Sharing the cake love...

Just registered with a charity who... well, I'll let them explain;

Baking A Smile is a VERY special cake store, we are a not for profit organisation that provides FREE beautiful custom made celebration cakes to children with life threatening and life limiting health conditions throughout the UK and Ireland.

We are committed to providing a smile and a little happiness to children dealing with illnesses by providing the child with a custom made cake free of charge. We not only provide this service to children with life threatening/limiting illnesses, but also to the siblings of these children, as we understand that it can be tough on them too.

We believe in the power of happiness and smiles and the positivity it can have. If we can bring a smile to a child & their family then hopefully, just for a moment, they can have something happier to focus on.

Baking A Smile was established In December 2012. We have a large team of amateur & professional bakers on hand, donating their time, experience & money to provide amazing cakes for ill children and to fundraisers - which are not only full of yumminess but jam packed with love.

If you're a baker too, why not register and help bring some happy into the lives of people who deserve it!

http://www.bakingasmile.org

Penguin Grooms Wedding cake toppers - July 2014

So... on an amazingly humid and hot day, while thunderstorms raged outside I made toppers out of black fondant...remind me not to that again until winter.

For those of you who don't know, black fondant is horrible to work with as it get really soft and sticky with so much colour in it.  I had to keep putting the fondant, and the toppers, in the fridge just so I could have them keep their shape as they refused to harden up at all (I am making them a few days in advance of the cake just so they have a chance to harden up before the wedding).  

The trouble with putting things in the fridge when you're fondanting though is that, unless you've got a humidity control environment, you've got a very small window to do things in before the fondant gets 'sweaty' with condensation.  It's frustrating and time consuming, but you just have to be patient.

Anyway, got there in the end!

I used polystyrene (styrofoam) balls in the middle to reduce the weight and covered them with fondant mixed with a little Tylo.  You can see below how the cooled fondant is "sweating" in the heat and humidity.

 

The penguins wait to see.

One penguin finds his inner Dalek.

(keeping his eyes in place while the glue dries) 

These toppers are for an upcoming same sex wedding. I think the penguin suit thing has become a bit of a running joke between the couple.

I've positioned the penguins flippers so they can hold hands when they go on the cake.

These were made for The Angel Food Bakery in Brighton's iconic South Lanes,

where the Cake Angels bring Cake Love to the public on a daily basis!

Mr Tumble - July 2014

Mr Tumble (Justin Fletcher) in cake form for The Bean's third birthday.  

My first ever go at sculpting a face,  

So obviously I decide to use the oh so easy medium of sugar.  

Don't think I did too badly, except the chin's not right...

Muscles and basic face form. Scary.

The head measured nearly 5" top to bottom.  

To keep the weight down I formed the sugarpaste over a poly ball, 

but it was still mighty heavy!

Covered in sugar skin. Only slightly less scary.

The nose looks much bigger in these photos than it was to the eye.

Leave that to harden for a couple of days, 

along with his spotty tie.

Next job, bake cake and make a lot of ganache.

Stacked cakes for his torso onto a dowel screwed in the cake board. 

There are some steep hills between here and there.

I really don't want him falling over in the car.

I halved a round cake for his legs, then carved them to size before covering, using the off-cuts to fill in the gap between legs and body.

Let the fondanting begin!

Gave him his eyes and mouth and painted on some detail.

Extruded fondant for hair.

I spent ages making some great fondant hands for him but they were too big 

(bad fractional maths on my part I suspect), 

so had to make some more very quickly out of modelling choc.

Bow tie, freckles and red nose still to come, but he's nearly ready to go to the party. 

Ran out of time to make his spotty bag I'm afraid as work got in the way of social.  

Doh!

Bunny comforter / blanket cake topper - July 2014

A cake for a small person's birthday.  

The customer brought in a favourite comforter for us to photograph and recreate out of sugar.

This cake was made for The Angel Food Bakery in Brighton's iconic South Lanes,

where the Cake Angels bring Cake Love to the public on a daily basis!

Twin naming cakes - July 2014

My brother's friends are having a naming day ceremony for their twins.  

The cakes themselves are being made by The Angel Food Bakery in Brighton, but I have made toppers for free to go on the cakes.  

The toppers are sugar representations of the children's favourite things, so we have... a cuddly chimp, a kitty hand puppet, a spade and a Beatrix Potter book.

Happy birthday little people, hope it's a great one!

Boo's Strawberry cake - June 2014

So our little Boo is about to turn four (can't believe she's so grown up!), but I'm going to be away in Spain so I've been charged with making a topper for her birthday cake which I'll deliver a week before it's needed. 

At first she wanted Mr Tumble's spotty bag, then a dinosaur, but then she saw a photo of my buttercream strawberry cake from last month and decided she wanted that.  Couldn't do that a week in advance so I've made this instead.

First I made the flowers and leaves and left them to harden for a day.  I decided to keep them simple and not airbrush them.

I made the strawberries out of rice krispie treat (made with marshmallow fluff, not gelatine so they are vegetarian), flavoured with strawberry and coloured pink.

Once the rice krispie treats were set hard I carved off a bit of the bottom, so they'd lie at the right angle, covered them in fondant and airbrushed them a deep red with a little black shading.

I love my airbrush!

When the strawberries were dry, I piped the seeds on with royal icing and added calyxes.

I arranged the finished pieces on a fondant disk that can just be popped onto a layer cake.  

Now I just need to wrap the presents and I'm ready to deliver.  

Hoo ha.

Happy birthday my darling girl.  We love you very much.

P.S.  There are 2 strawberries because I'm pretty sure her sister will want one too!

Baby TV Cake - April 2014

Birthday cake for a 1 year old who loves Baby TV, particularly Tulli and Oliver the Monkey. Figure making is a new skill for me so it took me longer than expected, but they didn't work out too bad.

Have to admit, Oliver is a slightly scary looking monkey to me, but apparently not if you're one and that's the important thing to remember.  Tulli is quite a cute character, even if he does seem to be a slug!

I also made Number 1 (from Charlie and the numbers). 

I made the rainbow using foam core covered in fondant.

This cake was made for The Angel Food Bakery in Brighton's iconic South Lanes,

where the Cake Angels bring Cake Love to the public on a daily basis!