Princess Castle Cake

The Princess Castle was for 1 year old Lola who was born during the snowy weather last year, hence the white castle instead of pink.

The entire castle is made with vanilla cake and vanilla butter cream, including the turrets. I found the castle design in an 80s birthday cakes book that my mum had bought for mine and Becks early birthdays and thought it was perfect for what I had been asked to create.

Each turret was baked in a can that had been washed and lined with baking paper. This was a first for me using cans to bake in so I wasn't to sure on timings and how much mixer to put in so luckily I had put the baking paper higher than the can top as a couple of them tried to escape.
The other two tiers are using 12'' and 5'' round cake tins.

Once cooled each piece had vanilla butter cream in the middle and then dirty iced in the remaining icing. After dirty icing, each piece was covered in white regal ice that had been scored to look like brick work effect, it didn't look to pristine like in the book but I thought it added to the character of the cake, plus a couple of the turrets had that old twisted ruin look going on which was totally meant to happen.
After a couple of hours drying I started putting it together, finding out where each turret should sit and then adding the fort edging around the two round cakes gave a clean finish to the brick work. The turret roofs are white chocolate drops instead of fondant like it suggested in the book but I sometimes think less is better with fondant plus most people love chocolate especially kids. The last couple of stages were the windows and doors which I made mine with pink hearts, small for the windows and large for the three doors, and the trees climbing up the castle were piped on with royal icing in brown and green. The final stage was sprinkling the cake with lots of glitter.

I loved making this cake it was so much fun and the only bit that I struggled with was writing Lola on the cake board free hand, that bit was not fun.

Euphoria Perfume Bottle Cake

The perfume bottle cake was a replica of Calvin Klein's Euphoria.
For the base cake I made it with the very popular chocolate Madeira cake and chocolate butter cream and covered it in purple fondant and piped with royal icing Calvin Klein Euphoria which made it look like the perfume box.
Sat on top of the box was the perfume bottle that was made with the same cake mixture and then covered in baby pink fondant and dusted with a cerise powder colour that was later steamed to make it glossy. The lid was a small piece of cake covered in fondant and then sprayed with silver shimmer and left to dry. The lid was then placed on the bottle with some edible glue and left to dry over night.
After finishing the box and perfume I thought it was missing something so I had a look online to see what scents make up Euphoria and found out that one of the flowers used are Lotus Blossom so I printed a picture of lotus blossom placed some baking paper over the top and piped around the picture with various colours that matched the photo and left that to dry over night. In the morning I lifted the flowers off the paper and placed them round the cake board, I had done a couple Champaca flowers but the flowers were so small it broke. With the addition on the Lotus Blossom and the added black ribbon bow (I thought black would look sophisticated) the cake was finished.

Heart Cake

One of the books I've bought recently was the 'Pretty Party Cakes' by Peggy Porschen and the heart shaped valentine cake was one of the cakes featured.
When I was asked to do a wedding anniversary cake I knew straight away that that was the cake I wanted to attempt to recreate. Its slightly different in looks and flowers as my flowers are slightly larger and not as beautifully crafted I also added a poppy on mine as the couple whose cake it was for were married on the 11th November and have a military background so I thought it would make it more personal to them.
The cake is chocolate Madeira cake with chocolate butter cream and covered in a baby pink fondant. The flowers were piped with thick royal icing and left to dry over night and the stripes were piped with a thinner consistency of royal icing in three different shades of pink cerise, pink and pale pink. Once the stripes dried I added the flowers round the edge of the cake applying them with a spot of royal icing.

Hagrid and Buckbeak Cake

The Hagrid and Buckbeak cake was inspired by a scene from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie. The characters were the only part of the cake that were not edible but should last, as like a reminder of the cake. The characters were made out of fondant and sugar paste to help keep the bodies shapes.

The main cake was a chocolate Madeira cake with chocolate butter cream center, the hut was made out of rice crispies and chocolate so I could carve and mould to the right shape and then covered in brown and blue fondant. The chimney was made out of cake pop mixture and chilled in the fridge for an hour and a bit and then covered in grey fondant so it would keep its shape. The last components were the pumpkin cake pops, and the marzipan and chocolate matchsticks which made up the fire.

I really enjoyed putting this cake together, I have to admit that on the day it had to be ready for I was worried it wouldn't get finished. Thankfully I had one of those get your butt into action moments and worked solid for a number of hours and had fun in the end placing the components on the cake and adding those final touches like the rice crispies that had been carved off the hut were crushed down and sprinkled under where Buckbeak sat and made a little path outside of the hut.

Train Cake

The train cake was the first child's cake I've made and I really enjoyed making it. The train was created using a patchwork cutter and with it being for a little one I thought primary colours were the best colours to use.
The background fondant colours were blue for the sky and green for the grass with little white flowers dotted around. And I thought to finish it off I added a track for the train to run on and clouds in the sky with the little boys name and age in.