40th Birthday Golf cake

I am very happy with the outcome of this cake. There was a lot of work involved to shape the cake to suit that of a hill - obviously remembering not to cut off too much cake as it needed to feed a party of people!

The grass was made using royal icing coloured green, while the stones/rocks were made using fondant icing coloured varying shades of grey (not fifty though!) The water was made with icing sugar mixed with some water to form the kind of icing used on fairy cakes (my Husbands favourite) and then died blue. This gave it a shimmery, shiny look.

 The sand was easy to do - light brown sugar stuck on with edible glue, but it certainly wouldn't have been a golf course without it. (I should know, my Dad hits his golf ball into the bunker frequently.....just checking whether he actually reads my blog!)

Fireman Sam Cake

This was a great, but tricky cake to work on. There was a lot of detail to incorporate and trying to ice around the shape of the fire engine proved challenging. But it was all worth it because all the little details helped to pull it all together.

I think the paving is effective and was surprisingly easy to do using a cutter - not that I should be telling you that!

Curious George Cake

My next cake was for a 1st Birthday party and was to be in the design of Curious George. The yellow and red colours go very well together and make for an eye-catching cake.

I changed the name on the side of the cake to suit the Birthday boy - Bobby. This was a nice way of personalising the cake whilst still keeping the theme of the cake.

The party hat was made from a strip of regal icing cut into a triangle and then painted with green and purple. I think it turned out well and is quite effective, not to mention much easier than cutting out strips of green and purple icing!

New York Wedding

I was asked to make a Wedding cake for a sister of one of my good friends. As a couple they love New York and decided to spend their big day over there with close family and friends. As a result they decided to have a party back in England for those that could not make it to America. They chose a New York theme including an American Police car.

They chose to use the unmistakable logo on their cupcakes and have the variation that was used on their invites with both their names on it for the cake.

This was a simple but effective design which really stands out when you see all the cupcakes together! They chose a mix of chocolate and vanilla flavours for the cupcakes with vanilla sponge and raspberry jam for the cake.

I enjoyed making these cakes, not just because it was for a friend but because it was fun to do. I haven't done many cupcakes over the years but I would certainly love to do something like this again.

100th Birthday cake

A friend of my Husband rang requesting a cake for her Mother's 100th Birthday. I was informed that she occasionally used fine china and that they would like this to be a theme on the cake - in the style of a cup of tea and piece of cake. Her favourite colour is blue and so this was to be the colour theme.

I iced an 8" square cake in white and used a royal blue ribbon around the middle. I also used round silver dragees around the bottom of the cake. The letters were made from petal paste.

The tea cup was made from a solid piece of 50:50 royal icing:petal paste which I made as smooth as possible on the outside and made a 'dint' in the middle so that I could add the tea (which was made using brown petal paste). The saucers were also made from petal paste - after cutting them out in a circle I placed them on the top of a smaller circle cutter so that they 'sank' in the middle, giving the plate shape.

I mixed edible gold powder with a small amount of clear alcohol to make a paint which I then used to create the gold edging. I then mixed blue colour with clear alcohol to make the blue paint. I then painted the pattern on the china in free-hand.

The small cake was made from petal paste and I used blue decoration on the top in keeping with the colour theme.

Christening Cake - presents and bears

I was asked to make a Christening Cake for a couple of work colleagues and friends. The cakes were 10" and 8" squares, decorated in white and blue icing in the style of presents. I used petal paste to make the dots and the ribbon.

The two teddy bears were also made from petal paste and were fun to make. My favourite bit was the finished white teddy that was being cuddled - it really 'came to life' when I put the little eyes and nose on it!

I made the blocks out of regal icing but then used petal paste to make the blue squares and the letters. Believe it or not - it is very difficult to make a perfect block out of icing!

Gruffalo

My latest cake was in the design of the Gruffalo. I made an 8 inch chocolate cake and shaped it to the outline of the Gruffalo and covered it in Chocolate buttercream. The features were made from coloured Regal Icing. You can find the design on-line if you would like to make one similar.