Fisherman Cake

The Fisherman Cake was for a 65 year old man. My brief was to make a vanilla sponge and to have a fishing theme and also a fisherman. 

As soon as I was given the cake order I knew straight away what I was going to do - a man sat on a log fishing in a pond sat next to a fish fishing in the same pond.

At that point I didn't know if I could make an actual fishing rod with a fish hanging off the line but I had a play with some 22 gauge wire and some brown fondant which made the rod and attached some invisible thread to end. The day before I cut out a 6 and a 5 in orange sugar paste, rolled a criss-cross effect over the numbers and then brushed some shimmer over them to make them look like Goldfish skin. Once dried the next day after making the rods I attached a number to each of the rods and to my amazement it worked and the figures didn't fall over which was my biggest worry. 

The bulk of the cake is covered in Lincoln Green fondant and I used a mixture of duck egg and royal blue to create a water swirl pattern for the pond. The log is cake pop mixture shaped to look like a log and I then brushed the melted chocolate onto the cake mixture to give it a bark look. To finish of the edging I piped some green royal icing around the cake to make it look like grass.

Cakes for Bakery Window

These two cakes are the last to go into the bakery display unit for the moment.
I'm not sure how popular Gender Reveal parties are in Britain but I know its quite big in America so I thought I would jump on the band wagon and help bring the craze over to us Brits. At these parties no one knows the sex of the baby even the expecting parents until they cut into the cake to find either pink or blue icing. For my version I've gone with white fondant icing to cover the cake with a quilting effect which I've added blue and pink spots. For the top I made two teddies one pink for a girl and the other blue for a boy and then added the words 'Open To See'. Even if Gender Reveal parties don't take off I still think it would make a very cute Christening or naming ceremony cake.

The last cake is an Easter Fake, I'm a huge fan of bunnies so it had to be decorated with the Easter Bunny. The decoration are patchwork and took a long time to do, the ears are extremely fiddly to get out of the cutter without stretching them but once it's all fitted together it looks really sweet and to cute to eat.
Obviously once Mothers day, Valentines day and Easter are other with I will be making some new Fakes.

Pookie Birthday Cake

It's my mum's birthday this weekend and for her birthday I made her a coconut cake with an edible photo of our very cute dog Pookie. 

I have been asked a couple of times if I make cakes with edible photos on and had never been able to say yes as I've never tried before so I thought that this was a perfect time to try it out. I went on-line to see who does edible printing and to check prices. There are plenty who do the printing so it came down to price and found one that was reasonable for both product and packaging. 

I was really pleased with the photo but the only thing I thought would be useful to have was instructions I had to go on-line again to watch a video on how to remove an edible print from the backing sheet. Once I realised you have to cut around the picture and wiggle it over the counter edge it came away from the plastic and stuck to the cake with some water.

The next problem was cutting into Pookie's face while he was stood next to me, so I told mum to cut the cake instead :-)

Shoofly Pie

Every weekend we get the newspaper and I grab the glossy magazine as that's my favourite bit. After flicking through the home style section I came to the food pages and this week it was 'Kooky Crumbles', yum.

I'm a huge fan of fruit crumbles with my favourite being apple and now I have another to add to that list, a Shoofly pie. It's a treacle and syrup pie with a crumble topping, it also defies gravity due to the treacle and syrup being watered down with 175 ml of boiling water and an egg and a teaspoon of baking powder to thicken it which before cooking didn't look very thick! 

For the pastry I made a sweet shortcrust which I sweetened with icing sugar. I blind baked it for 15 mins and then for a further 5 without the baking beans making sure I didn't end up with a soggy bottom, although I was worried when the liquid went in as I imagined the mixture spilling out everywhere. 

For the last 10 mins of baking time I added the crumble mixture and breathed a sigh of relief to see the mixture sitting happily in the pastry case, YEAH!  

More Cakes For Bakery

This week I've been extremely busy making more fakes for the bakery display case. So far I've put two wedding cakes and a Valentines cake on display but I need to show a wider variety which is why I've made three birthday cakes - one is more for boys, another for girls and the last one is for more traditionalists. I thought I should also make a Mothers day cake as that is creeping up on us.

All the insides are polystyrene and the fondant should last for a while unless sunlight hits it but I don't have to worry about that at the moment. :-) 

For the rest of the week I'm going to make an Easter Cake and a Reveal Cake, if anyone has any ideas for the Reveal Cake I would love to hear them, always nice to hear for you. Anyways back to work.