Beary Christmas

Here is this years cake! I used Nigellas gorgeous christmas cake recipe, its amazing! (sorry Delia) I then covered it with marzipan and white fondant and did a rather good job I must say. No cracks or splits or tears....go me! :-) This was not my original idea but due to lack of colourings that wasn't going to happen, maybe next year... So I decided on polar bears, One sat snuggled in a scarf and the other rolling in the snow. Loving the bobble hat! I dusted the whole cake in a shimmer powder so it looks shiny and icy then covered the board with coconut and extended this up the sides of the cake to look like snow drifts. I made presents, candy canes and trees from marzipan and fondant. I dyed some coconut green to give the trees a realistic look and added dragees as baubles and a sparkly gold star. I have so many ideas for christmas cakes now I may have to make 3 next year! Ho Ho Ho!

Bath of Beans

I made this cake for a Children in Need bake off at work. Sadly & controversially I didn't win but my cake was auctioned instead. The cake was red velvet with vanilla cream and fondant. I decided to do Pudsey bear in a bath of beans as its a classic fundraising idea and I thought it would be cute... I was right! I used the new design Pudsey and his girl-friend Blush and made a rubber ducky too. The beans were all fondant and I used confectioners glaze to made them look realistic. I was so happy with this cake, I thought it looked amazing. Everyone loved the taps! I hope whoever bid the highest enjoyed my cake... roll on next year... Pudsey getting his legs waxed maybe? :-)

Baby You're a Firework

I made this for Pauls birthday, a simple 1 layer cake and some sparkly fireworks as decoration. It isn't great but not bad for 1 afternoons work!

Cock and Ball

I have been a lazy daisy lately and need to catch up on the cakes I have made recently! I was asked by Stef to make Darren a Tottenham cake for his 30th. The famous 'Cock and Ball' logo was made from my magical lemon cake and covered with fondant. I must add naughty Stef and I created a joke cake at Darrens party but it was a bit too rude to be pictured on here heehee!

Lego Man 30th Birthday Cake

7th August, Alexs 30th...It had to be a Lego man! I made this shaped cake in chocolate with fondant icing. I started off by shaping a double layer sheet cake for the body and made the head as a separate cake from a loaf tin. After covering the cake I added the detail. Fran had asked for him to be in a Formula 1 suit as Alexs birthday present was F1 related. I decided to make all the sponsorship badges personal to him, including the company he works for and Nandos (oh how he loves Nandos!) I think this gave the cake such a special feel, everyone loved it. I finished the cake off with a lego brick to support the candles. Overall I am extremely happy how the cake turned out, it was yum and looked awesome.

Shoes and Handbags

I was asked by a family fried to make an 18th Birthday cake. We agreed on a handbag and a shoebox for the cakes with a shoe as decoration. I have never attempted to make a shoe before so armed with a template I got from the internet, some gumpaste and edible glue, I got to work. I based the shoe on a design by Beatrix Ong as the birthday girl likes her style. I used the template to get the basic shape and added the detail, tiny teardrop shapes in blue, green and purple, then left the shoe to dry and harden.

Next I constructed the shoebox from 3 layers of vanilla sponge with vanilla cream filling. I covered this in white fondant then I added another layer to make the lid. Adding a label finished this part of the cake.

I made the handbag from chocolate cake, carved into shape, then covered this with chocolate flavoured fondant. I admit this was tricky, it was so hot that the fondant was far too soft and unmanagable. But I got there in the end. I made the handles with the same fondant but with gum tragacanth added to they set hard and kept their shape. Ideally, I wish I'd covered the whole cake with the hardened fondant as it slipped a bit in the heat...although it does kind of look more like a soft leather bag now! I then made use of my paisley cutters again and added the detail to the cake, mirroring the same colours in the shoe and I finished it off with silver zip and buckle detail.

Finally, after covering the board in a soft green, I assembled the cakes and the shoe and piped on the message. It turned out just how I wanted and I hope Olivia loves it!

Ellas Big 3-0!

July brings my wonderful sisters birthday, this year being particularly special, her Big 3-0! I'd had an idea of what I wanted to make her for quite a while, a paisley Mickey Mouse. Sounds random but she loves Disney so I had to incorporate this, but in a mature way. I made 1 large round and 2 smaller lemon cakes and covered these in a gorgeous pastel blue/green (the dye is called eucalyptus) and I covered the board to match. Then for the deco I made a paisley print using cutters from lindyscakes.co.uk, this seems to be the only place in the world you can but paisley cutters! I hand cut the 30, made a bit of a mess of it as the fondant was a bit stretchy but it was ok. I added some detail with gold and silver dragees and there you go. Simple but effective, my favourite cake so far.

Coca Cola Cake

This is a Coca Cola cake...sadly didn't taste much like Coke but it was still incredibly yummy. It was a moist chocolatey cake with a strangely fizzy topping. I added the chocolate chips for a bit of interest. I am going to make it again but using cherry coke, it might give it a bit more oomph!

You're A Star

I made this starry cake for Jons birthday. It was a single layer of my awesome lemon cake with fondant, decorated with stars. I finally invested in the Wilton Make Any Message press set so I managed to get my lettering uniform and in a straight line, although the writing icing tube I used was pants so I will not use that again!

Hippo Bathday

June 22nd is my birthday and I'd had the idea to make this cake for a long time. The design comes from my book 'Character Cakes' by Maisie Parrish. I made a madeira cake and added coconut to the recipe. I'm afraid to say the cake came out a bit dry and it wasn't the best I have made (should have stuck with my lemon sponge!) But anyway...on with the deco! I followed the design in the book and added the rubber duck myself. And yes, I rolled all those little bubbles individually out of fondant icing! You cannot see from the pictures but they were dusted with a pearl lustre powder and had a gorgeous shimmery finish, they lookes just like real bubbles. It was so fun to make all the little accessories, the lipstick and lotion bottles were all edible. This was an 8" round cake so Miss Hippo was huge, and although she was edible we were all too stuffed to eat any! A big slab of cake with cream was enough. I am so pleased how the cake turned out in the end, it looked awesome. So Hippo Bathday to me!

Mini Seahorse Cake

I decided to make a mini cake for Maxine this year, and she loves seahorses so this was my inspiration. This was a 4" coconut sponge covered with vanilla cream and marbled fondant to look like the sea. I hand cut the seahorse and painted it gold then added edible glitter. I also made a starfish from fondant.

Baby Building Block Cake

I looooooooooove this cake! I made this Baby Building Block for my good friend Cassandra who had a surprise baby shower yesterday. It was a 7 inch cube shaped cake made of 2 sponge layers, one vanilla, one lemon with a vanilla cream filling. I then iced it (with great difficulty and help from Paul) with white fondant, which made have been a little on the thick side but I was so worried it would split! Better to be safe than sorry.
I took inspiration from the invitation for the colours to decorate the cake and used chocolate brown, peach and pale green. The combination was perfect as I wanted to keep it neutral and felt that lemon was a bit predictable. I hand cut the letters to spell BABY around the cake and a C on the top as it is Cassies initial. Then strips of colour were added to transform the cake into a building block.
I made 6 sugar animals for the cake, I thought little jungle animals would be cute, and having already practiced some already, I was sure I'd be able to make them look really good. This was so time consuming but I absolutely love making them! I decided to do a panda, tiger and monkey which I have made before, along with a giraffe, elephant and a lion. The lion design was taken from my sugar animals book but I wasn't keen on the elephant and giraffe in there so I just made them up and they matched perfectly. Everyone at the party loved them, I think everyone had their favourite, and although they were all edible Cass decided to keep them and put them on display which was so lovely (thanks!) You can see more pictures and close ups of the animals on my flickr page, just click the link to the left!

Nappy Cake

Here is something a little bit different... This is a nappy cake. As the name suggests, it is a cake made of nappies! I got the idea from the internet, they have become popular gifts for baby showers and as I was to attend one for my very good friend Cassandra I thought I'd have a crack at making one for her. So armed with a pack of nappies I began making the 'cake'. It is simply rolled up nappies covered with baby clothes 'icing', and for the top tier I used a little blanket with a cute monkey on the top. You can buy nappy cakes online and some can be 6 tiers and full of baby goodies, they are such a great gift idea... and very useful!

Worlds Largest Wedding Cake

Today I thought I would randomly comment on the Worlds Largest Wedding Cake. It is insanely huge! I have done some research on the internet and this seems to be the biggest so far. It is 17 feet tall and weighs 15,032 pounds, that's more than 5 Volkswagen Beetles! It is made from vanilla cake and frosting & they needed 2 fork-lifts to assemble it. Wow...

The Batcake

This bank holiday weekend I was set a challenge by my other half to make him a Batman themed cake to give me a some practice. So I made a 2 layer lemon cake filled with lemon curd and got creative. I wanted to make the top of the cake black with the logo but thought black all the way round would be a bit boring, so I marbled some red, yellow, orange and a touch of black to make a sunset effect. This was a gamble as I've never tried it before but it turned out really good. Then with the remaining black fondant I created a Gotham city skyline and piped on the lights in the windows. It does look awesome, if I can say so myself, and Pauls friend Sajid, connoisseur of all things Batman agreed claiming 'No Batcave is complete without it' :-) I hope you agree.

Spring Blossom Cake

April brought a 40th birthday and a friend in need of a cake. I made a light fruit cake covered with golden marzipan and white fondant. Inspired by the beautiful sunny day and the blossom on the trees I decided to decorate the cake with tiny pastel flowers and piped the lettering with lemon icing. This is when I realised that I really need a letter press stencil as I really struggled to keep the lettering straight and in uniform size! I must invest in one of these, it will make all the difference and hopefully make my cakes look a little more professional. But overall this was a really pretty cake.

England Rugby Ball

In February I made a cake for a friend at work, her partner loves rugby so I created a Red Velvet England Rugby Ball cake for him. There were tears and drama with this one, the cake was pretty huge and I struggled to get the shape right. I wanted it to look like it was sat in the grass, rather than do a complete rugby ball shape, I think that would have been too tricky for me, I'm still new at this! But I carved it well and put the frosting and icing on, left it overnight to harden before decorating it. But when I looked at it the next day the fondant wasn't smooth, it looked pretty rubbish, more like a cornish pasty than a rugby ball! I think I was a little hard on myself, I'd never covered anything this big before so it was to be expected it might not be perfect first time. So I peeled off the fondant and started again, luckily my second attempt was much better and I got the finish I wanted. Using coloured fondant I started to put on the detail, the rose took a couple of attempts and I ended up cutting it out as a whole and piping on the detail which I think worked well. Then came the lettering... As I am starting out and still fairly poor I haven't got any lettering stencils or cutters so each letter had to be cut out by hand. I had a little help from my boyfriend to get the sizing right and we got there in the end. Sticking them on was tough as the black icing seems to be a lot softer than the other colours, it has a habit of stretching. Then at around midnight I was making tufts of grass to finish it off! I was very happy with the end result, and so was the birthday boy.