Birthday Books

 This was a surprise birthday cake for a book worm commissioned by someone else she knows.  It wasn't the easiest to put together and, to be honest, there are things I would do differently.  Worst of all, was that it was so hot and humid, the sugar paste just wasn't doing what it ought to, so this was something of a challenge in more ways than one.

Tried a slightly different technique on modelling the figure's face which worked out alright but does look a little bit like botox has been deployed in the kisser!  ha ha!  Oh well.

The surprise didn't really go as planned so I think my efforts may have been in vain, but it was an experience and a learning curve but maybe not the best way to spend what has probably been the hottest weekend so far this year!

Richard & Rachel's Wedding Cake

I must admit to feeling a little daunted when Rachel said she would like roses and peonies on her cake.  I didn't know what a Peony was?!  So, lots of research, lots of trial, error, Googling, YouTube and advice from A Piece of Cake Thame and I think in the end, I pulled it off.

It was a long haul over the flowers though I must say.  It took weeks and weeks to get them all done in the evenings and weekends.  I stressed quite a bit over whether the peonies looked right or not.  I think I probably started about 12 and eventually there were 6 on the cake.  They had to be made using each individual petal, then curled so that they look as though they are unwrapping themselves into blousey flowers from the tight ball they start out as.

Wiring them together was interesting, and I hadn't made daisies before either, but they also seemed to turn out alright.  It was down to the wire with my wiring the flowers into posies for the top of each tier on Sunday morning, the day of the wedding.  We had to get to the venue at at least 1:30 with the ceremony at 2 o'clock.  I finished the cake at 11:20 in the morning!  Yikes!

Bride and Groom were pleased and I received lots of compliments, so I'm happy and, dare I say it, rather proud of myself.  ha ha!  Modest eh?

The wedding was fantastic, the bride and groom looked fabulous and the venue was gorgeous!  All in all a success for all.

Congratulations to Richard and Rachel on their marriage. xoxox

Stephanie, Stevie, Steve & Shayne's Wedding Cake

This has been a fair bit of work but I'm relatively pleased with the finished article.  Most importantly of all the Bride and Groom in question were pleased.  They seemed happy when I delivered it and that was reinforced with a lovely text message which made me all the more chuffed.

It read "Your cake was DELICIOUS!!!!! I don't even like cake and I scoffed 2 slices!!  Thank you so much for making it - everybody commented on how lovely it was!"

Mission accomplished I'd say!  Thank goodness!  I always get a bit anxious with wedding cakes.  I just want them to be perfect for such a big day.

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!