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!

Christmas Cakes

Here are my Christmas offerings.  I baked 4 fruit cakes at the same time in my Alan Silverwood folding 12" square tin and used the dividers to batch bake 4 x 6" squares.  I left them a few weeks before putting on my marzipan and then, after a few days allowing that to dry a bit, applied white sugar paste to 2 and navy blue to the other 2.  This is the result.  Hubby did the snowflake one which I think was simple but effective.  Square cakes are trickier to cover than round ones, but I didn't do too badly.  Santa and his sleigh were made using a patchwork cutter.  My Mum sat and patiently cut that out and so the pieces had dried out and were ready to assemble so I had the easy bit.  Christmas candle cakes were inspired by a bigger design in Cake magazine from a couple of years ago.  I added a few ideas of my own, but I think it turned out to be quite effective.  Hubby picked up some really nice boards and presentation boxes from A Piece of Cake so that cakes could be presented to Grandmother's and parents.

Angry Birds

Another year has passed and another party for Leo.  This time, the theme is Angry Birds as I suppose that must be all the rage.  I just about know what it is although I'm not down with the kids of today, so some Googling was required.

This is what I came up with in the end, although my piping went somewhat wonky.  Not my strongest point my piping!  Leo was happy with it and so was his Mum and the guests at his bowling party so I guess mission accomplished none-the-less.  It was a chocolate sponge cake which was apparently tasty, so it's all good.  Fancy being 5 already! Wow!