Posted on

Yellow Rose

I offered to make a cake for a friend’s mum’s 70th birthday.  She gave me pretty much free reign with the design but I felt that a simple floral arrangement would be appropriate – plus I wanted an excuse to practise my flowers.

The top tier is a boiled fruit cake recipe that has been handed down from my grandmother.  The bottom tier is a simple vanilla cake.

I followed Kara Andretta’s sugar rose tutorial on YouTube to make the rose.  I re-used the buds from my floral wreath but dusted them a peach colour.  The Ivy was new but the daisies were also from the wreath.

I really like how the colours work together.

Posted on

Ruffles and Ice

This one kind of got away from me a bit!  I offered to make a cake for a friend’s daughter’s second birthday.  She gave me the theme “Frozen”, so I had a think about conveying that theme without resorting to the cliches.

I wanted to do the modern scrunched ruffles in a diagonal up the cake, but I just couldn’t get them to hold their shape properly in the time I was willing to spend on it.  So I went with the more traditional straight ruffles and am glad in the end, as I think the scrunched ruffles would have been too bulky.

For the “ice”,  I made some forms out of tin foil and melted Glacier mints in them.  I then swirled blue colouring in the melted sugar and once it was hardened I broke the pieces up into different sizes of shards.

Not neccesarily the most toddler-ific cake design, but she liked it and I loved the effect.

Posted on

Boat

A double chocolate cake for a little boy’s first birthday.  It is a boat and character from a children’s TV show.

My first time carving to this extent.  Covered with dark chocolate ganache and a sugarpaste/modeling chocolate mix.

Posted on

Chocolate and Bow

A very quick and simple cake for a friend’s son’s birthday.

Chocolate orange cake, covered with dark chocolate ganache and decorated with modeling chocolate bow.

Posted on

Daisies and Stormtroopers

I was asked to make the wedding cake and groom’s cake for the wedding of some friends’ daughter.  They had already picked the design for the wedding cake but their other baker had to pull out.  They also wanted the Stormtroopers and Lego topper for the groom’s cake, which again limited my scope for design.

The drive to the venue was nerve-wracking as it was a very hot day and I was worried about the daisies.  I had cut them out of sugarpaste to make them more edible, but it meant that they were much more fragile.  There was a high rate of attrition while attaching them to the cake, but actually only a couple of them were damaged in transit.

I transported the cake in two parts and added more daisies to complete the design when we arrived.

Vanilla, chocolate and lemon cakes for the wedding cake, chocolate cake for the groom’s cake.

Posted on

Woodland Fox

A cake for Rosie’s birthday.  I modeled the fox out of Rice Crispie treats and modeling chocolate.  The cake was a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream, and the decorations were modeling chocolate.

Posted on

Olive’s cake

A quick and simple vanilla sponge for a friend from church.  I re-used the sugar flowers from a previous cake.

Posted on

Spring floral wreath

A just for fun cake!  I made a wreath out of gumpaste apple blossoms, rose buds and filler flowers.  It was placed on top of a simply ganached dark chocolate cake.

Posted on

Sugar Roses

A friend requested a red sugar rose and a dozen buds to go on her daughter’s birthday cake.  I had good fun making these.

Posted on

Minecraft Cube

For Ewan’s 10th Birthday he wanted a Minecraft cake.  This cake actually amazed me – I baked, torted, filled and ganached it at home, then took it frozen down to Suffolk for our holiday, where I handpainted the side panels.  Then it traveled all the way to Dorset where we were having a family reunion.  I constructed it there and Ewan and his cousin made the figures to go on the top.

Chocolate cake filled with chocolate buttercream, covered with dark chocolate ganache and decorated with handpainted sugarpaste panels.