First Birthday: Hey Bear Cake

The final cake post today was a cake I did for my friends’ daughter’s first birthday. A “Hey Bear” themed cake…

I had never heard of Hey Bear, but looking it seems to be Sensory videos for babies of cute looking fruits & veg dancing to music. Queue the idea of making some of these from fondant to adorn a basic cake.

Simple in idea, but the execution was a tad more difficult due to the intricacies of the detail on each. That said, I was happy with how they turned out!

The cake went down well too – I was sent a pic of the very little cake left:

90th Birthday

I was asked to make some cupcakes for the 90th birthday of a workmate’s mother. 36 cupcakes requested:

The flavours I made were:
12 x vanilla
12 x Lemon
6 x Chocolate
6 x Banana

I made the toppers a few days before. They were made from fondant and sprayed with a little bit of pearl lustre spray to give them the glittery finish

I was happy with how they all turned out!

Charity Baking

I recently joined up to a group that bakes cakes for families who may otherwise not be able to afford / gain one for their children.

I did my first cake for a child last week. I was told it was for a three year old who liked Peppa Pig and cats. I aimed high…

Peppa Pig Cake

Flowery Birthday Cake

went to visit my friend in York and took her a mini birthday cake.

It’s a vanilla cake, with vanilla buttercream and strawberry jam.

It’s a vanilla cake, with vanilla buttercream and strawberry jam.

The colours on the outside are simply coloured buttercream that I painted on with a small paintbrush.

the flowers are fake ones bought for decoration.

Viva Als Vegas

We lost our good friend to cancer a few years back. It was when the pandemic was still rife and we couldn’t have many at his funeral/ wake.

Today would have been his 44th birthday, and we were able to have a big celebration charity fundraising event last night. It was Las Vegas themed as that was his favourite place where he visited at least once a year… Sometimes even more.

I didn’t organise the event, but I did get asked of I would make the birthday cake so that’s exactly what I did …

vanilla birthday cake with buttercream.
cupcakes to go with the cake – fondant playing cards and chocolate poker chip toppers.

The event was amazing – raising nearly £5,500 for Macmillan. We drank cocktails, gambled, bid on things at the auction, and celebrated a truly amazing man.

Recent Baking…

I’ve been bad at keeping this blog updated (again!) so here’s a selection of bakes from recent months…

First off, an Elvis themed cake for a 70th Birthday

Elvis 70th Birthday Cake

Then there was “Drunk Barbie” for an 18th Birthday (their request)

Drunk Barbie Birthday cake

Some cupcakes made for various birthdays. The first were Red Velvet cheesecake cupcakes, the next were chocolate.

Red Velvet Cheesecake Cupcakes
Chocolate Birthday Cupcakes

Finally, here’s a collection of pictures from Christmas that went to the “treat boxes” I make for friends and family…

Summer Updates

I can’t believe that I’ve not updated this blog since back in February. Oops! It seems that once again, time has flown and I’m now doing a dump of lots of cakes I’ve made this year.

No full stories, just pictures of the cakes and their descriptions

Teddy Bear Birthday cake (chocolate)
America Cake (red velvet)
Inside of the cake – flag based layers!
A mass of cupcakes for workmates when I changed reporting teams
A small wedding cake for a friend’s wedding
Alan Turing cake for Pride Month
Inside of the Pride cake – rainbow vanilla layers
Unicorn Birthday Cake
Inside of the Unicorn cake
A bright cake (lemon cake + lemon curd)
Made some mini macarons
Russian Nozzle – flower cupcakes (chocolate cake, vanilla icing)

January Birthdays

My Niece, Amber, Wanted a ballerina cake for her sixth birthday. I got it in my head that pink ruffles would be the way to do this… how much did I regret trying these when the icing kept dropping off the cake?

I suppose the plus side is that when I am not a professional and I am not getting paid, I don’t have to worry too much when things go wrong.

Another birthday treat was some chocolate cupcakes made for my sister in law’s birthday:

Nothing overly exciting for these – chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. I chucked some Cadbury Miniature Heroes on top and some blue sprinkles to bring some colour.

Red Velvet Cheesecake Cake

My workmate finished working with us a few weeks back. Normally in the office I’d take a cake in to say goodbye, but we’ve all been working from home thanks to the pandemic. Thankfully, he lives quite local so I dropped a cake to him in person to say goodbye and good luck.

He had told me he liked cheesecake. I don’t like making the crust though so I decided he could have the baked cheesecake layers sandwiched between red velvet cake layers:

a shot of the sliced cake to show the layers inside

I had stacked the layers with a cream cheese frosting, which was also used to ice the outside of the cake.

beginning to stack the cheesecake and cake layers. The cheesecake looked a lot browner on the outsides
stacked cake before it was coated with cream cheese frosting

To finish the cake, I shaved some white chocolate shards to coat the outside, and topped it off with red velvet crumbs:

coated in cream cheese frosting, white chocolate shards, and a red velvet crumb.

Christmas Treats

I got started on Christmas stuff earlier this year, and ended up with all my “home made treats” completed at the end of last week. As such I took a load around to friends’ houses to share the sugary goodness.

Some of the treats as photo’d by a friend!

The offerings were:

Chocolate Coated Oreos

These were Oreos, coating in various chocolate, and decorated to look Christmassy. Sadly I made the error of putting them in the fridge, and by the time they got delivered the milk and dark chocolate ones had bloomed.

Gingerbread Fudge

Made with white chocolate, condensed milk, ginger spice, and gingerbread cookies all broken up. Topped with some Christmas sprinkles! I used this recipe from Janes Patisserie.

Eggnog Truffles

The eggnog truffles are AMAZING if I am allowed to say so. Made with white chocolate, cream cheese, rum flavouring and nutmeg. They are very easy to make, but taste delicious. Recipe from Six Sisters Stuff.

Reindeer Brownies

Made chocolate fudge brownies, cut into squares, then topped with some edible eyes, a red m&m, and pretzels for antlers.

Peanut butter dog treats (for those with dogs!)

The dogs don’t get forgotten at Christmas – these were Peanut Butter dog biscuits made with all natural Peanut Butter. I stamped the bigger ones with dog names, but they didn’t quite show up once they had baked, hence trying to use icing pens to show the names

The recipe for the dog treats was from The Cookie Rookie.

Some of the PB dog treats in a jar
“Make your own” cookie jar

The ingredients & instructions to make their own cookies one day in the future.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!