Under the sea themed cupcakes

I absolutely love how these cupcakes turned out.  Under the sea is a really good theme to work with, so many possibilities, and they're colourful and fun too.  These were for a children's party at a swimming club so the theme worked very well.

All the little creatures are hand made with sugarpaste and sit on top of some swirly buttercream with white sprinkles, it's hard to pick a favourite, I really like the octopus but then when I look at my Nemo-esque orange fish there, he looks so cute, how could he not be a favourite?

Topsy Turvey Celebration Cake

This is the first Topsy Turvey cake we've attempted and I'm so glad that it turned out so well.  The bottom tier is vanilla and the top tier is chocolate, both tiers have piped swirl detailing on them, these have been piped with royal icing and then painted silver.  A sugarpaste ribbon and bow have been added round the cake and painted with gold luster dust.  I find that when it comes to adding silver and gold details, it is best to use luster powders and mix them with rejuvenator spirit to create a paint, you can buy liquid silver and gold food colouring but I find that they dry out very quickly.

The trouble with these types of cakes is that they are naturally top heavy, what with having a wonky top and the base of each tier being slightly smaller than the top, you need to make sure you have a good structure and support system. 

The numbers and twirly decorations are all made from sugarpaste with a wire structure for extra stability.  These were made well in advance so they had plenty of time to dry out and harden, that way when it comes to painting them and putting them on the cake, you're less likely to squash them out of shape.

I was rather worried about delivering this cake in case any of the decorations fell off and broke but I'm glad to say that it got there in one piece and the birthday girls were delighted with their cake.

Ford Escort Rally Car Cake

This is the second Ford car we've been asked to make, this time it was an older model, a Ford Escort Mark 1 Rally car.  It's always best to spend as much time as possible carving the car shape and getting the main shape right, once that is done you can cover it with sugarpaste and concentrate on adding in all the little details. 

I always work quickly to mark out details like doors and windows before the sugarpaste hardens and then you have plenty of time to add on the other bits like lights, mirrors and wipers. 

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.

Art Deco cake & 90th birthday cake

The inspiration for this cake came from a mug, I don't know who the original artist is as there were no details, but I've recreated it on a cake.  This cake was commissioned by my mum for my aunt who happens to love  art deco and was thrilled with this cake. 

The whole cake was iced in black sugarpaste, then I rolled out a white piece of sugarpaste to the same size as the cake to paint the picture on.  Once painted I then cut round the painting and transferred it onto the cake.

I finished it off with some piped icing beads around the base of the cake in the same colour as her dress.

Here's a nintieth birthday cake we did at the weekend.  The nine is vanilla sponge with jam and buttercream and the zero is chocolate sponge with chocolate buttercream.  It's decorated with purple flowers made out of sugarpaste and has piped beads round the base of the numbers and satin ribbon. 

We were asked to add something to stick some candles on the board, so in keeping with the design of the cake, made more flowers with extra sugarpaste underneath so they could stick the candles into those.  Good job they didn't want to put 90 candles on the cake, we would've needed a sllightly bigger board!

Jungle Theme Number One Cake

As far as numbered cakes go, a number 1 is easier to ice than most other numbers, mainly because it hasn't got a hole in the middle or too many angles to worry about.  This one has some cute animals on it too, a couple of cheeky monkeys, a lion and an elephant.  They are all made out of sugarpaste and kept quite simple in design.  The cake is finished off with some tree branches and leaves piped on with royal icing, and of course, the birthday message.

Disney's Cars Tow Mater Cake

This is Tow Mater from Disney's Cars in cake form complete with rusty paint work.  Everything on this cake is edible apart from the angled piece of crane which is a wooden dowel covered in icing.  We used strawberry laces for the cable and fixed them into place with royal icing. 

After sculpting the cake and covering it with white sugarpaste I then had to hand paint all the details on, I learned my lesson from the dinosaur cake and made sure I had an assortment of paint brushes so I could cover larger areas quickly, and I'm so glad I did.  I thought hand painting would give the best result as he's rather rusty and mottled which is easier to create with painting.

And to finish it all off the board has been covered with royal icing to make it look like he's on the road to Radiator Springs.