Kim-Joy - Baking with Kim-Joy: cute and creative bakes to make you smile

Contents

Baking is something that many of us associate with happy memories, joy and spending time with loved ones, so I wanted that to be reflected in this book through lots of colour and positive messages. I hope you will look through the book, relax with a cup of tea and escape from the world for a while, then get baking and, most importantly, ENJOY it.

I love decorating and creating stories within my bakes, so you will find that every recipe has some kind of decoration to it! I like to create bakes that you can attach a personality to, because I love the stories that people create around them. A lot of my inspiration comes from stories and, of course, animals! For instance, I might think of some delicious choux bun fillings, but then I also think about how I can make them have life and character, so I imagine different animals and how to make them work with the choux pastry. I live in my head a lot of the time, so I love things that are colourful, different and fantastical. Im also inspired by my mistakes. Some of the bakes I have been most happy with have been born out of blunders, so I want to encourage mistakes and not try to make everything perfect. There are a few recipes, techniques and ideas in this book that, in particular, allow for slip-ups and encourage unpredictability in decorating, such as making .

If you are a beginner baker, not confident with decorating yet or are short on time (because life can just take over), there are options to simplify any of the recipes. The is filled with shorter bakes to try. There are clear step-by-step photos where necessary to help guide you.

Regardless of whether you are a beginner baker or more experienced, the two most important things about baking are: that you do what you love and do what is achievable one step at a time. If you enjoy decorating tiered cakes, start with getting the cake bases right, then work on the crumb coating, then move on to more complicated decorating techniques. Its never going to be perfect the first time and you will learn from your slip-ups (and occasionally create something wonderful from those mistakes!), but keep building your knowledge in a particular area before moving on to the next.

Theres a lot of stress in our daily lives, so I hope this book can be a little place of calm away from all the hustle and bustle.

BAKE, BE ADVENTUROUS AND, ABOVE ALL, BE HAPPY!

The oven temperatures given are for fan-assisted [convection] ovens. If your oven is not fan-assisted, raise the temperature by 1020C.

Some things you might not know about me

	I was born in Belgium. My mum is Chinese and originally from Malaysia, and my dad is English. I spoke French and English as a child, but forgot the French when I came to the UK aged five.
	My dad wanted to call me names such as Kimberley and Katherine, which my mum thought were all too girly. Suddenly one day my mum said Kim-Joy, tomboy! and the name stuck.
	Im the middle child and have two brothers called Kenneth and Kevan. All our names start with the letter K! Im not sure why. I also have a half-sister called Crystal (if only it was spelled with a K instead!) and a half-brother called Julian.
	I grew up on fighting games and Final Fantasy, as well as Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z and Cardcaptors. My brothers and I used to craft swords and bows out of tree branches, create imaginary characters, turn the house into an amusement park with dedicated areas for different rides (and a map!) and create forts out of mattresses to battle in.
	I probably was a bit of a tomboy, but I always liked dresses and colour apart from going through a phase of wearing black as a teenager... though I quickly snapped out of that!
	No one in my family bakes. I just started baking as a hobby because it was a fun, creative outlet and made people happy.
	I never wear shoes unless I really have to. And definitely never when baking! I also do a lot of my decorating sitting on the floor.
	My background has always been in caring roles. Ive worked as a care assistant in an elderly peoples home, a support worker for people with learning disabilities and a mental health support worker in universities. I have always baked in my spare time, though more in certain periods of my life than in others!
	My favourite colour is yellow.
	Though I love cats, I dont actually own one or any pets! (I do have a sourdough starter called Sauron and hes lived with me for three years.)

Pistachio & Cardamom Cake with Mango-Saffron Jam

These are some of my favourite flavours all combined in one cake. Not only does the flavour shine through, the lovely thing about this cake is that it is wonderfully moist (thanks to the yoghurt/sour cream), while also being light and fluffy due to the technique of folding in the whisked egg whites. This cake has a natural and subtle colour from the pistachio, which contrasts nicely with the mango jam oozing out from the buttercream layers.

SERVES: 2025 (MAKES 4 X 18-CM [7-IN] CAKES)

MANGO-SAFFRON JAM