Jubilee weekend cakes

This Union Jack cake was donated by us for a Jubilee event and it was being auctioned off to raise money for Help for Heroes, we were glad to hear that it went for £60 and we hope the purchasers of this cake are tucking in and enjoying it.  We were busy with other cake orders over the weekend including various cupcake orders, and here are some of the cakes we did.

Here's a birthday cake we did featuring the main characters from In the Night Garden.

 

A scrummy triple chocolate cake.

And a small selection of some of the cupcakes we made.  We hope everyone had a good long weekend and enjoyed that extra bank holiday, shame about the good old british weather!

Cakes from the weekend

This Sleeping Beauty cake is all cake, she's been carved out of sponge and covered bit by bit with sugarpaste.  Each colour has been applied in separate pieces as I didn't want to have multi layers of icing, it takes a bit longer to cover a cake in this way, but it means you still only get one layer of sugarpaste, which makes eating the cake more pleasant.  Unless of course you like lots of thick icing. 

Here's a cake we did for a Colchester United fan, the badge has been made with sugarpaste and the eagle has been piped on with royal icing.  This cake turned out to be quite a whopper, without the icing on, it was already 5 inches deep, well it did need to feed  up to 30 people.

We also had an order for our popular triple chocolate cake with a box of strawberry cupcakes, and judging by the lovely comment we received, it went down very well indeed.

Triple Chocolate Cake

Another triple chocolate cake, this time with some simple decoration, a border of crispy chocolate sprinkles and some white chocolate piping, scrummy!

Cakes, a break, then more cakes

We've just had a lovely break away in Northern Ireland, catching up with friends and getting out and about, and eating lots of food!  We had a great time but we had a massive cake to make just before we left, this speed boat which is 30" long!  The picture doesn't really give you a sense of the scale but take my word for it, it's big, and very heavy.


Speed Boat Cake

The whole thing is cake, including the seat at the rear of the boat, I made that using some of the off cuts of sponge.  The only thing that isn't edible is the railing as it has a wire frame inside.  It was for a company in Brightlingsea called Morgan Marine and they were celebrating 40 years in business, they were having a big party so needed a big cake, and that's what they got.


Triple chocolate cake with strawberries

We also had this triple chocolate cake to deliver on the same day along with 6 cupcakes.  Needless to say we were pretty tired by the end of the day, all that was left to do was pack for our holiday and get some sleep, unfortunately we had to be leaving by 3.30am in order to drive up to Scotland to catch our ferry, so didn't get much sleep at all. 

Whilst it was nice to have a break from baking, we knew it wasn't going to be long before we started up again as we had an order for 40 cupcakes to be delivered the next day we got back.  So on went the oven as soon as we got in at 10.30pm on Saturday.  Nothing like getting right to it. 

The cupcakes were a mixture of some of our flavoured cupcakes and we were asked to decorate one with some wire strands with the number 40 on, as it was for a 40th birthday celebration. 

It was my Dad's birthday on Saturday and he'd asked us to make some cake bites so he could take them into work, so we got busy making those, as well as his belated birthday cake.


Dave the Minion Cake

Yes this is the cake he wanted, Dave the Minion from Despicable Me, which he thought was great.  And we even got to have some of this cake, and it was delicious, Jay certainly bakes a good cake.   
So we're already back in the swing of cake making after our break, feels like we were never away!

A Trio Of Cakes

Mobility Van Birthday Cake

So here's the cake I mentioned from my last post, a van cake with models of a mobility scooter, riser armchair and an adjustabed.  Why the mobility theme?  Because the receiver of this cake works for Willowbrook who sell all these items, and that's the van he drives. 

All the models are made from edible materials but are not edible due to them having wire supports inside them.  This was to ensure they kept their shape and to add extra strength to them, especially the armchair as it needed to be in the riser position, which is tipped forward.  I covered this board with royal icing as I wanted to add some texture, plus it sets hard so would act as a good glue for the models, I didn't want them toppling over in transit.  And inside that van cake is a four layered chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream, well most of it is four layers!

Pink Flower Birthday Cake

We also had an order for a couple of big 12" cakes, one with vanilla sponge and icing and a triple chocolate cake.  Here's the sponge cake we did, it's decorated simply with some organza ribbon and some icing flowers. 

These flowers were made using a rose calyx cutter in three different sizes.  I used some pink sugarpaste icing rolled fairly thin, cut out various sizes and placed them onto a folded up clean tea towel.  The tea towel is to help form the shape of the flower when using shaping tools, it's an alternative to a flower pad in case you don't have one.  To add some detail I scored a line down the middle of each petal and made a central dip in the middle of the flower using a ball tool, doing this helps to turn the petals up so they don't rest flat.  I left them to air dry for a while then painted the centre of each petal with a darker pink colour and the outside area with a shimmery white colour.  I used red food colouring mixed with some white lustre dust and rejuvenator spirit to make a paint.  The white paint is just white lustre dust and rejuvenator spirit.  The lustre dust helps to give the flowers a subtle shimmery effect.


Stars Triple Chocolate Cake

And here's the other 12" cake we did, our popular triple chocolate cake, this time decorated with chocoalte stars.  I've used Milky Way Magic Stars around the bottom and top edge of the cake as a border, and simply sprinkled tiny chocolate stars on top of the cake, the message is piped in white chocolate and I also added a white chocolate border to the very bottom of the cake, mainly to break up all that chocolatey brown colour.

Another Busy Week

Cupcakes, Computer Cake, Giant Triple Chocolate Cupcake & a Triple Chocolate Cake

I've been so busy I've not had a chance to blog about the cakes we did last week.  We had a bit of a mixture, lots of cupcakes as well as a novelty cake and a triple chocolate cake. 

The novelty cake was a 3D computer cake, there's a lot of cake inside that computer monitor and it was so heavy.  Thankfully Jay had the task of carrying it into the venue (which meant a short walk down a busy high street and up some stairs at the venue) I was the driver so got the easy part of the delivery.  The keyboard and mouse are mainly for decoration but completely edible, if you like rice krispie treats covered in fondant icing that is.  You can't really see in the picture but the keyboard has the exact amount of keys on it and all the letters, numbers and symbols, all painted on with my teeny weeny paint brush.  The screen has been printed onto rice paper using edible inks, I thought this would make it look more realistic, plus it would have taken an incredibly long time to paint all that detail!

I've been making more cake bites too, this time I made some to give as a gift.  The cake bites have been loved by everyone who's tried them so I think we'll start selling them soon.

Boxed Cake Bites

The white chocolate covered cake bites are lemon flavoured and the chocolate ones have crushed Cadbury Crunchie pieces in.  We have plans to do some other flavours too, a bit like with our cupcakes, we'll have a good choice to choose from.

We've got a couple more orders to do this week which will keep us busy.  I've already made a start on some models for one cake, and I can say I've never had to make anything quite like it before, more details on that once it's been delivered.  Making bespoke cakes is always interesting, because people want cakes that are personal to them, they're always different.

Busy, busy, busy

Strawberry Cupcakes

What a busy week we had last week, not that I'm complaining.  We've had orders for cupcakes, Mother's Day cakes and a wedding cake to do.  These strawberry cupcakes are proving to be quite popular and we'll soon be able to go and pick our own strawberries from the local farm, while you can get strawberries all year round, they are at their best during the summer months.  The buttercream is made with real strawberries, crushed through a sieve, to add a hint of strawberry flavour and to give it that lovely pink colour flecked with tiny pieces of strawberry.  The finishing touch is simply a whole strawberry dipped in white chocolate.


Whippy Cupcakes & Strawberry Cupcakes

 Another popular flavour we do is the Whippy, inspired by the 99 ice cream.  A vanilla sponge topped with piped swirled vanilla buttercream, a few chocolate strands and the all important Cadbury Flake.


Plain white wedding cake, with ribbon decoration

 We had a 3 tier wedding cake to do, with different flavour cakes, the bottom tier is vanilla sponge with raspberry jam and buttercream filling, the second tier is chocolate with chocolate buttercream filling and the top tier is fruit cake.  This cake was being decorated by the bride so we just had to provide the cake, we added a white satin ribbon trim which could be removed easily if not needed, but we felt it needed it to add a little something, it looked a little too plain!  I took a few photos with coloured ribbon and an artificial flower to make the photo a bit more interesting. 


Personalised assorted cupcakes, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and lemon

These cupcakes were personalised to say thanks Amanda and we had to make a variety of flavours and designs.  We went for vanilla sponge and topped with lilac vanilla buttercreram, chocolate ganache, strawberry, and a lemon cupcake with a lemon curd filling and lemon curd buttercream.  The purple flowers and discs are made from white sugar paste and dusted with purple lustre dust and royal icing piped design and message.  What better way to say thank you than with cupcakes?

Our triple chocolate cake never fails to disappoint and we were asked to make one for Mother's Day, I decorated it simply with a few wafer daisies and some white chocolate piped decoration and message.
 

Mother's Day Cupcakes

 

These pretty cupcakes were for a Mother's Day order we had.  The lilac ones are vanilla with sugar sprinkles and a wafer flower, the yellow ones are lemon curd buttercream with a lemon curd filling and covered with pink sugar sprinkles, and the pink ones are filled with raspberry jam, topped with vanilla buttercream and covered in lots of tiny sprinkles and decorated with small sugar paste flowers.  I made a batch of these sugar paste flowers in advance so they would dry harder, that way they are easier to handle when sticking them to the cake, rather than accidently squishing them.  I mixed up a little pale yellow icing to pipe in the centre of the flowers to give them more detail.

We liked these so much we made more to give to our mums on Mother's Day too.  They went down a treat.

More chocolate please!

Triple chocolate cake with chocolate roses

Another scrummy chocolate cake.  Again with simple decoration, piped white chocolate scrolls, hearts and message and some chocolate roses.  This cake has been completely covered in chocolate ganache, with chocolate buttercream sandwiched between the sponge.

BAKING TIP

• Try adding a splash of milk to your cake mix if you find your chocolate sponge a tad dry, it's always best to add a bit more liquid to the mix when adding more dry ingredients such as cocoa. 

Triple Chocolate Birthday Cake

Triple chocolate birthday cake

Keeping things simple with this cake.  It's a moist chocolatey sponge with chocolate buttercream filling and topped with a generous helping of chocolate ganache.  It's decorated simply with white chocolate. 

The message has been piped on and the blue chocolate buttons are just melted white chocolate with some food colouring mixed in, piped into button shapes on parchment paper, left to set and then added to the cake.

BAKING TIPS

• When colouring chocolate always use food colouring paste or dusting powders, as liquid colourings will not mix well with the chocolate.  Adding liquid to chocolate will cause the chocolate to seize. 
• Be careful with how much food colouring you use too, the more you put in, the stronger the concentration, which may result in a nice bold shade but your tongue will show the evidence of what you've been eating!!
• Add the colouring a little at a time using a cocktail stick, food colouring pastes are quite strong so a little goes a long way.
• When piping with chocolate, allow the melted chocolate to cool first, that way it won't be quite as runny, you won't burn yourself and it won't melt your cake topping.  Don't worry about it setting before it's cool enough to pipe with, it will take rather a long time to set completely at room temperature.