Pony Cake

I made this cake for my daughter as she was having a pony party with some of her school friends. The pony is made from sugar paste and based on an idea in a Maisie Parish book . This is like an earlier cake I had made for someone else which you can also see on this blog.

80th Birthday Cake

A friend asked me to make this cake for her parents, who share the same birthday. In their younger days Pat was a seamstress and Bob was a coalman, so I modeled a Singer sewing machine and a sack of coal as requested. The style of the cake is based on another 80th cake I had done for my own father with playing cards on it, like a present bursting open. As my friend asked, I tried to make it very visual with contrasting colours in cerise, black and silver. I hope the cake helps to make it a celebration to remember.

Diamond Wedding Cake

This is an 8" sponge cake I made for my sister-in-law, who wanted it as a surprise present for her parents, to help celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary. I bought the sparkly '60' on a wire and the 'diamond' effect trim to match it. She wanted to include two walking sticks on the cake so I tried to position them to look like a realistic pose, but also forming the shape of a heart between the couple. They are made in mexican paste so they harden. They may be a little large but I needed them to be tough enough not to break when I was attaching them to the figures.The letters are dusted in snowflake lustre powder ,as are the hearts on wires arranged around the number in the posy pick. The lady's glasses are made from a white paper coated wire. The diamond trim, which is stuck onto the ribbon with Royal Icing, is very sparkly, as you can see by the reflections it is creating around the cake board when we used a flash on the camera. I hope they enjoy their special day and that this cake brings a smile ,along with the many other surprises in store. It is quite something to reach such a milestone!

60th Birthday Cake

This is a cake that is a variation of another cake I had done. The lady wanted it for her husband but requested a Manchester United F.C. shirt instead of a Liverpool F.C.one and on a laptop instead of with a football. She also specified which drink cans to model. I made the laptop with flower paste mixed with modelling paste to give it more strength and dried it over a folded piece of card to get the right angle. It was fun making the cans and other objects around him. I hope I didn't make too many cans of drink as he may think it gives the wrong impression of him to his friends! The smaller stars around the sign are coated in disco white hologram powder which will give it some sparkle under lighting at the evening celebration. As the top is all on a cake card it can be removed and saved as a keepsake. The icing rope covers the edge between the top card and the cake itself. If you want to see the original cake design look up 21st cakes in the side bar.

Graduation Cake

This is a 9" square sponge cake a lady asked me to make for her husband who, as a mature student, had just graduated from John Moore's University to become a social worker. The main colours were based on the navy cap and gown with grey sash that he wore at the graduation ceremony. He also wore a pale blue shirt so I restricted my colours to grey, navy and pale blue. I used a black edible food pen to write suitable titles onto the books I modelled to place under his feet and on the cake itself. I piped around the base of the cake and attached a navy blue ribbon with softened sugar paste. I piped the message onto a white scroll of icing using Royal Icing coloured navy, then attached it to the top with boiled water. Around the board I made a tiled pattern to contrast with the smooth finish on the cake. The sparkly stars are just a finishing touch to a celebration cake for a great achievement.

Posy of flowers Cake

This is an 8" sponge cake I made for my friend whose nan was celebrating her 88th birthday. Her favourite colour is lilac so I chose lilac ribbons then decided to complement the lilac with soft peach roses dusted with ruby powder . I modeled some deeper lilac fantasy flowers with cotton stamens dusted with grape shimmer and interspersed them with the roses, ribbons and pearls. I used some of the lilac ribbon to wrap around the posy pick and create two tails . The flowers take a lot of time to make but I wanted it to be an elegant cake for a special celebration.

Pokemon Cake

This is a stacked cake with a 9" sponge cake on the bottom tier and a 6" cake on top that I made for my youngest son's birthday. It was fun for Joseph to help design his cake and choose which Pokemon characters he wanted to include on it. I bet you may be able to guess which is which by their names :- Dugtrio, Lugia, Tangela, Spinark and Ditto. Joseph modelled Ditto by himself. Joseph is painted onto the sign in edible black in Unknown Pokemon writing. I modelled him sitting on the top wearing an 'Ash' cap and holding his Pokeball. Lugia's wings were made separately then attached last with Royal icing and supported with sponge until it had set. I used green and red on his top to match in with the lower tier. Joseph and his friends enjoyed pulling everything off and eating all the characters before starting on the cake itself!

Red Roses Cake

I was asked to make this 8" round sponge cake for a lady who loves red roses and had been at a party where I had made the pink roses and carnations cake. This time I only made red roses, ribbon loops, pearls and rose leaves. I was asked to give it an organza ribbon and bow, so I offset the cake towards the back of the cake drum to leave room for the bow ans some smaller rose buds and jewels. Although it is quite time-consuming, I really enjoy making flowers from Petal Paste, and the leaves are brushed with confectioner's glaze to give them a sheen.

Roses and carnations

This is a hexagonal sponge cake with jam and buttercream filling. I made the 5 roses and 3 carnations in advance, as well as some ribbon loops and pearls on wires. I used a posy pick to arrange them on the top of the cake but stuck the side ones into a small piece of modelling paste after having piped a shell trail around the cake. The pink organza ribbon is simply tied around the sides with a bow at the front. Once the flowers have been made it is very simple to create a finished cake. I wanted to create a simple but elegant cake which I hope I achieved.

Decorator's Cake

I made this 9" sponge cake for a man who ran his own decorating business. I wanted to put his age on the middle of the cake but decided to model him trying to roll over it in red paint , as many of us prefer to try and blot it out when we reach the big 4 0 ! Making all the decorating equipment was fun and I was under instruction to include a small stereo as he always listens to the radio while he works. There was to be NO blue on this cake as he supports Liverpool FC so I opted for a red cake with brown floorboard effect on the cake board. I didn't want to pipe icing between the cake and board because it needed to look like floor straight onto wall of cake so I made sure the icing joined very neatly together.

21st birthday cake

This is an 8" sponge cake I made for a man's 21st birthday. The only criteria I was given was that he drank lager and was a Liverpool football club supporter. I looked up what the 2010 kit top was and copied it on my figure, modelling him sitting in a chair relaxing with some cans of Stella Artois. I mainly used white and red and did his name in black to complement the black of the armchair. As the top is all on a card, they can remove it prior to cutting and keep it as a momento of their celebrations. I made an icing rope to cover where the card sits on the top of the cake. It was pretty fiddly painting names on the kit, cans and newspaper so I hope they can recognise them!

First Birthday

This was a 9 inch sponge cake I was asked to make for a friend's grandson. I would have liked to have spent a little more time on it but my mum passed away a week ago and my heart wasn't in it. She wanted a blue and white cake on a teddy theme so I modelled a teddy bear for the middle. The teddy bears on each corner of the board are from Patchwork Cutters set Make a Cradle. I embossed the board with baby items and attached a teddy ribbon all around using softened sugarpaste and held it in place with a pin or two until it had set. I made the five building blocks to create the name and embossed the other four sides of each block with the same pictures I put on the board. The number 1 is dusted in white disco hologram powder and the cake itself dusted in snowflake lustre .

Girl reading

I attended a workshop at the Guild which was led by Lorraine Mckay. I covered the drum board the night before and gave it a wooden floorboards look using a knife and brushing it with a wash of brown/orange foodcolour. The most difficult parts were the hands and the face. You can see from the photo that she even has teeth inside her mouth. She doesn't quite have the right expression on her face but I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and Lorraine made it look so easy. I have picked up plenty of tips which I'm sure will come in very useful.

Littlest Pet Shop Cake

This is an 8" sponge cake I made for my friend's daughter. She is into Littlest Pet Shop and also liked the Bratz cake I had made previously, so I used the colours lilac and pink , although I deepened the shades because the squirrel is quite pale and I wanted a contrast to make it stand out more. The character is a squirrel although I added a pink bow to make it a little more girlie. The squirrel is a runout in Royal Icing , which I made a week earlier and left to set before attaching to the cake. I wanted to bring the colour scheme together more so made the two-tone flowers for the top and sides as well as the pink hearts around the board.

Tiara Cake

This was an interesting challenge to make a tiara that was entirely edible to sit on a regal type cake. I made Mexican paste as it would dry hard and quickly too. I drew my pattern onto paper then stuck it onto a cylinder. I then covered the pattern in parchment paper and started to create the shapes using a sugar craft gun. Once it was dry I sprayed it with gold edible lustre spray. Last of all I added silver dragees and a jelly bean , sticking them with gold coloured royal icing. As you can see from the photo I quilted the cake , added a square of purple icing which I trimmed with gold and embossed. Finally I made four tassels from icing and dusted them gold before attaching them to the sides. The tiara is stuck on using royal icing.