Chocolate and caramel candy cake - August 2016

A tower of chocolate and salted caramel.

And fabulous message from lovely customer.  It's such a bonus when people take the time to send you feedback.   Thanks so much Victoria, and happy birthday Tom!

Croquembouche - Jan 16

Nom, Nom, Nom!

...nuff said

Running shoe cake - April 2015

40th birthday cake for a lady with a passion for running.

Vanilla buttercream covered chocolate fudge cake with dark chocolate buttercream filling.  

The sides are piped rose swirls in orange and pink. The top I kept smooth because of the toppers. 

I used the upside-down method to keep it ultra-smooth and swirled the colours to compliment the sides of the cake.

The number 40 and flowers are wired.  

The running shoe is made from a Mexican paste core shape with flowerpaste details.

Happy surprise birthday party Abbi :)

Sweet sixteen pink confetti cake - April 2015

Birthday cake for a "Sweet Sixteen" party.

4" top tier: lemon and almond sponge (my favourite) with orange frosting 

and pink sugarpaste confetti.  

6" bottom tier: chocolate fudge cake with white chocolate frosting and white fondant covering.  

White chocolate blossom cake - March 2015

Mother's day is coming!

White chocolate buttercream finished cake, 

because mother's are special and deserve to be treated...

...and they will give you a slice to go with your tea too!

Pink & gold buttercream finished cake - February 2015

Gold rose on a pink and gold smooth buttercream finished 8" three layer dummy cake.

Star Wars cake - Christmas 2014

Star Wars cake for a lovely young lady who loves R2D2.  Erin's birthday is actually Christmas Day so she tends to miss out a little on her birthday celebrations.  

The cake itself is a three layer chocolate and vanilla with marbled chocolate and vanilla buttercream.  I cut the front off to create a slope, smoothed the buttercream, covered it in fondant and placed it on a covered board.

I marbled the fondant using black, white and grey to give it a sort of "space" feel.  I then airbrushed it with black, blue, purple and silver to even the tones, but add texture.

Meanwhile, I had been making an R2D2 to go on top.  I made his body with a core of polystyrene to cut down the weight and used wooden skewers to support his legs. 

I painted his panels with blossom tints and lusters mixed with melted cocoa-butter, which gives a much better (and less streaky) finish as it doesn't melt the surface like a alcohol mix. 

I also used cocoa butter paint to put stars and writing on the cake.  I learned with the shark cake last month that white paint that it water / alcohol soluble picks up the colour of the icing underneath, but a cocoa butter mix stays white!  I tried very hard to keep the text with straight lines on each side, but even though I changed my planned wording it proved very hard to keep it exact.  This is really bugging me now... 

The Star Wars lettering I cut out of fondant, then I airbrushed it a little with grey and silver.

So, Star Wars cake done, lessons learned, child happy...

...and safe to say I will never again be making a cake around Christmas...that's just crazy!

Shark birthday cake - November 2014

It's that time of year again, time to make birthday cake for my gorgeous godson.  Can't believe he's so grown up!  

This year's theme is "SHARK !"

Had a look on the oh-so-reliable Pintrest and there are some great designs out there and great inspiration.  Obviously I had to create my own design though.  

I found a fantastic image of a great white shark leaping from the water to catch a seal and wanted to try and capture that energy.  

There were also a couple of cakes I found that were "fish tank" style so I decided that maybe I could make a cake that was like a cross section of the ocean with the shadows of circling sharks and one on top leaping out in a realistic way... except without the eviscerated seal as that's perhaps a bit too much reality for a cake.

I would have liked to model my own shark, but my time was a bit limited this week so I cheated slightly and found a rubber shark on a toy shop, made a silicon mould of it and used flowerpaste  to form the hero shark, with some structural supports inside.  

As the flowerpaste dried it started to show seams a bit more, but rather than remake it I felt that it added to the realism as great white sharks tend to have some pretty big battle scars anyway.

I wanted to make the cake so you could see shadowey outlines of other sharks in the water.  I found some images of sharks and drew the outlines straight off the computer screen onto some paper.  

Then I cut up some ziplock bags and laid one side of the bag over the outline. I drew the image onto the plastic and cut it out.  I sprayed a little vodka onto the cake and stuck the plastic sheet onto it.  I lightly airbrushed over the sheet with the black and then carefully lifted off the plastic to reveal the silhouette of the shark.  I repeated this a few times with two different homemade stencils.

I wanted to try out a 3D splashing water effect on the base which worked well, although now I think I probably should have kept the clean lines of a flat board.  Well, that's what free family cakes are for though, being able to try out new things! 

I put my 7" round cake on a 9" board, and then that on a 12" board to give it an extra bit of drama and height.

I tore bits off my block of fondant and allowed it to "elephant" up a bit (oh, so easy with PME fondant!) so that it all looked rough and random like surf. 

I then airbrushed the whole thing with blue and teal.  I decided to massively over-do the spraying and let it gather and run to see how it worked as a watery effect, like light refracting through the water.  I also used a paintbrush dipped in vodka to take it off a little in places, then resprayed over it again.  I think it generally worked, but I took it too far.  

Next time I wouldn't use the paintbrush and although a bit of pooling worked well, I liked it better with a bit less on.  This is what my practice cakes are for though, so if I want to use this effect on a commission I now know how it works best.

Above:  after the first coat of airbrushing.

Below: the finished version

I liked it best when it was somewhere between the two.

To support the shark on top of the cake, I  inserted a dowel that extended past the top of the cake, but was supported at the bottom by the cake card I'd used at the mid point of the cake layers.  I covered up the exposed dowel with "splashing water".

I painted the tops of the waves with pale blue and white opaque edible paint.

Airbrushing is no friend of the manicurist.  I must remember to use gloves... and possibly a mask to stop me breathing it in! 

Oh, by the way, inside it was alternate torted layers of chocolate fudge cake and red velvet cake with white chocolate frosting, home-made raspberry jam and home-made summer fruits jam.  Num, num, num!

I couldn't be there for Ronnie's party this year (the first birthday of his I've missed the party for), but I hear it all went rather well.  At least I got to see him last night for cake drop off, hugs and catch up.  Moo, I love you.  Now stop growing, it's making me feel old! x

Halloween themed 50th party - October 2014

It's my gorgeous husband's 50th birthday so I persuaded him to let me throw a halloween themed party for him and set to making a raft of props and treats.

 Cut out a few bats

Chopped up a couple of old books

Made some bloody candles

Cut out a few more bats

Made some alien jelly eyeballs

Unlocked Frederick from his box 

Performed a vanilla and raspberry lobotomy or two 

Cupcakes, obviously 

Poison bottles

Test two tone cupcake

Worms in a jar (that is, strawberry laces and crumbled chocolate shortbread)

One of many sugar roses

Pom-poms galore!

More cupcakes

Party ran for 12 hours, with 3 days prep. Hubby happy, friends hugged, kids asleep, me shattered!