cake – Page 4 – Kayleigh baking

November 11, 2019

Brain Cake

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 …

Bake cakes (I coloured them pink)
Stack cakes, then trim the edges. Take the off-cuts and put on the top to create a dome
Cover in buttercream (I had some red left over from other cakes so I added this too)
Colour some fondant using ivory food colouring and a tiny amount of pink

Roll the fondant out into “ropes”

Apply the ropes to cake to form “brain matter”

Coat in strawberry jam

November 1, 2019

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:

Bake 3 round cakes (I used vanilla cake dyed with pink food colouring)
Stack the cakes then cut the edges from the rounds to create the curved pieces for the dome
Cover with buttercream
Colour some fondant with ivory colouring and a drop of pink
Roll out the fondant into ropes
Apply to cake
Cover in jam

Brain Cake

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 🙂

I get to go have Champagne Afternoon Tea for 2 at Cloud 23 at the Hilton in Manchester.

July 9, 2019

Peppa Pig Birthday Cake

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!

June 19, 2019

A Cake Buffet atWork

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:

Cakesicles. These had a chocolate cake and salted caramel centre with dark chocolate coating

Chocolate cupcakes: Chocolate cake with a chocolate buttercream swirl

Vanilla cake with strawberry compote and vanilla buttercream

Lemon Cupcakes: Lemon cake with lemon curd filling, topped with lemon flavour buttercream

Vanilla Cupcake: Vanilla Cake with vanilla buttercream

Cakesicles: Blueberry muffin filling mixed with jam and buttercream, coated in white chocolate

Not on theme, but I made a gin bundt cake too!

April 23, 2019

Mum’s 60th Birthday Cakes

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.

Lemon Cupcakes – lemon buttercream rose + sprinkles to garnish

Chocolate Bundt Cakes – coated with white chocolate ganache, buttercream garnish, and sprinkles.

White chocolate covered cakesicles with vanilla & strawberry cake inside

Birthday cake – vanilla cake, strawberry jam, vanilla buttercream, sprinkles, gold writing & a cake balloon!

April 23, 2019

A Birthday Cake

Birthday Cake on Display at the Birthday Party

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).

A close-up of the cake – the topper was added after delivery.

January 23, 2019January 23, 2019

Rustic Wedding 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.

August 15, 2018

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:

July 11, 2018

Some Cupcakes

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!

July 11, 2018

Rainbow Cake

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.

Tag: cake