Cake International - Birmingham 2012!

Cake International - a baker's dream! I've always wanted to go but have always been busy as it usually falls right on my birthday but this time I was able to spend a whole day there. Tickets for the saturday were completely sold out so it was PACKED! The queue to get into the NEC was a bit brutal in the car but without a doubt - worth it.

Once inside the place was buzzing - and heaving! Everywhere you looked you saw nothing but cakes, glitters, cutters, rolling pins - bliss! Some women go shopping for shoes, I go shopping for glitters and rolling pins. If you went and say you didn't see anything that took your fancy then I'm sorry but you are a liar :D. I had to physically restrain myself from spending nearly £90 on some topsy turvy cake tins.

But more on the shopping in a minute, the cakes showcased themselves were incredible, they were everywhere and there was even a special competition area where you cool 'ooo' and 'aaaah' all over various cakes and cupcakes of different technical abilities. I have to say I could never enter anything myself it would be far too daunting I've never seen anything like some of these beauties.

 

Don't be fooled thinking cakes are all bunting, flowers and butterflies oh no... check out the Dark Knight, Ghostbusters and The Avengers cakes.

There were also a few odd ones I have to say...the phrase "happy as a pig in ...." comes to mind...really don't think I could have a slice of this one. And while the clown is brilliantly done...it freaks me out! As does the pregnant belly one if I'm completely honest.

See what I mean?

There were so many amazing ones I especially loved the VW campervan and KFC cake.

Now for the shopping...well I got a little carried away. And I'm afraid I can't even tell you the exact places I bought them from as it was like a feeding frenzy on a chicken farm - but I can tell you that I shopped until I dropped, getting everything from chocolate transfers to metal ball tools.

So here's a list of my goodies anway
Ribbons - you can never have too many
Piping nozzles, one to make grass and two teeny tiny ones for piping
Cake pop sticks - worse ones I've bought as they were fairly hollow
Cake pop bags and ties - pretty standard as anyway
Two tiny painting brushes - for when using gel colour as paint
Dusting brush - for glitters
Glitters! - in red, gold, pink and bright pink
Gold and silver metallic edible paint - perfect for Christmas
Ball tool - First saw these on Cake Boss, great for smoothing edges of fondant and using with gumpaste.
Chocolate transfers - in star, rose, swirl and snowflake patterns
2 pack of cookies boxes (with 4 boxes in each) - comes with bags, boxes, ribbons and tags perfect for Christmas presents.
Silent Night Christmas stencil - this will be lovely on a chocolate cake with icing sugar or cream with cocoa powder
Wilton green piping icing - always handy to have some ready made

So that's the list, here are the pictures...I could easily have bought much more but I've got so much other stuff I have enough for a new Baking Buys post already!

The next Cake International is in April and I will be running a competition for tickets to those also where I believe Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood (beaut) will be attending - eek! So stay tuned for that post!

There were of course lots of demonstrations and book signings but I have to admit I spent all my time shopping and gawking and looking at the demos going on around various stalls. It's great to have all of your favourite suppliers in one place...now to Sew White there next year also and you'll never need to go anywhere else.

Nom! Pin It Now!

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!