Children in Need 2014

Time for another charity cake.
Another try at modelling produced a pretty good Pudsey bear, his face and the dots on his eye patch air brushed on. The building blocks were sponge squares covered with paste and moulded letters added to each face. The faces round the edges were air brushed on and instead of royal icing around the bottom I used dolly mixture sweets to complete the children theme.
It was an 8 inch sponge cake, and selling slices of the cake at work I managed to raise £26 for the cause, which I was more than happy with.

Children in Need 2014

Tour of Britain

Having just been to watch the Tour of Britain - seeing them climbing the hill out of Cheltenham, which any human being would struggle up on a bike, treating it as if it was hardly there - I was inspired to decorate a fruit cake in celebration.
Flower paste jerseys of the race leader, king of the mountains, points and sprint leaders were air brushed, as were the Tour of Britain logos, so it wasn't much of a challenge but I think it was worthy of such a great national event.

Tour of Britain celebration
 

Claires birthday

Claire's partner Graeme gave me just a few days notice when he asked me to make her a birthday cake so a simple floral cake had to be the way to go.
I've got the hang of making roses now so one full bloom on the top and three buds around the edge were straightforward. Rather than just putting the buds just on the top of the paste I made indentations around the edges and recessed them a little, a touch that looked quite effective I think. I don't think there should be anything on a cake that you can't eat and I don't use wires on my flowers, so I make the stems from angelica, which ran down the sides to a couple of leaves. The other flowers around the edges are my version of gerberas, though I don't think you'll see one quite like this in the garden. The little fleur-de-lis around the bottom were just an experiment to see what I could do with royal icing.

Claire's floral cake

A major commission

I like to give myself a challenge with every cake I make and the challenge this time was simply the scale of the thing!
It was my sisters company's 20th anniversary and she asked me to make a cake for about 100 people. After a moment of thought I agreed and spent a while thinking about what was involved. Between us we decided a ten inch square fruit cake and a ten inch square sponge should feed them all and give them a choice. The biggest cakes I'd ever made before were 8 inch square and even though 2 inches doesn't sound much it can make a huge difference. With the fruit cake made a few weeks before all was calm until about a week before I was due to deliver the cakes. I first made a template for the company's logo and made them from flower paste (plus a third just in case) and then produced the banner, also in flower paste. By then it was time to bake the sponge, a bit of a challenge in itself to manage to bake such a big cake without over or under cooking it. I knew it would be too stressful to cover and decorate them in the evenings after work so I took the day off and thoroughly enjoyed the day covering and decorating my monster creations.
I had been invited to the celebration and it was nice to receive many positive reactions both to the appearance and the taste.  It made the time and hard work all worthwhile.

Congratulations ARC Energy

Happy Birthday Mum

For Mums birthday this year I just wanted to make something pretty. With a yellow theme I had the chance to practice a couple of new things too. The flower was a new one for me, based on a Gerbera but I don't think you'll find one in the garden centre, and the ribbon on the top was another experiment too. With the colour working and the flower and ribbon both being successful too I think I achieved the pretty cake I wanted and my Mum deserved.

A pretty cake for my Mum.

Mr Grumpy

One of my colleagues in our Bristol depot was 60 and I was asked to do him a cake, and as he is known as Mr Grumpy that had to be the theme.
It was short notice so the Mr Grumpy on the top is not as good as I'd have liked but I didn't have time to do it again and, being who he is, it can't be too bright and cheerful, but it seemed to go down well.
Airbrushing stencils around the edge are turning out to be an effective way of edging my cakes. The 60 was simple but the Mr man took four stencils overlaid, not difficult just a little tricky to line everything up.

Mr Grumpy

 

90th Birthday heart

From one end of the age spectrum to the other, I was asked to make a cake for a 90th birthday. The brief was for heart-shaped, pink with red flowers, but also to be half chocolate and half vanilla inside.
Heart-shaped cake tins sorted out the shape, then I made one chocolate cake and one plain, cut them in half so I could make the right hand chocolate, which I filled with chocolate buttercream and chocolate spread (you can't have too much chocolate), and the other side I filled as usual with vanilla buttercream and strawberry jam.
Pink paste covered the cake and I made a little vase for three roses on top. Round the edges little paste flowers and piped red dots. Simple but effective I feel and the feedback was positive so I think I met the brief.


Ednas 90th

18th birthday butterflies

Charlotte, a new colleague at work, celebrated her 18th birthday soon after joining us so I thought it would be nice to make her a cake.
Pink butterflies seemed like a suitable theme, so a pink board and pink paste butterflies on top and pink butterflies stencilled around the edge has produced what I think is pretty cake.

Pink butterflies
 

A nautical theme

I wanted a sailing theme for this one so I made a couple of yachts for the top and a message in signal flags round the edge, finishing it off with waves around the bottom in royal icing.
The sails on the boats are pretty effective I think but I misjudged it a bit between looking thin and being too delicate. The flags were good practice for my air brushing skills and it was fun watching Dave work out the message before finally googling signal flags. 

Birthday Ahoy!



Birthday message