Ice And A Slice Cakes

Football Cake

amelia — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:00:24 +0000

I love it when I get a call asking for inspiration for a cake. In this case it was for a little boy’s birthday, he’s a Manchester Utd fan (good chap!), but Mum didn’t know what sort of cake to have for his party.

I suggested a football cake with cupcakes each featuring a Man Utd team shirt. “Fabulous”, said Mum, “you’ve just solved the theme for the party too!”

The only problem was that the cake was needed the day after I would get back from holiday so I needed to be organised. I made the chocolate fudge cakes in advance using pudding basins, then put them in the freezer, and the cupcakes likewise. So when I got back from the holiday I just needed to ice them all.

The football wasn’t perfectly round, but is is a cake after all, and sometimes it’s just impossible to get cake to do what you want it do to. A little bit of research for the Man Utd squad numbers, and voila – one completed cake and one very happy mum!

Masterclass with Mich Turner

amelia — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:14:03 +0000

Wow, just back from a long weekend in London, where I treated myself to an intensive masterclass in hand painting with Mich Turner of Little Venice Cake Company. What a fabulous experience. From transferring a template to an iced cake to using cocoa butter and food colour dusts to create a paint rather like oil paints everything was clearly explained and demonstrated by Mich herself. My love birds and bumblebees actually looked quite artistic rather than abstract as my paintings have done before! Have a look at my Facebook page for the photos.

I came back with an enormous goody bag – as well as the cake I decorated I had a chocolate cake, icing, marzipan, an apron and the new lustres from the LVCC range. An excellent afternoon, and as it was our wedding anniversary the following day, I persuaded my husband to make a long weekend of it, we visited Buckingham Palace on our anniversary so I could see the Royal Wedding display. After seeing the photos of the cake I was prepared to be under-whelmed but it is so much more stunning in real life – the sugarcraft flowers were beautiful.

Designer cupcakes

amelia — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:11:18 +0000

I have some wonderful regular customers who will text or call me with an order, and a very loose brief. I had one recently for a dozen cupcakes, “She likes designer handbags”.

I created six miniature designer bags out of icing and then the accompanying logo for the other six cupcakes. A lot of research before making the cake, thank goodness for the internet!

Wedding Topper

amelia — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 08:44:03 +0000

It worked! After much hard work, and rather a lot of Fimo in the bin, I resorted to using a model horse and then making the bride, groom and dog from Fimo. I discovered that making a successful topper requires several skills including dressmaking – I made the groom’s morning suit from individual pieces to give a more tailored look. The cala lillies and gerberas were all scaled down too. The bride and groom were delighted.

The cake itself was three tiers and featured handmade cala lillies in hot orange and hot pink. I used polystyrene separators between each tier, to give space for the flowers. Version one proved to be rather top-heavy so back to the drawing board and I used larger separators. Even so, the resultant 5 tiers had to be balanced perfectly as the reception was in a marquee, and in my experience, tables and floors in marquees are never 100% solid!

Wedding toppers

amelia — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 11:06:09 +0000

So, I decided that I really should have a go at making my own wedding toppers in Fimo. Unfortunately I started off on a design that required a horse as well as a bride and groom! After several false starts, some swearing, and rather a lot of Fimo in the bin, I had a brainwave. Why not buy a model horse, make a mould then use that to create a Fimo version?! However, I’ve already made a good start on the bride and groom so am limited to the size of horse otherwise the bride will look like she’s either riding a Shetland or a Shire! If it works I will put the photos on here, if not it will be relegated to history.

My daughter requested a cake for one of her friends who turns 16 this week. She also requested I use her design. All I can say is that she has obviously no experience of what is possible in icing, or she thinks her mother is a genius (definitely the former – she is a teenager). First of all there was the request for a specific cake flavour – chocolate orange please. Then the icing had to the same colour red as the background to a Panic at the Disco (who? what?) album cover. Then the ipod had to be the same colour as her friend’s. I had a screenshot of the album on the ipod which I duly transferred to icing, plus a photo of said friend meeting one of the band. Earphones were made in icing. The last request was that I write the greeting using the same font as Panic, called Extra Ornamental – you can imagine it wasn’t straightforward! Thank goodness for food colouring pens & a lot of patience. The things we parents do for our children!