BIG MASSIVE CUPCAKE

Who doesn’t love a giant cupcake?! I recently got this cake mould which makes a giant cupcake! I was intrigued. I’ve had one of these moulds before, but when I took the cake out of the oven to check it, it fell on the floor and I never tried it again, until now when I decided to give it another go.

I used my usual cake recipe, which can be found on my cake pop post (here).

This time, I decided to add cocoa powder (I didn't measure it) so I could have a chocolate cake.

We only had 3 eggs, which meant I couldn't fill my moulds to the top, so next time I will double the recipe. Also, due to the size of the cake I baked this for around an hour.

The top of the cake crumbled a bit when I tipped it out, but I knew I could cover that in icing.

To make the base of the cake, I re-filled the mould with melted white chocolate and a bit of food colouring, then let it set in the fridge. I only half filled my mould, as the cake was only half the size it should have been.

I then iced my cake using the Wilton 1M nozzle, and my favourite icing bags. These are really heavy duty and I've never had a problem with them. You can buy them here.

I placed the cake inside the chocolate mould, then piped some chocolate buttercream roses onto it. I think it looks pretty good, but it tastes even better! The roses are super easy to do, I've done a post on that too which you can read here.

I can't wait to try more cakes like this. The colour possibilities and designs are endless, and they make a great birthday cake. I might even try a Christmas design with a red chocolate bottom and green icing! I'm excited already. 

Colchester Zoo Day Out!

A year ago to the day of 8/09/14 and my boyfriend met properly for the first time. He took me to Thrigby Hall, and we had a really nice time. I talked about this briefly in my First Dates post. This year to mark the occasion we decided to go a bit further afield and visit Colchester Zoo, which is also significantly larger in area. As we were traveling all that way, we decided to make a few days of it.

I booked my tickets online via the website  to save 5% off the price on the door. It was really simple to do and all we had to do when we got there was type our booking code into a machine to get our tickets.

I love going to the zoo and I absolutely love taking photos of animals, you can get some really funny shots, I am sure you will know which ones I am referring to as you scroll down. I took hundreds of photos, but I have picked out a few of my favourites.

I love watching the shows and Colchester Zoo had loads of different things going on such as watching then animals get fed, and meeting the zoo keepers so there was always something to go and watch.

I love how interactive this zoo is compared to others I have been to! For no extra cost we got to feed the giraffes and the elephants which was an amazing experience. 

My boyfriend let me borrow his camera lens so I was able to get some really detailed photos from far away. I don't know a lot about cameras, but I now totally want (ok, NEED) a new lens as the difference was phenomenal.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my day at Colchester Zoo!