A place to show off the things I have baked
It’s my niece’s birthday on the 4th January and she sent me a video in December asking me to please make a “Unicorn Cake with all the colours” because “I love unicorns”.
I hadn’t been asked to make a unicorn in well over a year, but it seems 5 year olds still like them.
The inside was 5 coloured layers to make it rainbow-esque and these turned out a bit brighter than I thought they would be.
In my last post I showed the cake that I entered for my work’s Halloween Baking contest. I entered a “Brain Cake” which is exactly what it sounds like – a cake shaped like a brain.
It’s surprisingly easy to make …
I was planning on making a cake for my work colleagues for Halloween, but then work announced a Baking Contest so I had to get creative. The idea is that staff enter a cake that gets judged, and then they sell off slices of cake for our nominated charity.
I had three ideas, but could only enter one. I ended up making all 3 anyway (further posts to come) but entered one and just gave the rest for selling to raise money as it was all for charity anyway.
The cake I decided to enter was my Brain Cake
I made one of these last year, and it is surprisingly easy to make. The Gallery below roughly shows the steps, but essentially:
The bakers in work are really good so there was some stiff competition! The next gallery shows some of the cakes that entered – you’ll see that the decorating work on the cauldron was really good!
Judging took place based on Appearance and taste. I was happy to say that I won the contest đŸ™‚
I get to go have Champagne Afternoon Tea for 2 at Cloud 23 at the Hilton in Manchester.
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!
It’s been a year since I got some software in work that I never thought I’d get, so I used this as an excuse to bake a load of cakes and share them with my work colleagues…
The Blue theme was literally because I bought a Dr. Oetker sprinkle-mix that I liked the colour of. Some more details on each item follow:
My mum had an early celebration for her 60th Birthday so of course I used this excuse to make her a cake. The plan started with a Balloon Cake (as I had been wanted to make one of these for a while) and quickly escalated from there.
In the end I made a cake table with multiple types of cake.
I was asked to create this birthday cake based on a design I got sent over email. A simple pastel cake (though not quite as pastel as I’d have liked – damned bold food colouring!).
It was a vanilla cake with strawberry filling and vanilla buttercream (my standard go-to cake).
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.
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.
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 Cupcakes
I 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 Cupcakes
I 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 You
I 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!