Skip Lorry?!

A Single Rose, How Sweet!

Barrel Wagon and Horse Cake

Black Lab

Celebration Cakes

Minnie Mouse and a Floopy Earred Rabbit

Thomas the Tank Engine Birthday Cake

Summer Birthday

Ben 10 Birthday Cake

Cookies

Birthday Candle Cake #2

It was mum's boss's birthday, she liked the birthday cake I had made her friend so much see requested a simpler version for a work party she was organizing. This time instead of the indulgent chocolate fudge frosting she just wanted some canned frosting. Easy enough, I had this cake made in less than 2 hours from the time it went into the oven. I think that this might become a go to for birthdays. Again thanks to Apple and Spice for the original idea.

A joint birthday

I was asked to make a joint birthday cake for a couple of gentlemen celebrating their 70th and 90th birthday. I didn't want to make it too flashy as I wasn't sure of either's taste, so I produced this simple chocolate cake with a white frosting and a few dark chocolate decorations.

England shirt #2

Same cake different child. The only difference is that the cake is sightly taller, the name and number are made from white chocolate fondant with a little blue and the England badge is on top of a small bed of cake.

Game-boy Birthday cake

A birthday cake for a 5 yearold boy. That was it. That was what I was asked to make, no further instruction. Now this might seem like a simple task to you, but i don't know any children, sad to say, so I had no real idea of what little boys liked. After much umming and awwwing I had two ideas, Spongebob or Nintendo. I figured, most kids have a DS and being a boy he might have decided he was too old for Spongebob. 

The cake was huge as the initial layer cake came out on the slimish side, so I decided to make another one and sandwich it. I looked up a couple of iconic Nintendo characters using good ol' Google image and made frozen buttercream transfers for the screens. 

 The addition of the chocolate fondant stars and the cake pop stylus helped to give it the finishing touches. When the boy's grandmother came to collect it she said that he had received the new Mario game for his DS for his birthday (phew! he had a DS!) she also mentioned that just that morning he had asked for a Spongebob cake!!!!

A fudgy monster!!

A request for a cake like the birthday candle cake, but without all the decoration, just som white chocolate curls. This didn't quite go to plan. I followed the recipe I had used previously (forgetting about the problems I had before with it being too runny) however on the second boil the fudge began to catch so i pulled it off the heat and tried to cool it. I thought I had a good consistency as it spread beautifully, alas the fudge slowly migrated down the cake as you can see!

After a few hours in the fridge the fudge migration quelled. I added some chunky white chocolate curls to the top and some shavings for the side and tidied up pools of frosting at the base, covering the remaining mess with more white chocolate. Apparently the girl I made it for only had one slice, her boyfriend polished the rest off!  I guess that means he liked it!?

Cake to order!!

I was asked to make a birthday cake for a friend of my mum, her son was turning 8 and is a huge football fan. So thanks to mumsy dearest I already had a t-shirt cake tin. Using this I made an England shirt for the little lad, cos what little boy doesn't want to grow up and play for England? 

Getting the white icing smooth was kinda difficult, but eventually it came out nicely. And the shirt number was made from some fondant.

Using a frozen buttercream transfer I made an England badge, just to make sure that everyone knew it was supposed to be an England shirt. The green (vanilla) icing and chocolate footballs really bought it together.

Birthday/Mother's Day Cake

So Mothers day and my Mum's birthday arrived together this year, as part of her present I told her to pick whatever she wanted for her cake. Her choice was... German Chocolate with Coconut Pecan frosting.
 The cake was from a mix but the frosting was made from scratch with toasted pecans and dessicated coconut. I then topped the cake with white and dark chocolate butterflies.

The Birthday Cake

So after the trial run was made I did some trawling on the net and found the perfect cake which I proceeded to copy. Here is the original link to this wonderful cake, it's an impressive piece of work, I think mine was pretty good too.

I chose to use the aforementioned Mary Berry chocolate cake (the recipe of which I will find a post soon) but the delicious chocolate fudge frosting was from the Apple and Spice blog. While it was one of the best frostings i've made, not having a candy thermometer meant that I hadn't quite got the fudge to hardball and therefore had to bring it to the the boil for a second time in order for it to reach the right consistency to spread. As you can see, second time was the charm and it spread beautifully!And the birthday girl loved it!!

Chocolate explosion!!!

Another test cake, I was asked to make a chocolate cake and so I decided I should have a test run to make sure that I had a decent cake. I also wanted to try out an Italian Buttercream Meringue frosting, and a chocolate collar.

So I made a basic chocolate cake from Mary Berry's book, frosted it with an chocolate Italian Buttercream Meringue. I then made the chocolate collar using milk, dark and white chocolate swirled over each other and made additional decorations with the leftover. The result was...rich! Too rich really. But it was nice and I know better than to make such a rich frosting covered in chocolate. And like G.I Joe used to say; "knowing is half the battle."