18th Birthday Cake

This is an 8" square sponge cake filled with raspberry jam and Swiss meringue butter cream.  The cake was to be pink and white and quite girly so I chose to use pink organza ribbon to form a bow at the front. I iced the cake and board in white and crimped around the edge of the drum board while it was still soft. Then I mixed raspberry shimmer edible powder with Royal Icing to pipe around the base of the cake with a shell pattern. I added some tylose powder to sugar paste and cut out a plaque shape onto which I piped the birthday message using the same Royal icing colour from  earlier. I dusted the plaque with snowflake and the edges with the same raspberry shimmer so it would stand out. The roses,white flowers, ribbon loops and pink hearts are all made by hand and pushed into a posy pick. The same colour Mexican paste was used for her name and the small hearts around the drum board and cake to link the top and bottom together. I did buy the silver number 18 and attached it to a pink wire pushed into the centre of the posy pick.

Golfer's cupcakes

I was asked to make cupcakes for a man's 70th birthday and to present it on a stand.  The only guidelines  were that the cupcakes were to be chocolate flavoured and that the gentleman played golf in his spare time. The cupcake cases were brown with polka dots which would link in with the white golf balls. I used play sand, real golf balls and a green hanging basket liner to fill the stand. The flag is a clear cake support decorated to look like a golf pole.  The chocolate cupcakes are covered with swirled chocolate butter cream, uncannily the same colour as the sand in the bunker! To link in with the red of the flag I modeled red Tees from sugar paste as well as white golf balls,using a ball tool to indent the pattern on them. Each alternate cupcake has a gold 70 on it made from Mexican paste dusted with bright gold edible powder. I hope the party went well and they got cupcakes and a new set of golf balls to replace those that inevitably get lost!

Lattice Pie Cake

This may seem strange, but my son has a particular talent for maths and there are also other funny reasons ( known within the family) why a pie cake was made for his 12th Birthday.  I shaped the cake to more of a pie ,offset it on the cake drum and iced it all over in brown. The lighter colour was cut into wavy strips using a ribbon cutter and arranged across the top, then finished with a long sausage of icing to cover the edges. The pie sign is held on wires pushed into a flower pick. The tablecloth is just lots of red and white squares joined together then smoothed over.  The actual cake is an 8" madeira sponge with two layers of jam and butter cream. I used a red Happy Birthday ribbon around the cake drum. This is a quick and easy cake which could be adapted to other types of pie, but our Joseph is rather partial to mince pies and treacle tarts.

Glee Cake

My daughter is absolutely mad about Glee and asked me to make her a Glee birthday cake. She actually helped to design her cake but left me to work out how to do it. To create the stage at the back I sliced the cake into three layers, then halved the top layer and put the halves on top of each other to make the back section of cake x4 layers tall, the front section just two layers. As in the series, we added gold stars as the character Rachel always puts a gold star after her name. The five main girls in the show are dressed like the WMHS cheerios, each holding a letter to spell my daughter's name. She even stressed which order to seat them and how they should have their hair done. Emily helped to brush colour over the floorboards of the stage and add the red curtain around the back. There was a lot of modelling on the characters but it was fun to see it all come together.

50th Birthday Cake

This is a 9" hexagonal sponge, jam and butter cream cake I made for my friend, whose sister was about to celebrate her 50th birthday. I used a daisy rolling pin to pattern the icing around the cake board, covering the joins with flowers made from Mexican paste. I dusted over it with snowflake lustre powder to make the embossed daisy pattern stand out more. I also made the numbers for the 50 from white mexican paste, attached them to wires and covered them with white disco hologram powder. The numbers, ribbon loops, carnations, roses and gems are all in a flower pick. I piped a snail trail around the base of the cake before tying on the organza ribbon.

21st Birthday Cake

This is a 10" sponge cake with jam and butter cream fillings. I was asked to model Sophie on the cake but her Mum also requested ribbon, flowers, a sparkly 21 sign and certain items around the cake. The birthday girl is also a mother and drives, so I included a set of car keys with a "best Mum" keyring attached. The chosen colour scheme was peaches and cream although I had to model some items in contrasting colours otherwise they wouldn't stand out. The board itself is iced in soft peach then rolled over with a silk pin to add texture. I had a photograph of Sophie to follow so I hope she can see some resemblance and finds it flattering. The champagne bottle candle was a finishing touch to the final cake, which they can light at the celebration party.

50th Birthday Cake

I made this cake for my eldest brother's 50th . It was hard to think of what to put on it because he has quite a few hobbies so in the end I decided to make a hexagonal cake and show his life from birth through each decade until the present day. You cannot see one of the sides from these two images but one side shows him in a love heart with his wife Jackie. It ends with him singing as he is a member of his local male voice choir. At first I modelled all the heads, some of them only thin as they were to be attached to the sides with royal icing. The most time consuming was all the modelling. I used a circle of greaseproof paper positioned on the top as a guide when I was putting the lettering around the top. The stars and 50 are made from Mexican paste and allowed to harden on the wires before inserting them into the flower pick. I didn't want to model anything too delicate as we were driving to East Midlands with it and needed it to arrive intact. We had a firework candle at the party, but were asked to light it outside, (fire and safety regulationsand and all that!) I didn't get to eat a piece as we had a long drive back, but my brother and his family assured me it tasted delicious.