Elephant Birthday Cake

I've never made a sugarpaste elephant so it was nice to make something new. I already have my basic animal shape which I can then change the colour and face to work with said animal so for the elephant it was grey sugarpaste body with the big ears and long trunk. To give it a more girlie look I used a pink powder to give a blush to the cheeks.
The cake was a Victoria sponge covered in white fondant and finished with a blossom trim and Happy Birthday message.

Purple and White Roses Cake

For this birthday cake I was asked to make a Victoria sponge with raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream, cover in white fondant and decorate with purple and cream roses with a Happy Birthday message. I started working on the roses first so I mixed purple fondant with a small amount of sugarpaste to give it more strength and so I could roll the icing thin to give them a more delicate look. I find the best way to make fondant roses is to start with the large petals and build them in a flower forming cup, then add a small rose in the middle to create the open rose. For this cake I made three purple and three cream roses with a mix of large and medium leaves.

 

Christmas Cakes 2013 part 2

These are the two Christmas cake orders I had over the holidays. The first is a giant chocolate cupcake made to look like a Christmas tree. The filling and stump of the tree was chocolate buttercream with vanilla green buttercream icing to create the branch swirls. To decorate I used sweets, sprinkles and fondant gingerbread men.

The second Christmas cake was a fruit cake covered in marzipan and white fondant with a reindeer head and holly decorations. For the reindeer head I used a cutting wheel to create a face shape and then smoothed it to create the final shape which I then placed on top of the cake to add the features. 

Christmas Cake 2013

Over the Christmas period I attended a Christmas market where I made way too much but it was a 5 day market and what I didn't want was to run out of fruit cake and all things festive. It turns out though that Christmas cake is so not popular any more... who knew, I certainly didn't as I'm a fan :-)

A new addition to my Christmas treats are the little Gingerbread Houses which I have finally worked out how to stick them together in a presentable fashion and not with a bucket load of caramel glue which is super messy. I also put together 'Build Your Own Gingerbread House' kits which I sold a number of but got quite sick of being told that a number of supermarkets (who will remain nameless) were also selling build your own kits. My reply was 'well these are home-made gingerbread and not mass produce rubbish with lots of chemicals in so they last for 10 years instead of 3 months' yes I was slightly sarcastic but 5 days of it would send even the most charming of people sarcastic. 

Anywho here's my Christmas collection for 2013