Liqourice allsorts cake

I made this 8" sponge cake for my son's 13th birthday. As his favourite sweets are liqourice allsorts I decided to incorporate them into a design for his birthday cake. The sweets were easily stuck onto the ends of white wires inserted into a flower pick in the centre of the cake,together with the number 13 in yellow Mexican Paste. The other allsorts are stuck on with softened sugar paste. This is a really simple cake to make but extremely colourful, and could be adapted for other children/people using their favourite sweets.ie. Maltesers or wine gums. I added his name in black Mexican paste using the FMM Funky letters cutters. To finish it I attached a black Happy Birthday ribbon around the square board. All the family are enjoying the cake, but only Owen gets to eat the liqourice allsorts!

Simple Birthday cake

This is an 8" square sponge cake I made recently for a friend of the family. It was his 82nd Birthday and I wanted to make a simple but elegant cake just to say Happy Birthday. I made the swags with my sugar craft gun then made the icing bows to place over the joins where the swags met. Using Royal Icing coloured blue I piped four small dots down from each bow. Royal icing was also used for piping the shell trail around the base of the cake and the icing on the board itself is crimped at the edges. I wanted it to be quite traditional but obviously didn't want to include flowers on a cake for a man. Although you cannot see it clearly in this photograph there is a sparkly blue ribbon around the cake board.

40th Birthday Cake

This is a 9" square cake with jam and butter cream. I was asked to use a lilac and white colour scheme and to add a lilac ribbon around the cake itself. I used a photograph that was emailed to me to help with modelling the lady's family sitting on the front edge of the cake. I wanted to include the number 40 somewhere so I made the numbers from Mexican Paste covered with disco white hologram and left them to harden. When I was putting the children onto the cake I placed the numbers on their laps to look as if they were holding them up. I piped a shell trail around the base of the cake and added flowers using shades of lilac to finish the design.

First Birthday cake

This is a number one cake for a girl's first birthday. I used a Wilton tin which has a nice shape and makes quite a large cake. This cake was chocolate with chocolate butter cream in the middle. I was asked to do a pink and white colour scheme and to include pink hearts and a pink rabbit. As you can see I crimped around the edge of the board and make an icing rope in pink to go between the cake and board. The idea for the rabbit came from a Maisie Parish book where it showed how to make brown rabbits to go on an Easter cake but I made mine in just pink and white and added a small pick containing hearts on wires dusted with Raspberry shimmer, disco white hologram and snowflake lustre, at the side of it to complement the hearts around the cake and board.

Cow Cake

It was nice to be asked to make this cake because it was good fun. I looked at some ideas on google images and we decided to go for this design. This is a 9" sponge with just butter cream because the birthday girl didn't like jam. I used a new nailbrush to create the texture on the green icing before adding a few icing blossom flowers. I modelled the cow's head from white and pink icing, using a ball tool to create the nostrils and to make indents for the eyes. I modelled the udders by hand from a ball of pink icing then rolled the edges thinner using a cel stick. Finally I used a circle cutter to complete the udders and stuck in onto the front edge of the cake using sugar glue. All the legs were quite simple to make, leaving the belly plain for the message. I needed short lengths of raw spaghetti to help attach the ears and supported them with sponge until they had hardened. All the black markings were just roughly shaped by hand then I chose a spotty back and white ribbon which was the finishing touch.

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.