Minion Cake

I love minions! I can't wait for their movie, coming out next year I think? I have made a minion cake topper, but on my list of 'cakes to be made' is a minion carved cake. It's not carved as such. I used 6 inch cakes and topped with a half sphere cake for the top of the head. Putting the details on a cake is the best bit- cake comes alive almost! My favourite bit is the hair- I was worried that they wouldn't stay put, but they did! This is a tallish cake- 9" high and 6" in diameter. The mini cake is 3" round and about 3" high. Mini cake was actually taller and didn't look right, so I cut off the bit above the green stripe, and placed the yellow fondant on top, then added the blue candle with yellow flame. Cake is chocolate and vanilla buttercream, same with the mini cake. 

All together now "Banaaanaaa"...

The Handbag Cake

Had a great time this week making up a handbag cake. My brief was pastel pink, and as little carving as possible to maximise servings. I added the brown for the leather look on the bag, and embossed the recipient's name on the silver clasp. I then added some flowers and scrolls to soften the look, as the bag seemed a bit too 'solid'. I screwed a centre dowel onto the cake drum because the cake was being picked up by my client, and I wanted to make sure the cake was more than secure.

The cake is chocolate and vanilla buttercream. All in all, a lovely cake!

The Number One Cake

My brief was to make a number one shaped cake, with two turtles on it, and match the colour scheme. The picture of the paper plate was sent by my lovely client and I decided to use the design elements in the picture apart from the colours. I think the cake has turned out beautifully and all the elements  work together. I really loved the overall look of the cake!

Halloween!!

I had a blast creating this halloween cake recently. I've been dying to make a cake with a minion in it and finally managed to do it! I used a battery operated tea light and placed it under the couldron. I covered it in fondant so it wouldn't touch the cake and just took it out before slicing. The minion and couldron were made of rice krispie treats and covered in ganache. they weighed a ton! The fondant is homemade and came out really well, I think I'll make it again. Happy halloween everyone x :)

McMillan Coffee Morning

I donated this lovely cake and some cupcakes for Mcmillan Coffee Morning. It is all buttercream (Swiss meringue buttercream no less!!). I coloured the buttercream green to complement the McMillan colours, although it looks a bit blue in the photo. I didn't have time to take pictures of the cupcakes, which were decorated with green and white rose swirls. They raised £1000 (wow!) by selling cakes, cupcakes and having a raffle. Other people donated cupcakes as well. Loads of people went to so much effort to contribute!

Lace, Pearls and a Magnolia

I created a pink and white themed cake with lace, pearls and a Magnolia flower. I love the lace and the pearls and flower finish off the cake beautifully!!

Optimus Prime

I created the cake below for a four year old boy who had his birthday party last Saturday:

I created the main cake topper with royal icing. I started off with an image of Optimus Prime that I'd found on the internet that I thought would translate best into Royal Icing. I had already cut a 6"x6" square piece of fondant that had been drying for two days. 

At first I thought I should create a royal icing transfer, which is when you pipe royal icing on a suitable surface, then, once it has dried, transfer the image onto wherever you want it- cake, cupcake, cookie. I had placed the printed image inside a plastic jacket that I use for transfers. However, after piping a few lines, I thought the image might be too difficult to transfer all in one piece. I then decided to pipe directly onto the square piece of fondant. The only problem with this is that there is little room for error so I had to be quite precise. 

To do this, I placed the printed image on top of the fondant square, and used a clean and sterile pin to create pin pricks of the outline of the image. Took a while! When that was done, I was ready to create the outline in black by piping over all the pin prick outlines. I didn't think to take pictures of all this (I always forget!) but here is a photo of the outline of Optimus Prime in Royal Icing, next to the print out image. I think you can just about make out the pin pricks I'd made on the print out!

My decorating foam pad (only used for cakes) looks rather grubby in the photo due to cornstarch (just to be doubly sure the fondant doesn't stick to the foam) and spilt red royal icing!

Thanks for reading and happy caking, folks!

Cakes cakes cakes

I've haven't written anything on the blog since June! I haven't stopped making cakes and in fact have started supplying a lovely local cafe near where I live called Earlam's in Styal. It's a great community shop that is a convenience store, cafe and art gallery in one! I'll try and remember to take photos of the cakes and post it here on the blog the next time I have an order.

The last cakes I made were Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs and a Batman and Robin Cake.

Both cakes were a pleasure to make. Batman and Robin represented two little brothers, who turned 5 and 1. Someone did say, though, that a quick glance at the cake might make you think that it was for someone who turned 51!

Other cakes that have been keeping me busy are cakes that are popular in the Philippines, where I used to live. I was looking through my Filipino cookbooks and had the urge to make some. I have since made Sans Rival, Ube Cake and Chocolate Mousse Cake. Ok, so Chocolate Mousse isn't exactly Filipino but it's my favourite cake from the Red Ribbon Bakery that's quite big in the Philippines. My knock-off wasn't too bad - the family raved about it and even my 5 year old, who normally only likes to eat the sugarpaste on cakes, loved it.

Next in line is Mango Chiffon cake. A bit of a challenge as there aren't any 'Carabao' mango variety sold in the supermarkets here. Not even in the Asian stores. Mango, however, is my favourite fruit, so I'll find a way to make that cake!

I will talk more about those cakes when I've made some more. They get eaten rather quickly...

The Golden Snitch

I've finally made my first sphere cake- and what a joy to make! I purchased the hemisphere pans from Lakeland (they had a sale after all) because it's way simpler than carving, which makes a huge mess and is time consuming. Did I mention it makes a lot of mess? The cake was made with chocolate cake and dark chocolate ganache. The wings were made of rice/wafer paper, also my first time to use rice/wafer paper, and everything was sprayed with edible bronze lustre. I thought about perhaps spraying with gold lustre, but decided that the snitch was more of a bronze than gold colour. Fortunately the lustre adhered to the ganache. If it hadn't it would have meant I had to cover the cake in fondant and then spray and covering a sphere cake in fondant isn't the easiest. 

Hope you like the cake!

Little Red Roses

This lovely cake was made for a lovely girl who turned 21 recently. Her name is Bethany Rose so the flowers on the cake were made to reflect the name. The lovely lemon yellow colour of the cake really shows off the beautiful little rolled roses to maximum effect. Simple but so beautiful and adorable! 

Monster Book of Monsters (Harry Potter)

I made this cake for my girl, Nicola, who turned 16 last week. She is a Harry Potter fan and I managed to make this cake during half term without her knowing it was her cake. She thought I was making a cake for a customer. I did have to ask her not to enter the kitchen when I got round to decorating the cake. 

I was determined to make a special cake for Nicola. She missed out last year when we had to be away on her birthday to attend a wedding. The look on her face when she saw the cake was priceless! I had literally just finished the cake when she came into the kitchen, and as she approached it dawned on her that this was her cake! It was a fantastic surprise for my girl! She didn't want to cut it! I love ya, Nicola :)

Pink and Black Cake

This was a very last minute order I got. The cake is very simple with swiss dots and black and pink flowers, and a black ribbon around the cake to finish off the look. It is chocolate cake with swiss vanilla buttercream. I hope my customer's girlfriend likes it!

Peppa Pig Cake

I've disappeared for a rather long time! I made this Peppa Pig cake about two weeks ago. It's a lovely little cake- just 6" in diameter and just over 4" deep. I love the how the colours work together. It's so bright and cheerful!

MMF Success!!

I have attempted to make marshmallow fondant (MMF) before without much success. I got hold of a new recipe and finally have success! Here is the fondant on a dummy cake:

And here is the fondant on the Monster Book of Monsters I did recently:

MMF is lovely to use- makes for a smooth covering for cakes with no tearing and 'elephant skin' (the wrinkling you get sometimes with fondant). It tastes lovely although there's no getting away from the fact that it is sweet because it needs a lot of sugar to be made. I'll definitely be making more MMF for my customers' cakes!

The Green and White Flower Cake

It's always a pleasure to make simple, beautiful and stylish cakes. I had fun being arty and using my brushes to create the brush embroidery on the side of the cake. There are flowers, scrolls and dots on the side of the cake, and a fantasy gumpaste flower on top. The cake is 6" coffee and walnut cake with coffee buttercream. Delicious, dreamy, lovely :)

Wanna Know What is Involved in Making Cakes? Warning: Long Post!!!

I have been asked this question a few times lately. I thought I would blog about it to give people an idea what goes into cake making and the amount of work involved!

After obsessing and finalising the cake design weeks in advance, I generally start with my cakes up to two weeks before they are required. I start making the gumpaste models first. The first reason for this is gumpaste needs time to dry- the time depends on the thickness of the gumpaste. The second reason is that some models are made in stages (I'll get into that in a moment). The third reason is that it's best to make the models in advance so that if there is a lot to do, I have plenty of time to finish what has to be done later on.

Some models are straightforward and fairly easy and are quick to make, others are very difficult and take a long time. Some are made over two days or more. For the princess cake topper I made for the castle cake recently I started off with the dress part of the gown which I shaped and allowed to dry overnight. I also made the head at the same time- I rolled up a ball of flesh coloured fondant and left it to dry. The next day the dress was layered with the purple part of the dress, then the body, neck and shoulders and dress sleeves were added on top of the gown and again, dried overnight. The reason there is a lot of drying involved in this process is so that when you come to put parts together, the gumpaste is not dented or marked in any way. I made the arm holding the balloon in advance too so that the hand would set hard while holding the balloon (which was made and allowed to dry before the arm was made!). I can easily ramble on in detail on this topic, but you get the idea...!

Making cake toppers is only the tip of the iceberg as they say. There are so many ways to decorate a cake I can only rattle off some examples: Flowers (2D and 3D), stripes, ruffles, lace, brush embroidery, rice krispie treats, modelling chocolate, edible dusts, metallic spray, pearl spray, royal icing transfers, carved cakes (bags, dragons, etc), stencils, and so on and so forth.

I bake my cakes a few days before they are required. After cakes are baked, they have to cool completely before torting (cutting each cake into two layers- all my cakes have 4 layers in them). After that they are filled with buttercream on a cake board (each cake sits on a cake board of its own- they are thin boards about 2mm thick). Then it is crumb coated with buttercream. Crumb coating is a very thin buttercream coat on a cake which  helps stop crumbs from getting onto the final coat of buttercream. The cake is then settled (getting out any air pockets in a cake)- either leaving it for several hours with a weight on top (a thick book, for instance, which is placed on top of parchment paper on top of a cake), allowed to settle on its own overnight or 'squished'. To squish a cake, place parchment paper on the cake and on top of this a cake board or something flat that won't bend, then pressing down on the cake quite hard to release any trapped air. Air pockets are what create bulges in cakes- google cake bulging and you'll see what I mean.

After settling, the cake is placed in the fridge for the buttercream to set. This makes it easier to coat with the final layer of buttercream. I work hard to make this layer as straight down the sides as possible using a dough slicer and as flat and even at the top using an offset spatula. I have a lazy susan I use to make this job easier as well. I just turn the lazy susan with the cake on top and go around it many times with the dough slicer until the sides are perfectly straight and smooth. The lazy susan is just as handy for levelling the top as well!

This stage alone from baking the cakes to the final coat of buttercream can take several hours!

Next comes covering the cake in fondant. You'd be surprised how much fondant is needed to cover cakes! Because I like my fondant to be 4mm thick, I require 850 grams of fondant for an 8" cake! That is a lot of weight on top of a cake which makes settling a cake a vital part of the process. First I knead the fondant. Because I am petite (5'3") I stand on a stool to make kneading on a kitchen counter easier for me. Then I colour the fondant- this can take a while depending on the colour I am trying to achieve. This means a lot more kneading! When the fondant is ready, I start rolling it out on the counter dusted with cornflour. To know how big to roll out the fondant- you add the diameter of the cake (for example, 8") to twice the sides (say the side is 4" high x 2 = 8") and that makes 16" diameter in total. Big right? I use my stool for this bit as well because you need quite a bit of pressure to get that fondant rolled properly. Mustn't forget to mention I have to make sure the fondant doesn't stick to the counter! It can be quite disheartening to have all the effort of rolling the fondant out to the size you want, only to find it sticking to the counter! Unfortunately the only solution to this is to start all over again.

I have to make sure I don't overwork the fondant. The fondant must also not be left to dry. Any time the fondant has to be left for a few minutes or longer, I have to cover it in clingfilm.

Where was I? Oh yes...I take the cake out of the fridge. I place the fondant on the rolling pin and gently ease it over the cake. First I smooth out the top of the cake with a cake smoother, then start working on the sides an inch or so at a time all around using my hands. So: smooth an inch all around, then the next inch- smooth all around and so on until I reach the bottom. I cut the excess fondant off with a pizza cutter and start smoothing all around with either a cake smoother or a ball of fondant. I go around the cake several times to get out any and all bumpy bits.

If the cakes are for a tiered cake, I dowel the cakes to prevent movement and to support the cake that will be placed on top. I like to use thick sturdy straws! Insert straw, mark it to the same level as the top of the cake, lift straw out, cut straw, insert straw again. Repeat for succeeding straws. For my house cake, apart from the straw dowels, I had a wooden dowel in the centre of the cake. The centre dowel provides additional support for very tall cakes. If using a centre dowel to go through all the cakes, I have to cut holes in the centre of all the cake boards. In my case, I will centre dowel any cakes with two tiers or more.

A few days before the cake is placed on the cake drum (These are very thick boards- about 1/2" thick), I cover the drum in fondant and leave to dry. Again, because the fondant is allowed to dry and set, whenever the cake drum is moved or a cake placed on top, I don't mark or dent the fondant.

Depending on the type of decoration, I will decorate a cake either before it is placed on the cake drum (more usually), or afterwards (rarely). The painted roses cake I made in February required the cake to be decorated before being placed on the drum. I had to be close to the cake to be able to paint it. For the Castle cake, I decorated the cake tiers after they were placed and stacked on the cake drum.

I make the letters and numbers out of gumpaste. As these are relatively thin I can make them on the day the cake will be finished or usually, several days ahead. These are the very last things I place on the cake but the very last decorative feature added is the matching ribbon all around the sides of the cake drum which really finish off the whole look of a cake.

I then place the cake in the box for transportation or pick up. If I am transporting the cake myself, I sweat and stress about the journey. I drive as slowly as possible (40mph zone? forget it! I'll do 28mph tops). When I am transporting a cake, I have a particular fear/loathing of potholes in the road. Suddenly, there seem so many! If a customer is picking up the cake, I give instructions about how to drive with a cake in the car ("drive slowly, take bends slowly, no hard braking" I scream), and then sweat and stress about the cake after it is taken away from me.

I haven't said everything that needs to be said about making cakes- there's far too much to go into detail about. But hopefully I've said enough to make it interesting and informative :)

Having told you all the blood and sweat involved, I have to stress that I do enjoy making and decorating cakes. I get a lot of joy in creating something that looks and tastes fabulous. I love to wow and surprise people with fantastic cake designs!

And there you have it, how to make cakes. The end.

The Castle Cake

I have been looking forward to creating this castle cake for my daughter's 5th birthday. There were a lot of children attending as it was a joint party with my friend's son Victor, for whom I had made a dragon cake to complement the castle theme (click this link to see the dragon cake).

My daughter is a big fan of Sofia the First and I made a figure of my daughter wearing Sofia's dress. All three tiers of the castle are made of cake since there were 30+ children and parents. The bottom tier is 8" cake made of chocolate with raspberry buttercream which was made with homemade pureed raspberries. The 6" and 4" cakes are both made of chocolate cake with marshmallow buttercream (homemade marshmallow fluff mixed with buttercream) with mini marshmallows mixed in. Both very yummy and delicious. For variation, the dragon cake was all vanilla- vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream.

I made a lot of the features in advance to make sure they dried- the turrets, princess, flags and toadstools. The princess was the most time consuming part of the cake with tiny details on her dress made with fondant and tiny balls of royal icing.

The balloon is stamped with the number 5 to symbolise Mia's age. The princess' hair was made with little individual layered strips of fondant. The crown was made by hand (as opposed to a mold, which I didn't have!). I used my craft gun to make little strips of fondant which I shaped into a crown and glued together. I could have done with having smaller fingers- the strips were tiny!!! It took a few tries to be able to create the crown. I then painted it with silver edible dust to give it some sparkle! Here is a closer look at the tiny crown:

Here's a photo of the crown just after it was made and before painting with silver edible dust:

Here are some close up photos of other details on the cake:

Here are the cakes all together on the table at the party. The third cake (the one on the far right) is a dummy cake that I had made quite a while ago. My friend's daughter had turned 5 yesterday and was attending the party, and because I didn't have time to make a cake for her, I decided to use a dummy cake and place it on a fondant covered board with her name and age. We all sang happy birthday for all three children, who were all pleased as punch with all the attention and the fantastic cakes!