Let them eat cake

This month Sarah aka Maison Cupcake has handed over the reigns of Forever Nigella to Mardi of the lovely blog Eat. Live. Travel. Write. As you may have noticed there was a wedding earlier today, so of course the theme for Forever Nigella was Royal Street Party, and, no great surprise here, I couldn't resist making cake.

I also couldn't resist buying up all the baking tat on offer to celebrate the wedding that I could lay my hands on  - including these adorable cases and toppers. I love the corgi one - he appears to be saying "get orf my land commoner".

As you can see I may also have bought some Emma Bridgewater napkins. I hang my head in shame at being so suckered in to this. My house is awash with Union Jacks and a stash of royal wedding memorabilia I bought for my Canadian friend including this - the cutest royal wedding item I've seen.

And even though I wasn't bothered and had gotten sick of the wedding talk on tv, I admit it - I ended up watching it on the tv this morning and having a little sob - underneath this potty mouthed front lurks a romantic at heart! Then again, I do cry at everything - even adverts.

Enough of this wedding faff - what about the cakes. First up is an English classic - the Victoria sponge. Cupcaked. From How to Be A Domestic Goddess this recipe is, as usual for Nigella, a doddle to follow. I've made many a Victoria sponge, but never substituted some of the flour for cornflour before and it really did make a difference - the cake was incredibly moist and wonderfully light.

I managed to get about 16 cupcakes out of the mix, and they took about 20 minutes to bake. I added some extra vanilla to the mix as I love a good vanilla'y sponge. I did toy with putting some blueberries inside the layers to get the red, white and blue effect, however I'm not that keen on blueberries and  I like my Victoria sponge the old fashioned way. However I did go against the WI train of thought on Victoria sponges, and put jam and cream inside - I know they advocate jam only filling but I couldn't resist filling it with lashings of oooozing extra thick Jersey cream. Lets face it if you can't oooooze cream during a Nigella bake off when can you?

Next up I decided to make a fun cupcake version of Prince William's groomsman cake. BTW, when did this American phenomenon come here? Anyways, this cake has been the subject of lots of media coverage as William has opted for something rather unusual for a celebration cake - a version of his childhood favourite, refrigerator cake with rich tea biscuits and chocolate 'baked' by McVities. Nigella has a version of this cake in Express - the rocky road bar, using rich tea biscuits so I had to give it a go. Again, kinda, cupcaked. 

The Palace had told McVities they could use whatever chocolate they liked and I decided to use a mix of Green and Blacks dark and some of their lovely butterscotch as it's one of my favourite bars and I felt the dark chocolate might be a bit bitter. 

I didn't have enough marshmallows to follow Nigella's recipe so I did what I always do when in doubt and threw in a few chopped up Reese's Peanut Butter cups and then topped the lot with some popping candy. Warning if you plan to do this the popping candy occasionally pops when it hits the chocolate - some flew out of the fridge and hit me on the nose which was quite a shock. 

Once they had set I removed them from their little cases and assembled them into a three tier wedding cake -  just as I imagine the cake looked today. 

Not the prettiest looking cake, and I have to say a bit too much chocolate for me but Manny has been enjoying them and the popping candy fascinates the cats.

So I hope you all enjoyed the Royal Wedding and oooh and ahh'd at her dress, I know I did. And I hope you had some lovely cake to eat while you watched it. What did everyone think of the actual cake by Fiona Cairns? It's very pretty but a little plain for me. But then I'm only a commoner!