Pink and Chocolate 30th Birthday Cake

It has certainly been all about cake in the last two weeks and I have to say I'm knackered! I've had many nights of broken sleep waking up with crazy lazy panic thoughts about the cakes - anyone else? Although I have absolutely loved all of my recent creations so it was all worth it in the end. I started with my pink and white cake pops, Manchester United giant cupcake (blog post coming soon) and this week I had my friend's 30th birthday - a great reason to make a nice fancy cake and try out some new techniques, as if I need an excuse!

It's been ages since I've done a big proper cake so I couldn't wait to get stuck in. The cake itself is a two tiered vanilla and chocolate sponge cake with chocolate buttercream. She loves chocolate so it was the only choice really.

I 'became' Peggy Porschen (or at least I told myself I was!) and decided to keep the chocolate theme but make it a bit more girly (surprise surprise my favourite theme! :D) with using pink fondant icing. The bottom tier is pink with chocolate brown circles, decorated with an italic 'L' for Lisa and polka dot royal icing decoration around the edge.

I have to be honest and say the top tier nearly didn't make it (it nearly went in the bin!), I for some reason just couldn't get the icing to sit on it nicely without any folds - it was driving me mental! I then had the crafty idea of doing the 'suitcase' look to cover up the fold and give it some cute detail. I made up some 'leather' fondant straps and gave them seams with a cocktail stick, luckily they matched up perfectly to cover the bits I didn't like.  I'm quite obsessed with piping detail at the moment so couldn't resist adding some cute royal icing designs in-between the fondant straps.

I wasn't really sure what to do on the top, I didn't really feel like a cake topper would look right but then I had the genius idea of adding her favourite chocolates...Ferrero Rocher! I did initially want to pile them up like in the advert but it looked a bit silly so I thought just to dot a few around symmetrically, and do some more polka dot piping in a circle around the top of the straps to frame the chocolates.

As you all know by now I love adding bows to cakes. I've always used real ones but this time I thought I'd have a go at making a fondant bow which I've never done before. I let them dry for two/three evenings (honestly I can't remember which I think I might be slightly hysterical from all the baking) and it worked brilliantly which I really didn't think it would. I ran some more fondant around the end of the first tier at the bottom and stuck the bow on the front with two extra ribbon pieces running down the front. I'm not so sure I could do this ribbon too much on a giant cupcake, but on bigger cakes I think I'll be doing this a lot now! I would suggest making a few bows, I did, as I've heard horror stories about them collapsing!

The cake went down really well she loved it which is all that matters :D I got some really nice comments about it too, I seem to turn up every couple of weeks with a cake for someone's birthday so they're getting quite used to it now, so expect many more in the future!

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Gingerbread Baubles

Sorry I've left it a while posting..I've been sick! I've been ill one other time this year which must be a record for me, so I've been feeling quite sorry for myself and even had to leave work in a taxi as I was feeling so bad!! After dying in bed for a day and a half I finally managed to drag myself out of bed to help my mum put up the Christmas decorations. For the last couple of years now we've been having a real tree at home which I love, I know they're a little pricey but I think it's worth it for Christmas.

 

As I've not been well I haven't been able to bake anything.  It's gingerbread season in our house at the moment, I will put up recipes soon but at the moment I've just been watching it all happen. However the last couple of days I've felt better so I could decorate. I love gingerbread tree decorations, especially Peggy Porschen ones in her Cake Chick book.

 We have a very traditional Christmas look...reds, greens, gingham etc. So I decided to keep this batch of gingerbread baubles in white and red. I only did 6 or 7 as we already have so much on our tree I didn't want to go too crazy.

We've made lots of gingerbread shapes but mainly plain circles or hearts for the baubles. To decorate I used a base of white royal icing and for the detail I used Wilton Red Icing in a tube that I got for mini Christmas in my stocking (will explain all in another post!) which was good so I didn't need to mix an extra batch. I attached a nozzle with the tiniest hole I could find and piped on some detail I shamelessly copied from the book. I also added some siver balls...you can't have Christmas treats without silver balls right? Let them dry and threaded some wrapping ribbon through the holes in the gingerbread and hung them up!

I'm not sure which design I like the most...I think it's the one with the silver balls cascading down the baubles. I think these would look great in funkier colours like purple and maybe even teal? You can do so much with them even write names...I might have to have another go :)

Keep posted for many more Christmas baking recipes, the gingerbread recipe will hopefully follow tomorrow, it made so much we also managed to make three individual gingerbread houses along with the millions of biscuits and tree decorations. These will also tie in with my seven kinds of Christmas biscuit tradition, now I also have to decide which other six to make. I have to say while you all know I love baking...baking at Christmas is far better, stick some festive and cheesy music on, gingham apron tied and I'm literally in my element and I intend to be covered in some form of batter and flour for the next few weeks! Pin It Now!