Chocolate and caramel candy cake - June 2016

Chocolate and caramel cake; featuring salted caramel, Nutella, Oreos, Curlywurly, mikado, twix, maltesers, caramel popcorn, mini meringues,Nutella, tempered green and black's dark chocolate, chocolate fudge cake, caramel frosting and vanilla frosting. 

Happy birthday Rich! 

50's not so bad :)

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

Blush and mint wedding - July 2015

A special cake this week, a gift for lovely friends.

The colour theme was blush pink and mint with vintage gold. 

I made the flowers a couple of weeks ago, pink open peonies with gold stamens and star blossoms. 

I made them a bit more robust that I might usually as I knew I would have to transport them quite a long way and on a ferry to the Isle of Wight.  I really didn't want them to break befor I could get then on the cake.

The tiers were all sponge cakes,from top to bottom: Victoria sponge, chocolate fudge, lemon and almond drizzle and red velvet.

It was a record breaking heat wave, which always makes things fun when you're playing with buttercream, but having to take the cake on a ferry where you're not allowed to keep the engine running and the aircon going was an added bonus.  

Still, (as I am inclined to do whenever I can) I used a white and dark chocolate ganache crumb coat or marzipan to give a crisp finish and extra support under the fondant.

The upside down crumb-coat gives a defined edge to the cake and ensures that you keep the cakes as perfect circles and don't end up with egg shaped tiers instead!

The lemon tier I covered with marzipan and gave it a rounded edge for contrast.

I airbrushed mint edible colour through lace fabric for the 8", chocolate tier and then a pale antique silver / gold lustre over the entire cake to make the whole thing shimmer and to take the "GOLD!" edge off the cake lace elements.

The journey was fine, air-con helps, and the only breakage was one peony petal, but of course I had spares so not a major issue.  

I stacked the cake on site and added the flowers, thank god I took an electric fan with me though as it was boiling hot down by the kitchen and I'd have lost all sense without it!

Then it was champagne and laughter all the way with lots of old friends who had gathered from across Europe to be with the happy couple on their big day.   

It does make a change these days to be there when the cake is eaten.  Lots of people kept rushing up to me to say how good it was, including the kitchen staff at the hotel.  I'm told the groom said it was the best cake he'd ever tasted... naturally 😉 (Thanks lovely x)

Honestly, it was such a beautiful wedding.  We are so glad to have been there and been able to share in it.  Wishing you both many, many beautiful days in the future. xxxx 

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 :)

Safari birthday cake - August 2014

Today was my friend Clare's 40th birthday so her family threw her a surprise birthday party.  She has a big love of giraffes so her daughter Cerys wanted a giraffe based cake.  

Cerys has a real talent for sugarcraft so she made the star of the cake, a gorgeous wired giraffe.

The cake was a torted chocolate fudge cake with alternated dark chocolate and white vanilla buttercream.

To make the palm trees, I covered drinking straws with chocolate style candy melts and scored with a cocktail stick to produce the scaled effect. I wired 4 sizes of flower paste leaves, taped them together and inserted the stem into the chocolate covered straws.  I poked bamboo BBQ skewers into the cake at the required angles, chopped offll the excess with some snips and popped the trees onto them.

To make the palm fronds I used a basic leaf cutter set and my new homemade leaf veiner, then cut notches out of the leaves before drying them in position.

The larger letters and the numbers I made out of thin sausages of Mexican paste, then extruded even thinner sausages to make the smaller letters. I hand painted the "40" to reflect the giraffe theme.

I covered the cake and board with pale yellow fondant, airbrushed it with brown, yellow and green edible colour, piped on some grasses and added some fondant tufts of  grass around the trees and lettering.

Happy birthday lovely lady.  Hope you enjoyed your party, you are very loved and very deserving of that love. X