But, how?

Okay, so. 50 cakes in 52 weeks.

It’s a lot of cake. Some may say too much cake, but we aren’t so narrow minded, are we?

It is unrealistic to believe that I will be able to bake one cake a week over the course of the next year – not least because at some point I will be on a two-week holiday! So, just how are we going to do this? And by we, I mean me, and by me, I mean, I do sometimes ask myself, why me?

Well, it’s quite simple honestly. I am sure at some point, maybe at the end of next July I will take a week off work, bake 14 cakes I never got round to making and host a marvellous cake party due to procrastination and burn out.

While I want to try to attempt this challenge within the year, I am not going to stick to an entirely strict schedule. I have already started asking friends, family, co-workers etc. to choose cakes that they may like for their birthday, and I am going to be creating a schedule / calendar to track all of these and then bake around them. I will not necessarily know which cake I will be doing across the schedule unless these are pre-determined (there is, for example, a valentines cake), and I do not wish to be kept to a completely rigid timescale. I will do my best to post regularly but I am a human with a life and varying commitments.

The book itself just allows for all of the cakes to be simple Victoria sponge or a classic Madeira cake. We will not necessarily be doing this and instead we want to truly make this a bit more of a challenge. As such I am going to be mixing up the cakes including flavours and fillings as well as the colour ways of the decoration. While we absolutely want to keep in the spirit of these cakes (especially the more…distinctive cakes) we also want to put a bit of extra 90s flair where we can and also make sure that the people receiving these and eating them enjoy them. This includes adapting for dietary requirements such as gluten free etc. where needed.

I am going to be learning as I go and really leaning into building baking and decorating skills. I have always been someone who is a bit of a freestyle cook who will take a recipe and build on it or adapt it. Baking comes less naturally to me and while I am not half bad, I absolutely could be better! I will always welcome tips, tricks and suggestions and do not want this blog to become about perfection or chasing it, I just want to do a decent job.

The one place my skills are very much lacking are in the photo, video and editing department. I am someone who when everyone had an iPod, I was reluctant to give up my portable CD player. When the world had moved onto the Blackberry, I was probably still clinging onto my pink Motorola Razr. I thought my Year 6 teachers PDA was the height of sophistication and I still am not quite sure what the cloud is.

That all being said you definitely need to bear with me in the quality department on images, videos and the social media as it is just absolutely not where my skills lie… arguably my skills aren’t so hot on all of this but let’s give it a go ey?

In the next post I will map out the cakes we have on the schedule so far and talk about the first cake on the list!