Another family birthday means another cake. This time around the spec was “Peppa Pig” and “Normal cake” (I always assume people just mean vanilla and strawberry jam when they ask for “normal”.
As I don’t like making fondant covered cakes anymore, the below is what I came up with…
I took the above photo then remembered I’d bought some candles too.
I cheated on the cake making as I couldn’t be bothered to make my own pigs. Instead I spent £3.99 on the set from eBay.
Finally, the obligatory cake insides shot. The cake rounds were 7″ each, so that’s quite a chunk of icing for the outsides!
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”.
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.
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…
I used fondant (dyed ivory and pink) to make the “brain tissue”. I then just attached it in swirly patterns to make my 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:
Everyone told me that it turned out well – I was really impressed with it as it was quite a low effort 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.
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:
So far, all that I’ve shared are some drip cakes. I do make other things too, as the below cupcake examples will show.
I find cupcakes to be “easy” in regards to making the cakes – they are a lot quicker as naturally less cake = less cooking time. They still look good though if you put the effort in.
Eid Cupcakes
I made these for our neighbours to wish them Eid Mubarek.
Rose Swirl CupcakesI don’t recall why I made these, but they weren’t the best rose – swirls I’ve done. I think the icing was a little wet on these ones.
Oreo CupcakesI made these after we moved house two years ago. I was desperate to get baking to feel “normal” and these were a quick and easy bake. Funfetti cakes with pink icing & funfetti Oreos, and then red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing and red velvet Oreos
Thank YouI made these to thank some neighbours for their help when bad winds blew our fencing down. The style was inspired by an amazing Instagram baker – Cakes n Sprinkles
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes
These were for my friend’s birthday. Chocolate cupcakes, peanut butter icing, and various Reeses sweets on top!
The above was the result of being asked to make a “rainbow cake”. The inside consisted of seven different colour layers (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet).
I covered the cakes in vanilla buttercream, and make multicoloured ganache drips for the top.
I decorated using white chocolate jazzie sweets, white chocolate bark, and rainbow jelly laces.
It was my niece’s first birthday last week and I got asked to make her birthday cake. There were no requirements other than to make it cake flavoured.
I did have a busy weekend (a 10k run, as well as setting up for the birthday party) which meant I didn’t do anything fancy on the inside. Instead I just went for vanilla layers with jam / buttercream between them. I iced the outsides with vanilla buttercream and then added the pastel layers.