Peppa Pig Cake

The second birthday cake was for my little girl's 3rd birthday. She's obsessed with Peppa Pig and princesses at the moment so I went for a very pink cake with a princess Peppa on top. This was the first time I had ever attempted an actual model for a cake.

There were a few teething issues with the model parts, for example my daughter eating Peppa's feet while I was upstairs, but I was very happy with the final result. The main icing of the cake was a bit saggy as the middle of the cake was very squishy but I've been watching Cake Boss and will next time be making a buttercream barrier before putting in any lemon curd. Hopefully this will stop it from squishing out of the sides.

Dragon Cake

It's been a busy couple of weeks for cakes. We have celebrated my daughter's and my father in law's birthdays and I made cakes for them both.

The first one was for my father in law. My husband asked me if I would be able to do one with the Welsh dragon on seeing as his step father is Welsh. At first I thought it was a big ask but I'm always up for a challenge at the moment. I looked at a couple of ideas but decided that my best bet was going to be drawing the dragon onto the cake and filling it in. My first attempt was on top of plastic with the picture underneath but once it was dry I tried to get it off the plastic and it just fell to pieces. My second attempt was done onto a piece of thinly rolled sugarpaste. This proved to be a bit more successful but it did try to fall apart when I was putting it onto the cake. Once it was positioned on the iced cake I went over it again just to make sure it looked the best it could.

I was generally happy with this cake but would have been happier to have not had a white background on the green section of the cake. Oh well, not bad for a first attempt :)

My Best Friend's Wedding

A year ago I agreed to make my best friend a wedding cake as her wedding present, it seemed like a good idea at the time! She decided that she wanted a 3 tier chocolate cake that didn't look neat and had a seashell theme. So at least it didn't need to look perfect.

I admit I spent a lot of time stressing over this cake, it had to be perfect. I had a chocolate cake recipe but I started to realise that every time I used it the cake came out differently. So I tried a different cake. The first time I did this I gave it to a friend as a birthday cake and it came out really well. The second and third times I tried it it just flopped. So I went back to the original recipe and decided to try out different variations until it was right. A week before the wedding I tried out three different variations and found the perfect one. Phew was all I could think!

We had done a tasting session a couple of months beforehand and had decided on chocolate fudge icing. This was the easy part. Getting it the right colour wasn't so easy. I decided to add some brown food colouring paste to get it a slightly darker colour. This didn't change the taste so was happy.

The other part was the topper. We had spoken about what my friend would like and it left things open for me.  She wanted a seashell theme but we didn't really know what to do after that. While I was on holiday in Brixham I visited the seashell shop and managed to buy a good selection of shells and coral with just the idea of seeing what I could do with it. I was happy with the result, just wish I'd been able to stick the coral down better. But it's all a learning curve.

The chocolate sea shells were a request from the bride.

I had never used dowels or tiered a cake before so I had looked into it for about 2 months before having to actually do it but it didn't stop me from being terrified and not sleeping very well the night before the wedding. The good news though is that it didn't collapse or tilt in any way.

Here is the cake in it's full glory. I was happy with it but more importantly the bride and groom were happy with it. I'm hoping it'll be the first of many to come :)

Second Birthday Cake

This is my second birthday cake. It is a white butter cake with strawberry jam and white chocolate fudge buttercream in the middle. My mum gave me a heart shaped tin that I wanted to try out so this was a perfect excuse. I have used poppy red sugarpaste and made some roses and butterflies out of white sugarpaste that I then dusted with gold. I have now learnt that hot weather and cake decorating do not work, need a fan! looking forward to eating this now it's all done.

Happy birthday to me :)

I have decided this year that I'm going to make myself a couple of birthday cakes this year. So here is the first one :-) I really wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate fudge icing because I've made a few recently but haven't got to eat one! Apart from that I had no idea what I wanted to do. So instead of buying new colours etc I decided to just use what I had. So we ended up with yellow sugarpaste for the main covering and then some white and green decorations made up from odds and ends I had saved in my icing box. I am really chuffed as this is the first time I've managed to do the main icing without getting any buttercream on the cake board or the icing :-D Next step, learn how to decorate cake boards!

50th Birthday Jukebox

I was asked to make a jukebox for a friend's husband's 50th birthday. I made 3 chocolate cakes and layered them with chocolate fudge icing. I covered it in blue sugarpaste and used white and black sugarpaste for the decorations. I took a lot of time over the decorating and even though I know it is far from perfect I don't think it is too bad for a beginner.

Mothering Sunday

I went to visit my Mum last Saturday so decided to make her some vanilla and blackcurrant cupcakes as a little present. The icing was made using blackcurrant fondant icing from Squires that I picked up from the Squires exhibition. It was very nice but I am going to try out my own recipe with fresh blackcurrants next time. I also added some model paste roses on the top to give it a little something extra.