Cakes Lizzie has made, to bring joy to her friends and family
A chance to practice my sugar flowers. This time using gumpaste and individually wired petals for the lillies and hydrangea. The roses were left over from a previous cake. Almond rose cake with raspberry curd filling.
A little 4″ cake I made for Andrew for Valentine’s day. I really liked the effect with the hearts and the sugarpaste layers. I only wish I’d not used up old scraps for the hearts so that they would have looked cleaner – oh, well. Almond rose cake with raspberry curd filling.
This cake was a bit of a disappointment. I made it for a friend’s father’s birthday, in his team’s colours – red, black and white. I bought the red sugarpaste pre-coloured, and it was really difficult to use. It kept tearing and did not lie well. I used sugarpaste for the bow too, which was a bit of an experiment.
A cake for Andrew’s work. I got to choose how to decorate it so was able to do a design I’d been wanting to do. Vertical ruffles and roses all made out of sugarpaste. Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling.
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For Kirsty’s 10th Birthday I made two cakes – one for her party and one for her to take to her Social Communication Skills Group. The one for the group was a gluten-free chocolate cake filled with dark chocolate ganache and covered in sugarpaste. It was decorated with a hand-modelled unicorn topper, made by following the tutorial here: http://cakecentral.com/b/tutorial/how-to-make-a-fondant-unicorn-cake-topper, and hand-painted bunting.
The cake for her party was a chocolate cake, filled with peppermint buttercream and covered in sugarpaste. I re-used the unicorn, but painted the mane to match the colours of the sugarpaste. I then gave my children and a friend some different colours of sugarpaste and some cutters, and let them loose. I think they did a great job!
A cake for a friend’s daughter’s 3rd birthday. Chocolate cake filled with with chocolate orange buttercream on the bottom tier and vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream on the top. The “head” was modelled from Rice Krispie Treats. Everything was covered in dark chocolate ganache. I am really becoming a big fan of using ganache as a crumb-coat/undercoat on my cakes. It took a bit of getting used to, but it gives a really good, smooth and firm surface to then cover with sugarpaste. The key is to make sure that the ganache is the right consistency – not too stiff so that it pulls the cake apart, but not so runny that it just slips down the cake. I use two layers of ganache – one to cover the cake and then a runnier one to fill in any slight flaws. The key to getting a smooth finish is to keep at it! Just go round and round again and again until the finish is a smooth as you can get it. There are many great tutorials on how to ganache a cake, so I’ll not go on about it any more. I’ll just finish by saying that it is much easier to put fondant on a cake that has been covered in ganache than one that has been covered in buttercream. It gives you much nicer edges.
A gluten-free chocolate cake for a 10th Wedding Anniversary. Filled and covered with dark chocolate ganache, then covered and decorated with sugarpaste. I actually used a pearl edible lustre spray to lift the colours a bit after this photo was taken.
A cake for Laura’s 18th Birthday. The bottom tier was chocolate cake filled with chocolate buttercream; the middle tier was vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream; and the top tier was lemon cake with lemon buttercream. All the tiers were covered with dark chocolate ganache and sugarpaste. I then stacked the cakes and splattered runny royal icing in three bright colours all over the cake (and the table, and the floor, and myself…). It was great fun to do! I then finished it off with some bright ribbons.
A Harry Potter themed cake. Chocolate cake, covered in dark chocolate ganache and sugarpaste. Modelling chocolate/sugarpaste decorations.
The cake was carved to look like a book, and I scored the edges and then dusted them with petal dust to make it look antique. I was quite please with how the cake board turned out – it was just covered with sugarpaste, scored to mimic the planks and then painted with brown food colouring mixed with vodka to make a paint.
A quick, informal cake. Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. Modelling chocolate leaves and hand-modelled acorns.
Sweet Joy Cakes 