Gender Reveal Cakesicles

I got to do something new over this last week – Gender Reveal Cakesicles

My friends are having a baby (expected towards the end of next month) and asked me if I’d be willing to make some cake-pops for them to have a gender reveal party. I have mini popsicle molds, so I asked if I could do those as I’m not the best as free-shaping cake-pops. Funny enough, this was deemed to be OK.

The request was for 40 cakesicles to be made, but only one of to have the colour reveal inside. I was given the sealed paper with the baby’s gender on it, and neither parent knew what it said. I was literally the only person other than the doctors / nurses to know! My husband didn’t want to know either, so to try keep everything secret, I made both pink and blue cake fillings to ensure the mystery remained.

I made the cake and cakesicles on the Sunday. I have 2 molds, so shaped 8 at a time.

I wrapped them in greaseproof paper and put them in zip-lock bags until later in the week. The day I did this I wasn’t fully paying attention and ended up making far more cakesicles than we’d actually need. Plus side – this gave me more for practice / errors.

On Thursday, I took the cakesicles out of the freezer to defrost during the day, and then I started working on them Thursday evening.

I had bought bags of white candy-coats to use so that I wasn’t trying to colour white chocolate. I melted these a bag at a time, and after adding vegetable shortening I finally got it to a consistency I was happy with for dipping.

The dipping commenced. I dipped all of the cakesicles and picked the “best” ones for the final 40.

I had numbered the backs of all of the sticks and knew which number was the gender reveal coloured one which made it easier to keep track of for the day.

My friend had made some chocolate stars / moons which she had coloured gold, but asked that I just go with whatever I fancied for decorations. I did a collection of gold designs using glitter, gold leaf, and her toppers.

I had bought some clear plastic boxes for cakesicles, so boxed up my favourite 40. I collected these back at the party for re-using to avoid the impact of “single use” plastics.

After boxing up the best ones, I had a LOAD spare. Thankfully, we have plenty of friends and workmates to pass these on to, as well as freezing some for family next weekend (they freeze for a few months).

I kept one each of the coloured ones so that I could 1 – test to see if you could see the colour through the chocolate (you couldn’t), and 2 – to take some pictures of the cut cakesicles.

The finishing touch was adding some small gold bows to each stick which I applied with glue dots.

When it came for the actual reveal at the party, the hosts allowed everyone to pick a cakesicles from the table. I kept an eye on who chose the one with the colour in it, and then they had everyone stand in a circle. Starting at the parents to be, each person took turns in biting their cakesicles to see if it contained a colour – to make this last longer we sent the order the longest way around the circle from the person who had the reveal. They got a video of this (2 minutes 20 before the bite revealed a colour).

Oh, they’re having a boy 😊

Comic Book / Cartoon Cake

These were all over my Instagram Feed well over a year ago, so I am late to the trend. I didn’t have an excuse to make one, as all the cakes I was doing last year were specific requests so I had no creative license to give it a try.

All that said, I had a spare layer of chocolate cake and chocolate buttercream in my freezer from a charity cake I did last month. I used my Sister in Law’s birthday this week as an excuse to make a Comic Book cake for her.

If I am being fussy, the fondant is too soft and no where near neat enough, but I was ecstatic with the result for a first try frankenstein cake

The inside of the cake was chocolate overload and held together with kebab skewers to try stop it from falling apart. Not bad given it was made from “spare” cakes.

It was really fun to make a cake “just because I wanted to”.

Christmas Treat Boxes

It’s that time of year when I feel festive and want to bake treats to gift to friends. I tried a few “new” recipes this year as well as some trusted ones I’ve done before to put together these boxes

There were 6 main items in each box:

  • Brownie Doughnut – aka Bronut
  • Marshmallow Krispy Tree
  • NYC Chocolate Cookie
  • Gingerbread Blondie
  • Eggnog Truffles
  • Peppermint Oreo Bark

The recipes for each were as follows:

Bronuts were made with a recipe from Jane’s Patisserie

NYC Cookies were another from Jane’s Patisserie

The third recipe from Jane’s Patisserie were the Gingerbread Blondies

Not everything came from Jane’s Patisserie though. The Eggnog truffles were based on the recipe found here.

The Christmas trees weren’t from an online recipe. I melted a bag of (vegan) marshmallows with 3 tablespoons of baking spread and vanilla essence. I then added in the rice krispy cereal and green food dye.

I shaped the trees using a cake slice mold:

The last thing I made was the peppermint bark which again was not based on a recipe.

To make the bark, I used 300g of dark chocolate, 300g of white chocolate, oreo crumbs and peppermint candy canes.

  • Melted the dark chocolate & spread out on a lined baking tray after adding a few drops of peppermint essence.
  • added the oreo crumbs & allowed to set for 10 minutes in the fridge
  • Melted the white chocoalte & spread on top of the base
  • Crushed candy canes and sprinked them on top of the chocolate.
  • Allowed to set in fridge then broke into pieces.

Blue Baby Shower Cake

A request for a baby shower cake with blue on it came my way. When I asked if there was anything specific they wanted, I just got told “like the ones you’ve done recently but with blue” – with a picture of my pride cake from June

I did a quick doodle as above, and agreed for a white cake with blue, painted bits at the bottom (plain top).

I got sent a picture of it when it was finished with a cake topper, and I love how it looks against the balloons in the background.

Blue Birthday Cupcakes

These weren’t for anyone I knew personally, but one of Simon’s workmates asked if I would make them about 30 cupcakes for a 50th birthday.

There was a mix of 18 vanilla and 18 chocolate cupcakes

3 cakes in 1 day

It was our niece’s 6th birthday celebration on Sunday, and add to that it was the Brother in Law’s 40th that weekend too, so we decided to surprise him at her 6th Birthday “party” at our house. That was 2 cakes.

I had also kindly agreed to make a cake for a friend’s mum’s birthday, so that meant 3 cakes to sort on Saturday. I’ve never felt more like a baker, and it took the full day to decorate them all.

I’d pre-baked the layers (5″ rounds of vanilly cake for the niece, and chocolate cake for the other two) and kept them in the freezer. They always turn out amazing & it makes it so much easier to decorate from frozen.

This was the fridge throughout the Saturday:

It was just as well we have a big fridge & that what little food was in there condensed to the bottom shelf & drawers at the bottom.

These are the finished cakes that I ended up making that day:

And a few more shots of the cakes on the day:

Pride Cake

We had a Pride Day at Zen and I volunteered to bake cakes for it. I originally planned to do my striped rainbow cake again, but I couldn’t be bothered with the effort to dye and pipe all the buttercream.

I instead came up with a painted version with fondant toppers:

The main cake was vanilla sponge with strawberry jam, vanilla buttercream, and rainbow sprinkles.

I also made some vegan cupcakes to go with it – 6 each of Vanilla and Chocolate cupcakes.

Posing with my creation in all my rainbow-glory

Practice Practice Practice

I made another rainbow striped cake, this time for someone who asked me to make one for their sister’s birthday.

The stripes were definitely better this time around:

I added the banner on the top as I felt it just added that something to the cake – originally it was just going to have the candles on, but I liked the banner better. Thankfully, they did too!

The cake itself was chocolate cake layers and chocolate buttercream on the inside, then white chocolate and vanilla buttercream on the outside.

Beach Birthday Cake

I got asked to make a cake for a 60th and was asked to make a fondant -covered cake which I’ve not done in years (because I hate it). Challenge was accepted though.

I’m not overly imaginative for cake design, so asked if they had anything in mind for inspiration. This is what I was sent…

I think the result went quite well. I couldn’t be bothered to make a palm tree, but may not have had the room anyways.

I last made a beach themed cake 12 years ago… I think it’s safe to say I’ve improved little:

The inside of the cake (not pictured) was:

  • vanilla sponge
  • strawberry jam
  • Vanilla buttercream

Everything on top was made from fondant and just shaped / coloured accordingly.

Frozen Birthday Cake – Free Cakes for Kids

This cake was done as part of the Free Cakes for Kids group that I bake for. The spec: Frozen – she especially loves Elsa.

I looked online for some inspiration, and opted to make Elsa using a cake topper / cut out. When I looked for cake toppers, I thought they were over-priced for what they were. I figured I’d buy a birthday card to use but then saw a gift bag for 99p when in Poundstretcher:

Seeing the chance to save some money, I got the bag & made my own topper using kebab sticks

The drip was made with white chocolate and silver lustre dust. I added some sprinkles and edible glitter for the finishing touches, as well as a candle I picked up at Asda for £1