Carol's Handbag

 This cake was made as a gift for a colleague who was celebrating a big birthday.  She's a lovely lady so she very much deserved a nice cake.  I tried to incorporate a few things that she's into to make the cake more personal.  She was very pleased and wouldn't let anyone cut it at work it was for "display purposes only" and everyone had to make do with bought cake for the office.  ha ha!  Bless her.  She said she'd never had a special cake made for her and gave me a big hug.  I guess it was worth being up until 1 am finishing this baby off then!  ha ha!  Gives me a buzz to think someones so pleased with their cake.

Simple Birthday Cake

This one was a commission from a colleague for his mother-in-law's 70th Birthday.  He just wanted something fairly simple and feminine which is a Mum sort of thing.  I'm not very good at doing dainty looking cakes.  I think the overall look of the cake was nice, but my piping is really not good!  More practice needed at piping for sure!  D'oh!  I hope mother-in-law was happy, although I'm told she was???

Farewell to Aus

This cake was for some friends of friends as a commission for their farewell party.  They've been over here for 10 years or so from Australia and they're headed home now.  They've made lots of lovely friends here by all accounts and so they had a bit of a get-together to wish them well and show them they'll be very much missed here in the UK.  This one was a chocolate cake with chocolate flavour Renshaws sugar paste.  This looks quite leathery when it's applied to the cake and so is ideal both for flavour and for the texture and look of it.  I made this old fashioned suit case and had some flags printed on icing (much the same as the birthday cake I made for Alix a couple of years ago, only a smaller, simplified version.)

Uncle Mart's Spitfire Cake

My Great Uncle Mart turned 94 this year!  Pretty amazing going really and he's doing very well on it.  My Dad's cousin organised a big family get-together and a bit of a birthday shin dig for him.  There have been some sad losses this year in our family so it was nice to have a get-together for a nice occasion.  I made the Spitfire (yes that's what it's meant to be) out of grey sugar paste mixed with Tylo powder.  I mixed the powder in really well and left this to kind of activate for a few hours before using it to mould into the shape of the aircraft.  I used a schematic drawing I found online and cut out the elliptical wing shape first.  I then fashioned the fuselage out of paste and used some spaghetti to fix on and stabilize the whole tail section.  It was tricky.  Once the paste had hardened off I painted it to try and look Spitfire-ish and added the nose cone.  I decided it was far too adventurous to attempt propellers, so I left it at that.  I got some white food colouring, thinking that would be the best thing to add white detailing, but it was a bit rubbish.  In the end, I let down some white dusting powder with an alcohol solution and that was much, much better!  Everyone seemed to like the cake and, most important of all, Uncle was really chuffed.  Bless him!

No.1 Cake for Logan

A friend at work asked for this cake for her Grandson's first birthday as they were having a big family party.  It's vanilla sponge cake and I carved it into a number one and used the cut cake to make into blocks.  Tricky covering small squares of cake, particularly as I used an ordinary sponge cake recipe which comes out light and fluffy and not perhaps the best for carving.  Maderia cake might have been the better choice in hindsight but it all worked out OK in the end and my friend seemed pleased with the result.

Tractor Cake

This week's project was a tractor cake for a colleague.  It was a for a joint birthday party for his son and their friend's son.  I think his boy was turning 2 and the other lad 4?  Not 100% but Kit is apparently tractor mad at the moment and blue is his favourite colour.  I'm not sure that New Holland would be every impressed with this, but I suppose as it's blue it'll have to be one (sorry John!)  I baked 2 layers of vanilla sponge using my Grandma's fail safe recipe.  I sectioned my Silverwood "mechano" tin in half and divided the mix so it would bake faster and I could sandwich the layers together.  That part worked well and was reasonably hassle free.  Cutting the cake to the desired shape, crumb coating and applying sugar paste, on the other hand, was somewhat tricky!  Not too much swearing involved, but not the neatest job in the world.

 The cake needed to serve 10 people so I figured a trailer would be a good use of spare cake.  To add a bit of interest, I put some simply made sugar paste sheep and a Sheep dog collie in the trailer.  ha ha!  Well received commission, so I'm happy.  If I'd had more time, might have been fun to put the farmer in the tractor though.  I think that would have appealed to the kids more OR perhaps put two little faces in the window as though it were the two boys.  Don't know what they look like so didn't want to risk that!  Tyres, mudguard and creatures are given a little extra body and support by mixing Tylo powder through the sugar paste.  I bought Renshaws paste - that always seems the nicest to work with and the best tasting to me.  All stuff purchased from A Piece of Cake in Thame (of course!)

Farewell Gran

To my Grandma who made the most amazing cakes, who had me using up left over pastry for jam tarts as a little kid, who taught me so much, who appreciated my baking and whom I'll miss for ever and ever.

Jack Daniels

I'm trying to catch up to myself at the moment.  I haven't posted any of my cake creations for a while - since Christmas actually - so I'm just trying to get a grip here!  This is one for a friend who loves Jack Daniels and was turning 60.  I baked an oblong dark chocolate sponge cake (thank you Mum-in-Law for a great choc cake recipe) and then made another one in a loaf tin.  I put a thin layer of sugar-paste over the oblong base cake, then iced the bottle separately.  The neck is made up from pieces of "spare" cake from he loaf tin cut with a round cutter, then cut into semi-circles.  The sides of the presentation box are stuck on with Royal Icing and I mixed Tylo powder with the sugar paste to give some stability.  I let it dry out a bit before sticking to the sides.  The staw/raffia packing is made by extruding sugar paste through a clay gun.  That's fun but takes a while.  Piping is in Royal Icing (let's call it impressionism rather than an entirely accurate depiction of a JD bottle label) and I used a little brown dusting powder to give some dimension to the bottle.  That would have been a great time to have an airbrush I think, but this isn't part of my kit right now.  One day maybe (although I'd need much more room in my kitchen I think.)  Just for extra bite, there was a little drop of Jack Daniels bourbon in the chocolate butter cream filing.  Main thing is the cake was well received and enjoyed!

Jo xoxox

Mum's 60th

I put this cake together for a little family celebration for my Mum's Birthday.  It's a milk chocolate cake with milk chocolate paste on it.  The piping is done in Royal icing and the flowers are pink sugar paste.  The balls around the bottom of the cake are white chocolate flavoured sugar paste.  As it was a special occasion I shelled out and used Tracey's Cakes Belgian Chocolate paste, which is expensive, but proper chocolatey!  It's a bit tricky to work with.  I'm not sure I had this worked up quite enough - there's a little crack on the edge!  Hmmm, must try harder!  it tasted good though and Mum was really pleased.  The cake inside was really moist and the butter cream filling brought it all together.  Happy Birthday Mum!