A Very Hello Kitty 5th Birthday

Next week marks my niece's birthday, I can't believe she's five already! I can still remember getting the phone call in the middle of the night to announce her birth, I was in Southampton at uni at the time and we all got up for an hour too excited to see oo-ing and ahh-ing over the photos they'd just sent over on our phones.

I love being an aunty, she's so clever (I know I'm biased - but she is!) and she's so funny as well. We loving baking together, it's a good thing the girl likes cake with me around! Cake pops don't last long around her that's for sure. Unfortunately we won't be able to go to her party this weekend as we're away on holiday, but I did manage to make her a cake and cake pops for it.

Last year she was all about Snow White, this year however she's been sent back to the cottage with the dwarves - sorry Snow White, there's a new girl in town.....Hello Kitty! So there was no question really about what her cake should be. I always like to go one better though - so she got some cake pops as well :), I have actually made these cake pops before but she didn't see them so they definitely needed to make a reappearance.

For the cake I made a big vanilla cake iced with pink (of course) vanilla buttercream. The fondant was coloured with Claret Sugarflair colouring paste and Hello Kitty herself was made from a stencil, I love my stencils. I printed out a few sheets of an outline drawing of her and cut out all of the pieces I wanted to make. I layered up the colours keeping her whole white body as a base and laying on the red top, flower and bow etc. I'm actually really happy with how she turned out...I do tend to end up as the 'angry baker' as people call me when I'm decorating - I was a little stressed at times... but overall I'm really happy with her.

For her name, top and bow I used Christmas Red colouring paste which just felt wrong in July and the flowers, butterflies and other top I used lilac concentrate colouring, varying strengths which went really nice with the reds and pinks.

Now moving onto the cake pops, using vanilla cake I crumbled it all up and mixed it with vanilla buttercream and rolled it into little Hello Kitty head shapes. After leaving them to cool I dipped them in white chocolate and then piped on the face details and bow. They're so easy to make and look brilliant...what's more they taste epic!

I can't wait to see photos of my niece blowing out her candles and enjoying her party and cake... have a happy birthday Sophie Chops!! Pin It Now!

Lavender And White Two Tier Birthday Cake

It was one of my best friends birthdays recently, and as I couldn't be there for her birthday I decided to whip her up a little birthday cake.

I had some new cake decorating gizmos from a great cake decorating shop in Oslo when I was visiting called 'Cacas'. It was my haven, an official supplier of Wilton it was filled with everything you could ever want to decorate with, it's just a shame it all cost a fortune!

I usually do the big pink cakes, so I thought I would do her something different, a victoria sponge cake, made up of two layers, one being pink and the other lilac so there was a little surprise when you cut into it.

I covered it in lavender coloured fondant and decorated it in plain white for a classic look. For the decorations I used this Wilton mould where all you had to do is push the fondant into the moulds and lift them out, the trick to this is to dust it in icing sugar first so it will come out clean.

This mould came with ribbon and button designs which is the type I use the most so it's worth the crazy import rate.

The lettering on the front spells 'cheeky', this may seem odd, but it's kind of a catchphrase around here, and they named their new place 'cheeky towers' so it fit quite well. I also piped peals around the seam of the bottom tier to top it off and complete the look.

For an added extra bit of detail I used the brownie stencils I also bought in Cacas, and spread icing over them, lifted of the stencil and was left with a pretty pattern that took no time but looked cute and tied in the colours. I love this cake because it's sleek looking, really pretty colours and was girly without going too pink for once, and of course, it was very cheeky... Pin It Now!