Rose's rose cake - November 2014

7" torted 2 layer cake with vanilla buttercream and home-made strawbery jam, plus 30 vanilla and almond cupcakes, some with jam filling.

Yum!

Flower making practice April 2014 - white flowers

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!

Smooth sided ombré cake, first attempt - April 2014

My first try at smooth sided ombré buttercreamed cake. 

Not as polished as I'd hoped, but then that's why I did a practice cake.

Just messing about with flower making, don't haul me in front of the rose police! 

(I really do need to have a proper go at that though.)

 Upside down buttercream method again

Hmm, far from perfect... some issues to overcome.  

I quite like the effect though.

Funky orange birthday cake - January 2014

Birthday cake for a lovely young lady, who just turned 8 and is having a party with an orange theme.

Top tier orange and raspberry, middle tier chocolate fudge, bottom tier vanilla, all with white chocolate butter cream frosting.

More photos to follow...

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For the bottom tier I stacked thin layers of pink and orange sponge (forgot to take photo of stack before I started to crumb coat it though, doh!).  See below for a post-cutting and singing photo of the inside layers.

Middle tier was chocolate fudge cake.

Top tier was orange sponge with fresh raspberries.  

I used a white chocolate butter cream on all three tiers.  

My kitchen with cakes in various stages of setting up.

After the buttercream was set up and the fondant on all three tiers, it was time for an airbrush make-over.

I got a rather attractive false tan in the process… the cakes… me... the kitchen... the whole ground floor of my house... everything round here now has that "just spray tanned" look about it.  

Only just got rid of the red film over everything after the Halloween cake!

Once the colour had dried, I stacked the tiers.  This time I used foam core cut to size as cake boards and used a dowel through all three tiers to pin them together for the long rush hour journey.  Far less stressful that way.

Had already made flower and left it to harden for a couple of days.  The foil reminds me of the boredom when you get your hair dyed at a salon.

Used a straw as a reinforced place to put the flower.  Travelled with flower safely in a bowl, then pushed wire stem into straw when setting up at the other end.  Held it beautifully, and any cracks in the airbrushed surface are hidden once the flower is in place.

Didn't end up too badly.

The usual post cutting carnage...  sounds like the girls had lots of fun though!