Blackboard Cake

I had been asked to make a birthday cake for a teacher who was going to be celebrating her 50th birthday and they thought it would be funny to include spelling mistakes and bad mathematics. The first thing I thought of was a blackboard cake with Happy Birthday spelt with letters and numbers and to create a sum that equalled 50 but actual equals 15.

The cake is a vanilla sponge with vanilla butter cream and covered in dark brown fondant for the border and black on top. I used red to cover the board and red royal icing to pipe the message onto the blackboard as red is her favourite colour. The chalk and board eraser are made out of fondant.

Butterfly Cake

For the Butterfly Cake I made the butterflies a day before the cake so they had time to harden and keep their shape with the wings stood up. The butterfly colour schemes are from photos of butterflies that I found on the trusty Internet. The main colours I had to work with were any shade of pink. Pink goes well with so many other colours so I knew introducing black, blue and purple would still work well with the main cake colour, cerise. 

For the cake I made two 8" round vanilla sponges, took the tops of both cakes and covered in vanilla butter cream. After rolling out the cerise fondant I marked out an 8" circle in the centre which I then rolled a butterfly print onto. Once on the cake the print sat on top and created a guide as to where to position the pre-made butterflies.

The board was covered in the same cerise fondant and then sprinkled with pink sugar to give it a glittery finish. Once the cake was placed on the board I then positioned the butterflies onto the cake glueing them on with royal icing. 

Roundhead Cake

The Roundhead cake was for a friends dad who loves history and his favourite times are The Tudors, Roundheads and I think The English Civil War. I went with Roundheads as I thought a helmet cake is more manly than a Tudor Rose and I couldn't put together an idea for Civil War. 

To make the helmet I made two 8" round vanilla sponges and cut the top off of the bottom sponge and neatened the top sponge as it had created a curved top when in the oven, which was handy.

The colour is dark grey for the helmet and instead of making a face for it to sit on (which would have been slightly creepy) I went with black so it looked like a mannequin head in a museum. 

For the detailing I printed a picture of the Internet so I could get all the markings in the right place. Once the modelling was finished I dusted some black powder colour around the helmet to age it and then finished with a shimmer powder to give it a metal sheen finish.

The board was covered in Teddy Bear Brown fondant. To create the ripples I rolled the fondant bigger than the board so that it creates natural creases making it look like fabric.      

Wedding Fair Cakes

At Preston Hall last Sunday Chintzy Cakes had the biggest day in the business's history as we had a stall at the Tees Valley Wedding Fair.

This was my first wedding fair and I had no idea when booking the stall just how much work goes into being part of a fair. I've spent many hours working on and designing a table that would be eye catching, pretty and above all very chintzy.

The following photos are fake wedding cakes I've been lovingly slaving over for the past couple of months but after seeing them set out on the table it was totally worth the many sleepless nights and long working days.

Barbie Cake

My next door neighbours little girl turned 6 this year and I was asked to make a cake based on Barbie, it had to be glittery and it had to be pink. 

My first idea was to make a ball gown cake with a doll stood in the middle, I knew there would be enough cake in the dress to feed her friends. What I didn't realise was just how long Barbies legs are. I had originally made two sponges that sat on top of each other with a hole in the middle where she would fit in however Barbie had other ideas as the said cake only went up to her knees. This meant another two cakes were put in the oven pronto. Once they had cooled I carved out a hole in the middle of each and started putting the layers together with butter cream, dirty icing and then came the many shades of pink fondants. To get the butterfly effect on the front panel I rolled over it with a embossing mat which imprints the picture on to the fondant. I then finished of the decorations with sugar pearls, hearts and shimmer spray to get the glittery look. 

For the cake board I covered it in cerise coloured fondant and sprinkled over sugar crystals before the fondant had a chance to dry and then piped on the Happy Birthday message.