Cath Kidston Inspired Cake Pops

It feels like months since I've made cake pops, and probably because, it actually has been months! Which is a shame as I love making them, I've just been too busy so it was nice to have time to do some properly when asked to make a batch.

This particular batch were to be very pretty, pastel, floral and Cath Kidston inspired. Who doesn't life a bit of Cath Kidston? The colours, flowers, polka dots... it's all too cute and I love it.

I made three designs, two floral ones which were similar but with different base colours and one with polka dots standing up in floral cases. The two floral ones were made from being dipped in coloured white chocolate. Half in pink and half in pale blue.



For the floral part I cut out circles of fondant and set them on the cake pops with royal icing, for the flowers I cut out red fondant with flower plungers, added a gold pearl for the bud and again placed them on with royal icing. For the stalk and leaves I piped on green royal icing and to finish piped white pearls around the design.



The polka dot ones were sooo easy to make and look super cute. I saw these mini cupcake cases in the garden center and the floral design fitted in so well I couldn't pass them by. So when I had dipped the cake pops in white chocolate, just before they were set I put them head down in the cases so they stood up. To make them even sweeter I piped pink polka dots around them and boom, they were finished.

To make them look more professional I wrapped them up in their own little individual cellophane bag and silver tie. When they were finished they looked great and like something out of Laura Ashley and I hear they went down a storm.

I even got to use my Wilton cake pop decorating stand that I got for Christmas for the first time. This shows you just how long it's been since I made them.



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Ladybird Cake

Last week I got to make a proper birthday cake, I say proper as I feel like I've kind of lost my baking mojo the last month or so - but come on now, it's Christmas! So I must pull myself out of it, so making this ridiculously cute ladybird cake is definitely helping me get there.

This particular cake was for my mum's friend's birthday...and can you guess what her favourite thing is? I knew when I was asked to make her a cake there was only one thing it would be. As it was a birthday cake I made it a chocolate sponge one, I don't know why but I just feel like it's a bit more special to make birthday cakes when they're chooclate, with chocolat buttercream too of course.

The cake itself was baked in a Pyrex glass mixing bowl, it did take a little while to bake and I lined the bowl with foil to make sure the cake didn't stick to the bowl. Once cool I cut the cake in half and filled and dirty iced it with chocolate buttercream. I covered the whole of the cake in red fondant I coloured with Christmas Red Sugarflair food colouring paste and I made the head, spots, feelers and eyes from black fondant dyed with Liquorice Sugarflair food colouring paste. To make the head I used a breakfast bowl to cut it out, worked perfectly!

I actually had a round cutter that I used for the spots and eyes...it's actually pretty rare that I have a mould/cutter that I need so I normally have to improvise. To make the pupils I cut out the fondant with piping nozzles and the feelers I just used the left over fondant to roll into long sausages - seriously DIY but it worked so well..you don't need lots of fancy cutters and tools you can always various lids/cups/cutlery around the kitchen to decorate cakes with.

I actually think it came out really well, almost too cute for words I would say.

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Red Velvet Wedding Cake Pops

While the sun hasn't exactly been shining this week you can't deny that Spring is finally here, our garden's full of tulips and daffodils and the wedding season seems to have kicked in, everyone's getting hitched at the moment which to me, only means one thing...cake!
(by the way, there's going to be a lot of photos, sorry!)

I love how weddings are no longer a normal iced fruit cake with flowers, they're cupcakes, sweet tables, croquembouches and even cake pops! The worst thing you could do according to most people I've spoken to is to give them a slab of fruit cake...present them with a cupcake or cake pop however, it's exciting and you have an individual treat just for you. The last wedding I did cakes for was a tower and table full of cupcakes and I loved that idea, so when I was asked to make some cake pops I immediately accepted the challenge!

The actual cake for weddings at the moment seems to be red velvet, which I have to say is a favourite of mine so I was stupidly happy when this order for 50 red velvet cake pops came in. The theme was pink, white and girly, which seems to be my most popular theme of late.

They had requested pink and white cake pops with piping detail, half pink with white piping and half white with pink piping. I made the biggest red velvet cake I had ever had in my own, while a lot of people don't like the next part, I absolutely love smashing up the cake and turning it to crumbs! I was having a stressful day so smash up a cake was a great release, also you have to smash it up to make the cake pops so it had to be done anyway... :D

It seems most people use Candy Melts for cake pops, I never have. I find the normal cake covering chocolate works just as well, I always get white chocolate so I can colour it easily. So after I had mixed the cake crumbs with buttercream and rolled them into balls and chilled, I dipped them in chocolate (half coloured with pink food colouring) and left them to cool. I made my own cooling stand by poking holes through some polystyrene for the cake pops to sit in. Free and effective! I used another big piece for the actual display stand as I didn't have one. I wrapped in pearly wedding paper and patterned cellophane and tied it all up with a cute pink bow. I will soon be asking my brother to make me a proper one as he's good at all that stuff.

For the piping I used royal icing, again some coloured with pink and I have to say it took me hours!! I even took on the famous piping claw hand that I've heard so much about and saw on Choccywoccydoodah. I did a few different designs, swirls, hearts, bow and polka dots. I wrapped each one individually with a little cellophane treat bag and silver tie which I bought in a pack from eBay, love that place they get all of my money!

I think they came out seriously cute and perfect for a wedding, I had to fight my family off from eating them so I hope they enjoy them!

P.s, do you like how I transported them? Never driven so carefully in my life - need a 'Cake On Board' sign!

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Girly Cameo Giant Cupcake

Yesterday was my future sister-in-law's birthday, and of course she had to have a cake! Last year I made her a sushi cake, it was OK but I was till newish to it and wanted to make something better.

The girly theme is everywhere at the moment so I thought why not, I knew she'd like it it's so pretty!

I love using cameos on cakes, the last one I did was the birthday cake to one of my best friends at the start of this year. I loved making this cake and couldn't wait to make something similar. This is a smaller version but just as cute!

The bottom I used the quilting technique, I love this it makes it look like an expensive bag and gives the bottom some really nice detail when sometimes it can look a little plain. I also didn't have any ribbon in the right colour so I thought this would make it a bit more special looking. I do sometimes add silver balls where the quilting overlaps but I though it might look a bit busy on a smaller cake.

Using my Wilton moulds I added a fondant bow in the same colour as the border to the cameos rather than leaving the bottom plain.

The top was iced with pink buttercream and topped with the cameos. To make the cameos I used a silicone mold I got from eBay, pushed fondant into it and put it in the freezer for ten minutes unti I could pop it out. This time I cut around the actual cameo rather than leaving the background of it white. I placed it on a pink fondant circular base and wrapped a thin sausage of brown fondant around it and finished each off with a bow. I got this idea from a Peggy Porschen book called Cake Chic.

I kept it quite simple and it ended up looking like it had little pieces of jewelry on it. I actually love it so much I'd be happy to get a cake like this, that's how I know I'm proud of a cake, if I'd be happy receiving it, and I'm a perfectionist!

I seem to be doing a lot of the pink/white combination at the moment. You just can't go wrong with girly cakes :) Pin It Now!

Girly Birthday Giant Cupcake

I have a few orders of giant cupcakes over the next month or so, so you'll be seeing a few of them!

This one was for a colleague's mum's birthday. I got a lot of free reign with it, just told to make it very girly and cute and pink, my favourite! I really love making girly cakes as I can go all out on them and love making them excessively pretty.

As it was for someone's mum I didn't want to go too princessy, I tried to keep it cute but a bit more grown up. I'd recently ordered the Wilton Gum Paste Flower Making Set from a previous Baking Wishlist post...it will also be in my upcoming Baking Buys post as I've gone a bit spend-crazy this week! I decided to make some dasies, as to be honest these seemed the easiest as I only had fondant to work with and required minimal work as it was my first go. But they came out looking brilliant so I was really happy with them.

Another item you'll be seeing in my Baking Buys post are the butterflies, made from rice paper I got them from surprise surprise...eBay! You have to cut them out though which was a bit fiddly, but the colours are nice and strong and they look really realistic! I placed them on the flowers so they looked like they had just landed on them. I didn't want to overdo the decoration as I do think that sometimes less is more.

I decorated the bottom with crisp white fondant tied around with a pink gingham ribbon and bow. I need something nicer than pins to use to keep them in place, any ideas? I was thinking of using the ones with the balls at the end like the one on the front, not sure if you can get them in just one colour though as most sets have all kinds of colours in them.

The top is decorated with pink buttercream coloured with Sugarflair's Claret colour and piped on with a large star nozzle from Tala, I'm struggling to find the rose ones in large? I also used one of the disposable piping bags - I wasn't sure about them to begin with but I have to say I absolutely love them now I've used them a few times!

To finish off I simply used cutters for her name, kept it in white to match the base and left it there. I was tempted to carry on adding decoration but stopped myself before I ruined it! Pin It Now!