50th and Baby Blue

There's a lovely story behind this cake :)

A lovely girl rang me up asking if I had time to make her mum's birthday cake, which was a week away and I said yes I did. I set about making the flowers first so they had time to dry.

A few days later a friend of mine visited to say she was going out at the weekend for her friend's 50th. I have met my friend's friend before, and had a rough idea where she lived (somewhere across from my friend). Can you see where this story is going? Now I didn't make the connection because up to this point, I hadn't been told where to deliver the cake. Even when I did get the address, my only thought was, hey that's near my friend's house! DUH.

It was only shortly after I delivered that I remembered about my friend telling me about the weekend birthday bash, and with the location of the house, I finally put two and two together. I rang my friend just to be sure and she confirmed it all.

So it turns out, I've made a cake for someone I know, and I didn't know it! What a lovely small world!

A Pink and Ivory Wedding Cake

Pink and ivory - cannot go wrong with these colours! They are just perfect together. Combine with pearls and flowers and you have a very vintage feel to the design, just the way this lovely wedding cake turned out.

I practiced a bit with the pearls before decorating the cake with it. I'd had problems with my pearl mold before. With a liberal dusting of cornflour, and freezing the molds (with the sugarpaste in it) for at least 15 minutes each time, the pearls came out perfectly and were a doddle to place on the cake. Only thing was, I had to do this rather a lot as I only had one pearl mold :)

The flowers turned out better than I thought too, and came out beautifully once placed on the top tier. I was wondering whether to place a posy pick into the cake or make a little dome and insert the flowers and leaves into that. In the end, I decided I didn't want to place a posy pick into the top tier (which was a little 4" fruit cake), and opted for the little dome instead.

The middle and bottom tiers are chocolate orange cake with chocolate orange ganache- quite rich but really suitable for a wedding where the cake slices are on the small side. I grated A LOT of fresh orange for this cake!

My bride (well I don't own her but you know what I mean!!) was really happy with it, exactly how she wanted it to look! Now that's made my day :)

Happy caking, folks x

17 And Mad About Marvel

My eldest is 17!! How did that happen??

Nicola (the one turning 17 and pictured above cutting her cake, with little sis looking on) asked for a Captain America, Winter Soldier themed cake, with emphasis on Winter Soldier. She asked for vanilla cake with chocolate orange ganache. We've been a bit mad about chocolate orange ganache ever since we tried it a few months ago. We tried both chocolate ganache with fresh orange rind, and ganache made with Terry's chocolate orange. The ganache with the fresh orange rind won hands down! 

We both started browsing the images of the comics for inspiration, and originally I was going to have both Captain America and the Winter Soldier on the cake, but in the end an image of the Winter Soldier captured both our imaginations. It's in black and white (and a tiny bit of red): 

Because of the image, instead of a round cake, I decided to go for a rectangular cake. I printed the image off, put tracing paper over it and traced the image, then when the cake was covered in sugarpaste and ready, I placed the image pencil side onto the cake and traced over the image with a pencil. The image, as you can see, is very detailed, so I did leave out quite a few details. Also the cake wasn't wide enough so most of the soldier's backside isn't seen on the cake. More's the pity.

Painting the image was a painstaking task. The pencil outline wasn't that clear. I used a black food pen to try and get more of an outline, using the printed image as a guide.Then with a small brush and a mixture of black dust and confectioner's glaze as paint, I painted the shadows on bit by little bit. 

I asked Nicola if she'd like a quote from the movie included on the cake as well, and she immediately said 'Who the Hell is Bucky?' (the Winter Soldier IS Bucky). 

Lastly, I made Nicola's name and age with black gumpaste. I downloaded the Captain America font, typed Nicola's name and age in word using this font, printed it out then cut out the individual letters and numbers. I rolled the gumpaste to the required thickness and let it set for about 20mins. After the gumpaste set, I put trex on the gumpaste so that the letters would stay in place, placed the letters on top and cut out with a craft knife. This is never an easy task especially when curves are involved, but I managed!

Happy birthday to a wonderful daughter... I love ya x

A Cake For Nan

I had the privilege of meeting Martin Pawlett of Martin Pawlett Photography. We met through Cheshire Ladders' Pay It Forward game, where we swapped skills with other small businesses. Martin offered photography, so I offered cake! Here are some photos taken by Martin himself, and with my own phone camera with Martin's help :) It was his Nan's birthday so he asked for a victoria sponge cake for her. 

His only brief was to use light purple, and the rest was left to me, so this flower design was what I came up with. Some flowers are 'real'- gerberas, daisies and so on, while others are 'fantasy'. I piped royal icing dots on some of the flowers to give a bit more visual interest and texture. 

I had painted the sides of the cake with a purple shimmer, but it needed a lot more coating of the shimmer and so it didn't shine as much. I was also working with what I had- vodka - which made it quite difficult to paint on. I will need to buy some rose water for any shimmer work next time!

I will feature more of Martin's photos of my other cakes soon :)

Coronation Street Cake

I got an email about a cake that had a Coronation Street theme. In the end, the design that was finalised was a rectangular shaped cake that doubled as the brick wall with the 'Coronation St' sign on the side of it, a figure of the birthday girl sitting on top of the cake. 

I started with the figure first. It was a bit last minute so I had to make sure I made the figure so it dried in good time. The brief for the clothing was- converse trainers, jeans, poncho and hat. I had a picture to work with and included a bit of make up on the face- red lipstick, a bit of blusher and mascara! 

The brick wall was great fun to make too- I had a fantastic time making the white sugarpaste come to life as a brick wall. I made the 'bricks' first with a ruler and cake tool (dresden tool I think it's called). Then I airbrushed the top of wall first and mixed yellow, peach and a bit of brown to get the stone effect. I airbrushed the bricks with a yellow first, then orange, then red, and finally some dark purple to get the multi coloured effect that I love on some kinds of bricks. I also airbrushed a bit of green on the bottom part of the wall to simulate algae that we often get in this very English climate. I finished the wall with some flowers, and added the name of the birthday girl to the board. 

I got a very lovely reaction from my customer 'better than I thought it would be' or something to that effect (sorry, Callum, can't remember what you said exactly!!!). 

On to the next cake!! Have a great day folks :)

Postman Pat and His Black and White Cat

Time to play spot the mistake!! To play, read on...

This Postman Pat cake was created for a little boy who turned 5 at the weekend. Postman Pat, Jess (the cat), the Royal Mail truck and postbox are all handmade. The sky was spray painted blue,, and the background was handpainted using edible gel colours. 

So... have a good look at the pictures and see if you can spot the rather glaring mistake I made :)

Queen Elsa Cakes

Frozen madness still lives on! These cakes were made for a little girl who turned 6 and loves the movie Frozen and of course, its characters- Queen Elsa, Princess Anna and Olaf. The dress of Queen Elsa is all cake- vanilla sponge with French vanilla and chocolate buttercream in alternating layers. It's not showing on the photos, but a lot of glitter was used!