Friday, 27 January 2012

How far I have come with cake decorating

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So just wanted to post a couple of pics of cake that I had done within the first months of last year. I do find them quite embarrasing because I can see all of the basic mistakes I had made and the amount of things that I should have done to make them look more presentable. But part of this blog was to see how far I am progressing and see the good AND the bad.
This one was made for an 80s themed dinner party that I had around March 2011. Pacman was what I was obsessed with playing so I definately wanted to do an aspect of that in the cake and the rubiks cube just because, well it is completely 80s but I only did 1 'layer' of a cube, my measurements were all off i think! I think until the summer of 2011 I was terrified of using fondant, especially of covering a whole cake and even now I still get it tearing at times, which has to be the absolute worst feeling!
The colour is shocking but I remember I was trying to get the buttercream black but the liquid food colourings are terrible for getting a black colour. Anyway here it is;

I also did one for my best friend and it was a flat warming cake. I decided to go with a frog themed one and I have to say the buttercream colour is not that much better! I made a crucial mistake of using a piping tip that was way too big which meant that the writing was too squished but it says; "I said a hip hop.." because I think I had made them rapping frogs, which you can tell from the arms placement =P and "Congrats on the new pad" (I thought that was a really good phrase there with the frog theme =D). This cake was once of the first times I believe where I got to play about with making 3D fondant figures and the frogs werent the worst that could have happened" I think that Chris may have made the flowers however, they are so pretty!

Labels: 80s, cake, flatwarming, frog | 0 comments

Christmas 2011!

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I had lots of fun with this cake which was for my family and my mums side of the family! It was hard because I was using my boyfriend's parents kitchen and so I wasnt as used to their kitchen, I had forgotten a lot of things and just generally trying not to get in the way of what his family were doing!

The cake was a carrot cake. Because it is my boyfriends favourite, I have been making this more and more although grating carrots is not the most exciting of tasks hehe!
I had seen a lot of penguin cakes and thought that they were so cute so I set about making penguins and baking. Here is the end result;

I think this is the more detailed cake that I have done before but I think it came together very nicely! The trees I had done before on Chris's 22nd birthday cake so I was able to do them a wee bit easier- I just added icing sugar for snow and stuck on edible glitter balls as decoration! The snowballs were obviously the easiest to do but i thought they were sooooo cute!
The penguin with the snowball in his hand was going to the evil penguin from 'Wallace and Gromit' but I decided this after making it so if I could change it I would make him thinner and the glove on his head would be yellow instead, but I will learn from it! It was supposed to be christmas lights around the igloo just for a bit of fun. My absolute FAVOURITE party of this cake has to be the wee bum from the penguin getting stuck in the igloo, I was most excited to do that part I have to admit hehe! And yes, penguins regularly ski down igloos =D Obviously the main thing that I would change would be the writing but at 1 in the morning I was getting shaky haha! And maybe I would have wanting it to be a bit bigger, width wise so that I could have spread out the presents and added more details! Although I would have been happy just continuing making details!

Labels: cake, Christmas, penguins | 0 comments

Birthday present cake

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This cake was made for a guy in one of my university classes who turned 22. I didnt really have a clue of what to do for it and since I had liked the idea of this cake before I decided to make a cake that looked like a present.I actually was working 2 12 hour shifts during that weekend but spent 4 long hours after work on both days and managed to get it done for Sunday night so I was quite happy with this one with the time space that I had for it.

He said that he wanted a banana cake and so I made him that with just a plain buttercream I think and then I made green fondant- I did go a little crazy with the green I have to say!

The bow was 3D and I was quite happy with the effect of that although next time I would make it the day before to let the fondant dry into place better.

Labels: cake, present | 0 comments

Halloween Murder Mystery Party!

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So for the previous yeah or so I have been getting into adding Murder Mystery games to my dinner parties. Although I have been 'doing' dinner parties for over 2 years, I have found that adding murder mysteries is a wee fun element in it! I would highly recommend them even if just to see your friends 'acting' with silly accents! =D

Therefore I wanted to incorporate both of these aspects into the one cake. How else than a two tiered cake, the bottom with fondant accents around the base of general halloween images although I didn't get photos that were focused on the bottom tiered too much =/. The top tier was a pumpkin which I carved into the shape which had been stabbed but an axe. I decided that a pumpkin would have orangy 'blood' and although it is not as clear to see as i had wanted, I dyed some butter cream orange and had it so that it was coming out of the 'wound' and dripping down the cake. There was also a magnifying glass made and a question mark to show the mystery side of the cake. I had made this out of Rice Krispie Treats but because I had  frozen in with the buttercream to keep a shape as I was running out of time, by the time I put fondant on it and set it up, it was starting to melt.  Chris (ever so lovingly) helped me out with some of the accents and the pumpkin face and top bitty so I cant be credited for everything!

I think that this cake was a vanilla and I believe maybe it was just a raspberry jam with buttercream and then as usual Marshmallow Fondant.

Later on in the night I just stuck a kitchen knife in the pumpkin instead. I had also learned on this cake, by Chris hehe, to put a border around the bottom of all the tiers as I haven't managed to get to the stage of cutting the fondant at the bottom as neatly as it should be. I thought that the orange border contrasting with the purple background worked quite well though! =D
                                     


After we had started carving the cake.... I just couldn't handle cutting the face, Chris had done a good job to make it look sad! I really found that making this cake was a lot of fun and all the details put in was worth the effort I think! =D
                                             

Labels: cake, halloween, murder mystery | 0 comments

Wednesday, 25 January 2012

Our 2 year celebrations!

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So at the end of last September me and the boyfriend celebrated being together for a whole 2 years, scary stuff! Hehe :D Obviously the whole way to celebrate would be to make a cake :D I found this one quite difficult as I wanted to create something that represents what we both like as a couple. We do however like to travel and as well we also like to just veg out watching our favourite TV shows. The bottom layer of the cake showed all of the TV shows that we watched and I tried to copy the actual show symbols. The top layer showed our experiences together; the Amsterdam logo and the 'Bols' cocktails, Walt Disney world, Harry Potter World and I also painted a cheesy 'E.I <3 C.C'. *Passes out the sick buckets* hehehe :) The top of the cake was actually painted by Chris and mainly because I think that Disney is super cute and where is there a better couple to aspire to be than Mickey and Minnie mouse =P

Although the fondant wasn't as neat as it should have been, I was happy with the overall cake!

Labels: 2 year anniversary, cake | 0 comments

Tuesday, 24 January 2012

Another Cake For Chris!

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This was for when Chris passed his black belt karate grading, was super duper happy for him! :D
I decided to do a white cake with a 'black belt' around the 2nd and top tier of the cake. I wish that I had spent more time on the outside as usual but my timings are terrible but i piped Congrats on the cake board then 'pow' and other comic book words hehe. I think that it was a chocolate buttercream;

I decided that I would try something different for this cake so that it wouldn't look like a 'boring' cake. Chris loves colours so I decided that I would show all of the colours of the belts that he had gone through in order to get his black. But where would I be able to do this?! Just wait.....

I used the Americolour gel colours and I think that they worked so fabulous! It was a plain white pound cake to start with so it had a good base for the colours but I was still amazed! :D Even though Chris had an inclination of what I was planning for the cake I think he was still surprised :D

Labels: black belt, cake, karate | 0 comments

Lack of blogging and Chris's 22nd birthday!

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Ahh I kind of gave up on the blogging scene but I shall try and keep doing it! Lots of things have been happening since my last post a who half a year ago! Currently in 4th year so everything is GO GO GO but I can't wait until I am finally finished with university :D But during stress of uni, working, moving flats and general life I have managed to keep up my love for cakes :D
1st up is the cake that I made for my amazing boyfriend's, Chris's, 22nd birthday. I organised a surprise day for him; I managed to get his dad and sister to come up from Manchester and they were sat at a table in the Chinese that I took Chris to for his birthday lunch! Later on I had organised a night out with the people who were still in Aberdeen as sadly most of his friends had gone home for the summer :( Despite this however he turned up, we did the 'SURPRISE' and I think that he was indeed surprised :D
The cake was brought out and it was a carrot cake, Chris's favourite. Normally I would do this carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting but Chris is a strange one who doesn't like it so I sticked with a basic buttercream :) Because I was so busy with organising everything, I didn't take good photos before taking the cake to the bar, boo :(

So he is a big fan of snowboarding hence the 'hill' which was supposed to be covered completely in hundreds and thousands as he loves colourful things but they kept falling off, so i did end up giving up hehe. There was a fortune cookie and a chinese plate which is his favourite cuisine. There are 3 different Chris's on the cake; him as a chemist who has just blown something up, kicking as a karate Chris and a snowboarding Chris.

Labels: birthday, cake, snowboard | 0 comments