Simple Rainbow stacked cake with sprinkles - December 2015

Simple but effective!

Six layers of rainbow vanilla love, stacked high, covered with smoothed buttercream and showered with rainbow sprinkles... perfect.

Now, the only issue with this little lovely is that when you make a cake higher than it is wide, it tends to want a little lie down when you drive it around corners (especially when you've made it to taste this good).  

This cake had quite a way to go, so in order to make sure that the cake was safely transported I gave it a central bubble straw support to make sure that the layers didn't slide around on the buttercream.  

I also screwed a dowel into the cake drum and positioned the bubble straw and cake over it so nothing could shift during delivery.

I hadn't even got back from delivering the cake before the customer sent me this photo. It seems to have gone down well!

Hoo ha! 

Pink ruffle baby shower cake - November 2015

A lovely cake for a lovely mum to be.  

Vanilla sponge with vanilla buttercream and strawberry jam.  Not quite a classic Victoria sponge cake with all the fondant extras, but close.

It was 6" square, so had 4 layers of cake to make it tall enough.  I popped a dowel in the centre because the jam can make a tall cake very unstable.  

I covered the cake with pink fondant around the sides and white on top.  The edible print on top of that was of a couple of baby scans in heart shaped crops.  I gave them a pink hue to match the cake a bit more.  

The ruffles I did by cutting out big fluted edged circles with a standard scone style cutter and cutting out the middles leaving  strips about 1.5" wide.  

I thinned the edges with a ball tool, drew out the scalloped edges with a Dresden tool and pleated the ruffles as I put them on the sides.

I combined two kinds of fondant to do this; standard Renshaw because it's firm and holds it's shape well and Carma Massa Tincino because it's stretchy and doesn't break.  I had tried with both in advance and found both flawed, but the combination of the two with a little tylo powder seemed to work well.  The fact it was a dark colour doesn't help with consistency of course, if this was white it might be easier.

I knew that this was going to be time consuming (I've made ruffle effect handbags before), and I couldn't do it in advance on panels before I baked the cake without compromising the finish so I had to suck it up and work through the night to get it done and let it harden up enough to travel.  

I used large headed pins to support the ruffles while they dried. I tried using cocktail sticks on my practice run but they left big holes! Of course you must be VERY careful that whatever you use can be easily spotted and removed before delivery!

I finished the cake off with a pink sugar orchid.

The feedback was very good I'm happy to say, but really I under charged for the hours of work involved and if I'm doing ruffles that delicate on a wedding cake it'd better be a dummy tier I can do in advance!

Meanwhile, happy customers all round and a lovely baby shower I'm glad to report.  All the best to mum, baby girl and the whole family x

The Trusted Suppliers list you didn't know you were waiting for is here at last!

Looking for Wedding suppliers? 

I've just posted the first wave of my new Trusted Suppliers List on the Kasserina Cakes website! Take a look, and stand by for more to follow...

http://www.kasserina.com/#!the-links-effect/c1mka

I'm really happy with it so far, these are honestly great companies who I really like and none of your box ticking, mediocre, bland and saccharine nastiness here. These are suppliers who will make your wedding truly special without breaking the bank.  Nice!

For tonight though, count me as computer fatigued and looking forward to getting all cake headed at the NEC tomorrow for the Cake International show.

Beer you say?  
Why yes, yes I will! 
:)

Jack Skellington Halloween cake - Oct 15

A spooky Jack Skellington cake for a Halloween birthday. 

A 2 layer chocolate fudge cake. Yummy!  I used orange coloured vanilla buttercream between the layers, obviously. 

Once I'd done the usual buttercream covering as a crumb coat (see earlier posts), I covered it in black fondant.

Using a paper template as a guide, so I knew where things were going, I started building up the contours a bit with white fondant.

The shiny bits are trex to stick the fondant together with something that will disappear over time.

He was looking eerily like a black and white mistral at this point which was making me feel a bit weird...

I covered the whole thing with white fondant, cut out the eyes and slits for the mouth and stitching, exposing the black underneath, pressed the fondant over the contours, shaped with various modelling tools and dusted with black and green petal dust.

I airbrushed the fondant covered cake drum, put the cake on and continued to airbrush the base of the cake so it blended in with the board.  I added black and white striped ribbon to the sides of the cake drum. 

I deliberately dirtied up the white a bit with blossom tint and airbrushing; after all, he is a Tim Burton character, it wouldn't go for him to look too perfect and pristine.

Come see Kasserina at the Crawley wedding show on the 25th October.

One of the biggest of the year, I'm really looking forward to it!

The Crawley Wedding Fayre at K2

"The Crawley Wedding Fayre is one of the largest Wedding Fair Shows in the South East attracting exhibitors and brides-to-be from West Sussex, East Sussex, Kent, Surrey and South London.

This Sussex Wedding Fair is held in the large main arena of the K2 Leisure Centre in Crawley and features many wedding specialists, a bridal fashion catwalk show and wedding cars INSIDE the venue itself.

Don’t miss this bridal show for your one-stop wedding planning all under one roof!"

Go to http://crawleyweddingfayre.com for more details and free advance tickets

Sign up to win a £50 voucher

We're running an autumn promotion at the moment where you can win a £50 voucher toward a cake.  

If you want to be included in the draw, email "Autumn" to info@kasserina.com.

Voucher to be used as part-payment toward wedding, or celebration cake that has a value of £150+.  

Draw to take place 29th December 2015.  Winners will be contacted via the contact details given. 

If winners cannot be reached within 1 month, an alternative winner will be drawn.

Voucher cannot be exchanged for cash and can only be used by the winners.

By giving their details, entrants give permission for Kasserina Cakes to contact them in the future. 

Kasserina undertakes not to reveal those contact details to any other party.

Giraffe birthday cake - October 2015

Small three layer 6" chocolate fudge birthday cake with a theme... 

think you can tell what that might be!

NOTE:  This and many other toppers are available in my Etsy shop.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/KasserinaHome?ref=hdr_shop_menu

Harvest Flowers Wedding cake - October 2015

White feathers wedding cake - October 2015

Wedding Fair time!

My first foray into wafer paper, but it was easier than expected and I quite like the effect. 

My original design involved neater looking, more deco feathers, but as I steamed them I found that I much preferred them with a looser effect (more natural), so I just kept going with that.

Black Briar Cake - October 2015

Wedding Fair time!

The first wedding fair up was The Quirky Boutique wedding Fair in Brighton and Kelly at Belle Events was keen on an old red and black gothic wedding cake of mine so I decided to give a black wedding cake I’d had in mind a go.

It might not be everyone’s idea of romance, but if we were all alike the world would be a very boring place! ;)