Cow Cake

My Latest creation was for one of my very best friends, Rachel, who has a real thing for cow print! Well, I say that, she keeps meaning to buy a cow hide rug....... So I thought in lieu of the rug I'd make a cow print cake for her. After deliberating about what to put on top as a finishing touch, I went for the white bow - simple, yet effective. Chocolate cake inside, 3 layers, with Galaxy caramels in the first buttercream layer and white buttons in the second. I hope she has a sharp knife tomorrow, Happy Birthday Rachel, x

'As You Like It' Christmas Cake 2011

Ok, so time for Christmas Cake..... I hate traditional Fruit Cake so this year I have decided to invent my own 'As You Like It,' alternative Christmas cake.

The preparations began this morning after my Tesco delivery. I am not a fan of raisins, hate currants and sultanas and citrus zest, well........ So I spent a while thinking about what dried fruits I actually liked, what could be eliminated from a traditional recipe and suitable replacement ingredients.

The dried fruit I opted for was as follows; dates, figs, apricots and chewy bananas. I added half a jar of stem ginger and then used ginger wine as my soaking alcohol. I also added pecans for a bit of texture and maple syrup as a liquid replacement for the orange juice which I am going to eliminate when baking (we'll see!).

So far, it smells fabulous - but I am a ginger fan - and looks like something I may well like to eat!

Here's a photo at this stage, I'll keep you posted.

Peppa Pig Cake

This Peppa Pig cake was for a friend's daughter's 3rd birthday party. 2 Tiers of Madiera cake with strawberry jam and vanilla butter cream. I must admit, having laid the blue and green fondant on the cakes I did start to worry that I had bitten off more than I could chew..... but I think without all the detail on any cake then it's pretty unimpressive.

I made the figures a couple of days in advance and really struggled with those as the fondant was just not playing! I also struggled with how to attach the sun to the top and eventually settled on slightly clumsy looking lollipop sticks. In the end the amount of detail detracted from the minor imperfections (I hope) and the overall impression was just about satisfactory.

It really wasn't fun transporting it on my knee in the car for half an hour though!

(Emily Elephant never made it!!)

Christmas Cake 2010

This Christmas cake was a last minute effort!! I used Nigella's Christmas cake recipe which required no preparation and was very easy to make, it involved simmering all ther fruit in alcohol rather than soaking it for weeks. I have no idea how good it tasted - I hate fruit cake!

The inspiration for the decoration came from a Christmas card of Scandanavian design. Fairly simple but quite effective I think.

Zebra Print Cake 2

This was one of the first cakes I made after returning to the UK from Australia, all new ingredients and all new kitchen! Inside the zebra print decoration were 2 tiers of chocolate mud cake, covered with vanilla buttercream. Again, not fun making the black icing, after I'd finished I read online that when needing black icing, it was better to start with chocolate fondant. I still haven't tried this, but I will next time!

Jess's Birthday Cake

This was my first attempt at chocolate.....a 6" caramel mud cake with white chocolate ganache and white chocolate decoration. It took quite a while to do all the different parts of this cake, melting the chocolate, letting it set, guessing the right temperature to start playing with it again, but it was worth the effort. Looked great, tasted even better and even attempted my own fabric bow (thank you 'You Tube' once again!)

Zebra Print Cake

A Simple 9" mud cake, made for my Husband's cousin, Danica. This was one of the 1st fondant cakes I made, I took me a while to make the black icing,  messy business! I found a pizza cutter really useful for cutting out the stripes and watched a 'You Tube' video to figure out how to make the bow. Not too sure about the flowers now I look back at it!!

Elmo Cake

This Elmo cake was a simple cake that I made for the actual day of my daughters' 2nd Birthday. More chocolate mud cake. It went down very well, apart from actualyy cutting into Elmo's head, which proved to be quite traumatic for the little ones!

Hungry Caterpillar Cake

For My daughter's 2nd birthday party I really wanted to create a fabulous Hungry Caterpiller cake. She loved the Eric Carle books and the DVD.
The Hungry Caterpillar cake had a custard sponge with custard filling for the top tier and chocolate mud cake with vanilla buttercream for the bottom tier.
This cake was the 1st 2 tier cake I had made and only the 3rd fondant cake I had ever made.
The only problems I had were getting the bits of the Caterpillar to stick to the fondant as I'd made them too thick and heavy. Also, the no. 2 I originally had sticking out the top of the cake snapped - I didn't know about Patische or tylose at this point - but the lollys were a good substitute.

Overall, I was pleased with the result, but it took me HOURS!!!!