Robot Doughnut Cake.... Of Course

Another year, another year of co-worker's birthday cakes. I do so love making the quirky ones, and especially a cake that looks like some other form of food, I don't know why - I just love that.

This cake was for my friend Laura, last year I made her the zebra print cake with chocolate robots, two of her favourite things. So this year I decided that I would make a cake that looks like her other favourite thing...a doughnut!

I couldn't miss out the robots altogether though so I of course still made some, out of white chocolate and painted them up to be all sparkly with some edible metallic silver paint. Which by the way DO NOT get on your hands, they've obviously added black food colouring to it to darken it up and it looked like I'd dipped my fingers in tar.

So for the doughnut, I decided to make a pink sponge, I mean, if it's going to be a doughnut then why not pink inside right? I made two layers and using a knife I cut out the middle so it'd be a cute ring doughnut and sandwiched them with jam and dirty iced them with vanilla buttercream.

Using a little of Sugarcraft's Dark Brown colouring gel I made up some doughnut coloured fondant and using Wilton's Pink colouring gel I made the pink fondant for the frosting. Covering the doughnut and getting inside the middle was tricky but the rest was super easy.

For the frosting I basically rolled out and cut out a big wavy circle and cut out a smaller circle in the middle. The sprinkles were really easy, I just piped coloured icing into strands and dotted them all over to really make it looks like a doughnut from The Simpsons. 

I added a few of the chocolate robots, loaded up her cake, flowers and presents into the little Figaro and got on my way!

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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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Happy Birthday Dad!

I've been really busy with cake this week so only just now getting to put this post up. Last weekend I visited my dad for his birthday, which was actually wednesday but this way I got to spend the week with them in Southampton.

My dad is a very strange creature...he doesn't really like fondant...or buttercream. Madness! So when it comes to deciding what cake to make I knew there was only one choice, his favourite - my lemon drizzle! When I told him it must have been the only time I've ever heard him say he can't wait for cake! I did put him to work chopping the lemon zest as they didn't have a fine enough grater! :)

As it doesn't need decorating it meant I got to spend more time with them than in the kitchen, though of course my little brother wanted to help me make it, he's getting quite good now bless him - he was also having a pj day so did it all in his new Batman ones, complete with detachable cape!

You can find the recipe for my lemon drizzle cake here - I have to say, it's one of my favourites too. And while I couldn't decorate it properly, we did still add some candles and a little 'Happy Birthday' sign.

My little brother was a little grumpy this weekend (see above), but he loves it when I visit as I'm basically his toy. We play his games, have massive bubble bath fights and even had a dance off to 'Gangnam Style' thought somehow he ended up changing the words to 'Catch a star'.

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Purple Butterfly Birthday Cake - My 100th Post!

This is my 100th blog post! Yay, can't believe it's come so far :) Thanks to all of my followers and readers!

This weekend we're celebrating my sister-in-law's mum's birthday, and of course as you all know EVERYONE in my family gets a cake! I don't think she knows she's getting one yet...so hopefully it will be a nice surprise.

One great thing about doing cakes for family is that I get to try out new techniques and new looks without the pressure of mucking it up! As most of my family cakes I do I kind of make it up as I go, I should start sketching out some ideas beforehand I guess.

For this cake I got to use my new expandable cake tin I got for Christmas which I love. The next cake to make with this I think has to be a battenburg. I will admit I found it difficult to put together at the beginning and it was a bit of a pain to line...but then again lining tins is the most boring thing in the world to me so I guess it's not surprising that I didn't enjoy that part. But the actual method of baking two cakes exactly the same in the same tin was brilliant and will make future square cakes a lot easier.

I made a vanilla sponge cake with rum buttercream (she loves rum), I did think about making it three layers but thought that might be a little too high. I went with the purple and white theme, I do so many pink cakes I thought purple would be a little different and she's not a ridiculous lover of pink so this kept it pretty but not overwhelming.

I love piping, and want to pipe like Cake Boss! So I need to get lots more practice in and I think it came out really cute, I did have open one of my Wilton Yearbook's for inspiration on the pattern which actually came from a wedding cake picture.

The detail on the top is the same, I added some fondant lilac butterflies to give some extra cuteness and to frame the top as it would look a bit empty otherwise. Now for the cupcake I actually completely stole this idea from The More Than Occasional Baker and I absolutely love it, they're actually meant to be gift boxes topped with meringues but I decided to make a plain chocolate case by brushing LOTS of chocolate into the inside of a silicone cupcake case, leaving it too cool in the fridge a few times in between layers. Instead of making it a box I filled and topped it with the rum buttercream and added a couple of purple fondant butterflies. I also piped on white bows round the cupcake case to make a cute pattern.

I love the idea of having a cupcake on the top of another cake...and nothing in the world is better than chocolate and buttercream...

I have to say, and I know I say this almost every time....but I do think this might be the cutest cake I've made so far...

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Happy Birthday Amanda!

I feel like I haven't blogged in ages, it's been crazy here so I'm glad I have something good to show you. If you remember at Christmas I got a Wilton cupcake cake tin, and I've been itching to use it! It's different from my normal giant cupcakes..it's flat! Well...ish, it's still big :D just lying down.

Today is also my friend Amanda's birthday....happy birthday! She's a proofreader at our work and ridiculously good at her job...she's probably finding loads of mistake in this post as we speak (stop it! :) ) and she needed a special cake of course. It seems to be a bit of a tradition now that the girls in my section all get a cake on their birthday so there'll be many more of these over the year I'm sure.

I thought of course they funniest thing to do was to do a spelling mistake on the cake, with a big red circle around it just like she does. I couldn't help myself I had to. She's got the same humour as me so it went down really well luckily! It's also worth noting that I did have nicer reflective paper to have the cake on...but I left it in the Tesco trolley grrrrr!



I thought I'd still keep the cake really cute though in the pink and white theme that is so popular, and as it is a cupcake it still had to look cute. She loves chocolate so I used a chocolate sponge recipe and covered it all in pink buttercream. The case part of the cupcake I covered in white fondant and the top I did my now trademark rose swirl buttercream piping.

For the writing I rolled out some more white fondant and wrote Happy Birthday on it....incorrectly. My handwriting isn't the best unless I'm concentrating, actually she says it resembles a dead spider...quite accurate really. So I used my iPad to enlarge 'Happy Birthday' in a nice font on for me to copy. I did this with a black pen especially for writing on fondant with and then circled it with another in 'Cherry Red' colour. I then cut it with a quilting tool for the ribbon effect and laid it on the icing in a wavy scroll fashion to give it some depth. I then dotted lots of coloured sugar balls all of the top for the classic cupcake with sprinkles look.

And of course all of my cupcakes have a ribbon. I made one out of pink fondant that I coloured with a bit of Claret Sugarflair colouring paste, again cutting with the quilting took for a bit more texture making the ends of the ribbon really long to drape over the sides of the 'case' part.

I was a bit worried about the actual bake of the cake as the top of the cupcake part of the tin was so deep but luckily it came out really nice and moist. I love giving cakes as presents as you can really make them personal and everyone likes cake on their birthday :) Pin It Now!

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!

Sparkly 21st Giant Cupcake

So from a zombie brain cake to a sparkly cupcake, a natural transition of course!

While Monday was about creating gore, yesterday I was back creating my usual giant cupcakes bursting with pink and glitter.

This one is very similar to my last 21st giant cupcake, it was a double order from the same lady so I wanted them to be similar but not the same. This one is a chocolate sponge iced with vanilla buttercream.

This time I made the bottom 'case' part a cute girly pink colouring it with Clare Sugarflair colouring paste. The top of course didn't need any colouring and the ivory colour looks really clean and fresh next to the pink.

I think the glittery fondant cutouts worked really well last time so I used this idea again with a glittery 21, butterflies and big and small heart.  I've always found it hard to apply to cake glitter, but I stole an idea from Choccywoccydoodah where they dip a clean and dry soft brush in the glitter and tap it over the area rather than trying to gently tip it on...which never works! It also spread the glitter out more evenly.

I really am loving using the butterfly plungers, you get such good detail on them and when covered in glitter, what girl wouldn't love them?

To finish it off I tied up some pink gingham ribbon around the case, which I think I need to buy more of actually as I really don't think I can have much left on the reel now!

I will try to stop forgetting to take pictures after I've already boxed them up, I could probably display them a little better :) This is now the last cake I've got to do with week before I start the wedding order tomorrow, which I though I'd be quite nervous about but I feel really relaxed and confident about it so can't wait to start. I've also got thursday off so I can focus on it 100% with no stress. I'll get pictures up as soon as I can :) Pin It Now!

Super Mario Birthday Cake

For the last year, or even since he discovered Super Mario on the Wii, my little brother has been obsessed with Super Mario. It's all he wants to play, watch, see and eat! So the obvious choice for his 4th birthday cake was of course, Mario! He didn't have a clue so it was great to surprise him with it.

  

I started with a blue fondant ice cake and made my own stencil like image to put on top. This way I could get a big picture of Mario on the front. I then decorated the sides like a scene from the game which he went crazy over. With the classic eating plant coming out of a pipe, some hills, the brick etc etc. He loves catching the star at then end so I covered the top in yellow stars, very old school gaming, put some on wires for a bit of height and even added a couple of bigger ones.

Great for little boys and big! No one is ever too old for Mario...or cake for that matter.

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