that if you live locally you are just going to want to get involved, if you'd like to bake a cake that would be fabulous, otherwise you can go along and enjoy buying and eating cake, and don't forget that there will be lots of activities for children too.
So here's the details:
10 -12 am 2nd November John Hampden Primary School, Thame, Oxon Organiser: Liz Smailes
10.30 - 1pm 3rd November Holy Trinity Church Hall, Claygate, Surrey Organiser: Sherry Secker
If you were thinking of having a cake sale party and wanted something else as well as cakes to sell then look no further. The lovely Holly Bell @HollyBellMummy, one of the darlings and runner up of the Series 2 Great British Bake Off donated this lovely recipe to Harrison's Fund for their charity Cake Time Recipe Book. You can purchase your copy here. We are offering this recipe to you on our Recipe page as a fantastic, but simple way to add a little extra to your Cake Time Party offering. I think the only drawback with these is the amount of will power you need to not pop them straight into hot milk!
Holding a cocktail Cake Time Party is great fun, how could it not be with bubbles and cake? So what better idea than to make some glorious little, oh just so slightly, boozy cupcakes to go with the bubbles. We have three suggestions added to our recipe page kindly donated by Helena, the sister of our star baker fundraiser, Andy.
The three flavours are Mojito, Strawberry Daiquiri, B52 but I'm sure there are lots more recipes for cocktail cupcakes, do you know any that you would like to share? Do let me know, email to info@harrisonsfund.com
Earlier in the summer we ran a big awareness campaign supported by the launch of a video featuring Harrison and his family discussing the impact of Harrison's Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy diagnosis. Since that time we have had so many contacts, donations, and offers to take on a challenge to fundraise for Harrison's Fund that it has really touched everyone close to Harrison and his family.
Yesterday we heard about Katie who has been making cupcakes - and we mean lots of cupcakes! She is selling them at her school to raise money for Harrison's Fund. Katie is a gorgeous 15 year old from London who attends the Sacred Heart School in Hammersmith. Katie watched the Harrison's Fund awareness video with her dad Michael and decided she wanted to do something to help.
Katie loves baking cakes, her speciality is a lovely chocolate one that her Dad is rather partial to, and she is now quite an experienced baker, and decided that this was the way to raise money. She's teamed up with her friend Louise who also loves to bake and they've raised over £40 on their first day with more days to come.
Here's the 70 cupcakes on their way into school today, don't they look delicious! From everyone at Harrison's Fund and especially Harrison who always send a big smile to a pretty lady, a big thank you to Katie and her Dad for making time to watch the video together.
If you would like to help Harrison's Fund and join the Cake Time Party, we now have a great support pack complete with invitations, cut out bunting, recipes and lots more that we can email to you. Just send an email to Cake Time and we'll do the rest, and as Mel and Sue say, 1,2,3 let's bake!
It's Tuesday or more precisely it's Great British Bake Off Tuesday, WooHoo!
We're planning to make some Soda Bread using Old Blue Eye's perfect recipe, never fails and then we're going to make some three fruits marmalade, grapefruit, orange, lemon to sell at the weekend at my local producers market, followed by Millionaire's Shortbread which We've never made before but want to try to see if it might also be on the list of bakes for the market. We will have to try the shortbread so that could just possibly be when we settle down to watch the semis this evening, you've got to have a little something to watch, haven't you, and it is for a good cause, isn't it?
So while We're thinking about my baking we want to also thank Cathryn Dresser and Sarah-Jane Willis, everyones darlings and the great british public's star bakers from this series of Great British Bake Off for supporting Harrison's Cake Time Party with a fabulous recipe for Rhubarb Upside Down Cake, which we think may well be next on our baking list! Lovely to have fruit in cake, makes it so easy to be sure they are virtuous, healthy and calorie free as they must be part of your five a day, don't you agree?
So do have a look at their recipe here and don't forget to let us know about your party so that we can add it to the news and we can cover the country in cake.
I thought that you might be interested to see this great idea for running a Cake Time Party in the workplace. One of our lovely fundraisers, Anna, came up with this idea to hold in her team, SITSS, which is part of Children's Services, Herts CC.
Set a convenient date for your Harrison's Cake Time Party.
Send out an invitation email to everyone asking for them to take part in a Cake Time Challenge by baking and bringing to work a cake on the Cake Time Party day. Ask for confirmation back of those willing to bake a cake so you know how many cakes you have on the party day, they can of course make more than one! Make a small charge, perhaps £1, for entering the challenge.
Include in the email that if they cannot/don't want to make a cake, not to worry as all the cakes entered will be sold on the day and so they can make their donation by buying a slice or more of the cakes.
Do tell everyone why you are raising money for Harrison's Fund, take a look at www.harrisonsfund.org for more information about the charity.
Send me an email to let me know you are holding a party and I'll send you the fundraisers pack to download.
Put up posters to remind everyone about your Cake Time Party.
Maybe persuade the bosses to donate a couple of small prizes for the winner and runner up of the challenge.
On the day set up a table for all the bakes, with plates, napkins etc, and enjoy!
