Manland / Garden Shed - October 2013

Inspired by my husband and his visceral need for a shed.  

That's his hat and guitar (but the garden produce is more me than him).

Macmillan coffee morning cake - September 2013

Chocolate fudge sponge with vanilla buttercream.

Bit annoyed with myself as used a very tasty, but slightly unstable sponge and forgot  (it was 1am and had been a long day) to use some dark choc ganache as a crumb coating around the outside to stabilise the cake before I put fondant on it.  As you can see the cake settled a bit overnight as a result.  Doh!

Nevermind, I'll remember next time!

Currently up for auction to raise money for Macmillan Nurses.  Hopefully it'll make a few extra £'s.

Autumn Flowers - September 2013

A two tier birthday cake for a friend's mum.  

Bottom 8", 3 layer tier of chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream.  Top 6", 2 layer tier of vanilla marble cake with vanilla buttercream.  Both tiers have a marzipan layer under the fondant as requested.

Colour airbrushed on, plus airbrushed details on decorations.

Halloween Cake - July 2013 (Yes, I know it's July!)

Yes, I know Halloween isn't in July, but for this particular birthday girl everyday should be Halloween so who are we to argue!

My first ever commission project... well, expenses at least... and got to have a great lunch and hang out with old friends so I'm a happy girl too.

Happy birthday Flip-Flop, it was lovely to meet you and have a great 4th birthday party.

Have always been a bit of a purist about making everything possible edible, but decided to use polymer clay (Fimo) for some of the props on this and it was so successful that I might succumb to that again, sorry.  Does mean that the birthday girl can keep them of course too.  

The clay props are the signs, the cauldron, the gravestone and the top three pumpkins... oh, and the bat.

Inside the hill (or Glastonbury Tor as we're now calling it), the layers are black (chocolate), orange (Orange) and purple (vanilla). Inside the house are orange and purple layers.

There's butter icing between the layers and milk chocolate ganash as a crumb coating under the icing.

Had some trouble with the purple cake as my first attempt went pink in the oven so did some testing and discovered that the Squire's Kitchen colour that I have becomes unstable in heat and changes colour.  Bit disappointing as I really like a lot of their products, so used a combination Sugarflair's ruby red and baby blue colours and it came out just fine.

Thanks Georgie for sending over some photos of the inside of the cake. Xxxx

Glamping festival cake May 2013

Well, this challenge was to make a joint 40th birthday cake, big enough to feed up to 100 people and make a statement in the middle of a festival site.

My best friend and her husband (also rather special) were having a mini-festival weekend to celebrate so hired a lovely little camp site, complete with river for paddling in and lots of bell tents.

Had my usual brainstorming session on Pinterest but didn't really feel very inspired and was quite concerned that making a tiered cake that might have to be kept in our bell tent with us and three kids overnight might spell squished cake.

Then it occurred to me that I could make three cakes of different sizes that would be big enough to feed everyone, but narrow enough to store.  Also, just liked the idea that it was a kind of horizontally tiered cake.

I made one cake into the woodland area, another the camping area, the bonfire area a third and a tiny bell tent cake out front.  I mounted them on a 16" cake drum decorated with a marbled blue fondant river and royal icing flooded grassy camping field.

The tallest cake was a multi-coloured vanilla almond sponge with clementine butter cream. The others were chocolate marble cake with marbled white and dark chocolate ganash.  Then they were all covered with fondant and royal icing decorations with added bunting made from florist's wire and icing.

...because, kids love rainbow cake!!!

... and by the way... Bell tents look great but we won't be doing that again!! If there's ever a next time, we're hiring an airstream!

happy birthday baby bean

Jacob is one, can't believe it.  We call him Bean but he's also known as the night owl so an owl cake for him.  My first proper multi-coloured layer cake, but of course once you start cutting cake with little people around its mayhem so forgot to get photos of the inside, doh!