Rainbow Birthday Cake

Rainbow Cake – pre delivery

My niece turned 4 at the start of January and her request was for a “Colourful rainbow” cake. I asked if she wanted the inside to be the same, and the response was “purple and yellow”.

I clearly do as I am told!

insides of the cake
a nicer shot of the cake with candles on top

Rustic Wedding Cake

Playing with different backgrounds

Some friends got married this week and were having a simple service with “no fuss”. I wanted to make a fuss so I made them this small wedding cake. It’s a basic vanilla / strawberry jam on the inside with vanilla buttercream too.

I used Wilton Whitest White to get the icing colour right, and sprayed a pearl spray on at the end to give it the shiny finish.

The flowers were just artificial ones to finish it off.

My favourite background

For my birthday last year, I was given a photo box thing to take photos in, but I’m lazy and so had rarely used it. I decided to use it for some shots of this cake.

Taking fancy shots in my kitchen

Small Birthday Cake

Another bake this month was this “Mini” cake for my Grandma’s 80th Birthday. We made a hamper for her full of nice things, and the cake was a small addition.

It’s just vanilla cake, with jam and vanilla buttercream. The daffodils are fake.

Goth Unicorn Cake

This was a small change from a “normal” unicorn cake in that they wanted more black on it. Queue the black, pink and purple swirls & a black horn.

I also added some silver lustre dust to the horn and ears which made them look a little more gun-metally.

I didn’t snap a photo this time around, so here’s a link to the instagram video instead:

 

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Christmas Sugar Cookies

I had big intentions to get some Christmas baking done this year. I’d bought loads of Christmas sprinkles and cake toppers, but ended up with very little time due to other commitments (parties, meeting friends, more baking!)

I did however manage to bake and decorate some Sugar Cookies which I brought to work for colleagues.

Gingerbread Men

 

Christmas Trees

Snowflake Stars

Mini Pumpkin Cakes

I love the autumn. One of the reasons I love going to visit the USA in “fall” is because of the amount of pumpkin flavoured foods I can get. Whenever I can, I try to make things at home too that have been inspired by my love of the USA.

Today, this inspiration let to me making mini pumpkin cakes.

The first finished pumpkin cake

I started by making my basic cake mix and adding in tinned pumpkin and pumpkin pie spices. I baked these in my mini bundt pan:

I trimmed the cakes to make them shorter, and then stacked them. I sandwiched the layers with a cream cheese icing.

The next step was coating the cakes in orange buttercream

buttercream coating added

I shaped the cakes using a yogurt pot to smooth the edges and add ridges too. The final stage was  to add a stalk made from tootsie roll:

The first finished pumpkin cake

I wanted them to look a little more professional, but they didn’t turn out too bad overall.

Boxed up to take to work this week.

Brain Cake

I feel really into Halloween this year. I’ve got plans to carve two bulldog pumpkins (One for work and one for home) and I’ve just spent today decorating mini pumpkin cakes made from mini bundt cakes.

Yesterday, we went to our friends’ house for a Halloween gathering.

Although we went Day of the Dead style (thanks to some half price outfits purchased last year), they had a “mad science” theme so I decided to have a go at making a brain cake.

 

I started earlier in the week by baking some vanilla cake layers and dyed them with red food dye. I had ran out of gel colour though and had to resort to liquid – this resulted in pink cakes and not red. I covered in a buttercream coating, and shaped it as best as I could work out freehand…

Prepping the brain cake

I used fondant (dyed ivory and pink) to make the “brain tissue”. I then just attached it in swirly patterns to make my brain.

Starting the brain tissue

Half a brain

After completing the first half of the cake, I continued the “twizzling” with the other side of the cake until it was fully covered.

To finish the cake, I covered it in a seedless strawberry jam which gave it a shiny, bloody glaze:

Finished brain cake

Everyone told me that it turned out well – I was really impressed with it as it was quite a low effort cake!

At the party, knife inserted!

 

New York Cake

I love New York. It’s one of my favourite places I’ve been on my travels and I’ll happily go there again (I’ve been there four times and counting). There’s jut something about the place that makes me smile.

Earlier this year I got asked to make a fortieth birthday cake for my friend. The spec was “red velvet, and maybe USA themed”. I used it as an excuse to make this New York themed cake.

I used some sugar paper cut outs for NY themed decorations (Big Apple, Statue of Liberty, I <3 NY, etc). I then topped the cake with USA Candy to finish it off.

Last Minute Wedding Cake

This post was originally on my old website, but figured it was another good one to share on here….

In November, my parents’ friends were let down by their cake maker and I got asked around a week before if I’d be able to make something for them. I could do anything – their theme was poppies as they were getting married on Remembrance Day. This was the results of my labour:

I spent most of the evenings in the run up to their wedding making things for the cake. Due to the last minute request, I had no time left to book any leave from work. I ended up making over 100 cupcakes (red were vanilla and white were lemon). I made the poppy toppers by hand cutting out and shaping fondant, and topping with glitter.

The top of the cake tower was a three layer vanilla sponge with jam and buttercream. It was not quite as neat as I would have liked, but the fondant tore three times when I was trying to decorate it, and this was the best I could manage at 10pm the night before their wedding!

It didn’t turn out too bad though – and the bride and groom were very happy with the result: