Really Chocolatey Birthday Cake

Our house smelled AMAZING while this cake was sitting on the worktop. The icing is chocolate, as are the roses, fans and other decorations. The only bits that I didn't make from chocolate were the hearts.

I designed this for my sister-in-law's 30th birthday instead of a gift. I'm never quite sure what to buy for people, hopefully this was a good substitute. The top tier was Baileys chocolate, the bottom was just chocolate mud cake with white chocolate frosting.

I loved making this cake - it was finished earlier than usual too which means I'm working faster. Typically though it's been really warm here for the past few days and all the chocolate + heat Do. Not. Mix. I was cutting out petals, putting them in the fridge. Thinning petals, putting them in the fridge. Rolling the centres, putting them in the fridge. You get the picture - there was a lot of waiting for things to chill! Next time I do a chocolate cake it will (hopefully) be in December.

I should be back next week with something else. Apologies for the sporadic posting - I only post when I have something pretty to talk about.

Vintage style wedding cake

So, after I spent HOURS meticulously painting the piped detail on this cake with gold lustre my husband says 'it's a bit gold, did you say gold to the customer?' and I was all, 'yeah, definately'. Then I started thinking, maybe I didn't say gold, oh crap what if I didn't say gold... After checking through my orders and many emails I realised I had totally invented this gold piping and I'd just said I'd lustre it, no mention of gold whatsoever. Great. It was midnight and the cake was being collected the next day. I spent until 4.30am going over the gold with white satin dust to tone it down, and although it's still looking very gold in the photos it was much more mellow than that in real life! Anyway, crisis averted and the customer was happy - the cake looked gorgeous.
The piped detail is to match the embroidery of the brides dress and the roses are sugar.
If anyone is interested I'm considering doing a photo tutorial of how I make my roses. I've got no cakes on the horizon (we're working on the kitchen) so have plenty of time.

Fantasy flowers birthday cake

Did you see the Glastonbury coverage this weekend? Or even better were you there? (If you went I am eternally jealous!) Wasn't Beyonce amazing? I love, love, loved her Destiny's Child medley. If you haven't seen it go find it online and watch, she is so fabulous. What was Tricky doing up there though? That was all a bit bizarre, if anyone can enlighten me then please do!
It's my youngest girl's 4th Birthday today so I've spent the day making a 'mum cake'. It's so lovely to not have to worry about fondant and colourings. She just asked for a chocolate cake with a sweetie face & that's what she's got - it took me about 20 minutes, absolutely wonderful!!
I'm not going to be showing you that one though, I don't think it's pretty enough to be blog-worthy! Have this one instead.

It's only a quick, little one but I do love the fantasy flower cutters, they're from Patchwork & I've used them loads but this is the first time I've used them as the main feature of a cake & I'm so happy with them.

Ignore the dodgy piping on the bottom pic, I did say it was a quick cake!

I hope you had a fun weekend :)

Golden Rose Cake

So, it's been a while... We've had chickenpox and been away for a large amount of the past couple of months, but the spots are gone & I'm back to the cakes.

This one was for a coeliac lady so it was all gluten free, lemon on the top and vanilla for the bottom tier.
She requested golden yellow roses - actually I think it was golden showers roses but googling that made all sorts of horrible things come up!

I hope the colour was OK for her, it's so difficult to get an exact replica in icing & there's a lot of shades of yellow!

I baked this cake the other day

With my girls, it was delicious - so dense and moist, I followed this recipe http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3092/ultimate-chocolate-cake You should totally try it - it was really fab. I won't bother with the recipe for the frosting, even my six year old wouldn't eat much of it, it was so sweet! Stick to a ganache instead.

What's your favourite cake recipe? I'm always looking for new ones to try!

Peony birthday cake

It was my Grandmother's 80th Birthday at the weekend & my Granddad requested that I make her a cake, I went for a pink peony as she had pink flowers in her wedding bouquet & I wanted a big statement flower to save me the hassle of making a spray!
It was a really nice one to make & made even nicer by how much she loved it, she kept saying 'I never thought I'd ever get a cake like this' which was really sweet.

The inscription was chosen by my Granddad and reads 'Everyone Loves Bessie' which I thought was lovely.

The birthday girl

I found a brilliant peony tutorial here if anyone is interested, really simple & easy to follow http://www.thecakerator.com/2010/08/gum-paste-peony-tutorial-part-1.html

So my next project is a 3 tier farm cake, pictures to follow soon xx

84th birthday cake with pink sugar roses

 

My husband's Granny is lovely. When I told her I was going to start looking into making cake design my profession she gave me all of her decorating equipment and didn't want anything in return. This was probably about four years ago now and I've been waiting for a chance to do something nice for her ever since. Recently we got invited to her surprise birthday party and I volunteered to make the cake.
It's a double depth lemon sponge, covered in citrus syrup and filled with five layers of lemon curd buttercream.

Want to see some close ups? Course you do...

 Handmade sugar rose dome with wired petals and pearls

Andy's Granny cutting the cake, she was lost for words which was so touching.

Have a nice Friday xx

Chocolate Birthday Cake and Fairy Toadstools

So, recently I made my first cake to be iced in chocolate fondant, I made chocolate plastic and mixed it with regular fondant to make my paste. It was fab to work with although it seemed to get little hairline cracks in the icing much easier than normal fondant but the warmth of my hands smoothed them out so easily. What I loved about the chocolate paste was that the cake smelled amazing even when covered, my family were all desperate to eat it, unfortunately it wasn't for us!

Between all the baking we've been on some beautiful family walks recently, we're so lucky to live in such a beautiful place and in autumn it really comes to life. The leaves are starting to transform into a million shades of brown, while crunching through the fallen ones my daughter found a fairy toadstool, she was enchanted by it. The proper name for it is a Fly Agaric, they really are so vibrant and pretty.

Hope you're enjoying the autumn sunshine too xx