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.