Bing the Bunny Birthday Cake

This cake was a 3D version of the popular children’s TV character Bing the Bunny, I have had the ‘pleasure’ of watching the program thanks to my then two-year-old nephew Tom who at that point really liked the show. Normally when I’m asked to make a cake based on a popular kids program I have to google it, but not this time.

With it being a cake that had to be carved I made a Madeira sponge as it’s a harder wearing cake unlike the very popular Victoria sponge which is to light and fluffy. I think it must be the addition of plain flour in the Madeira cake that makes it a good choice for a carved cake design.

The probable area with this cake was the ears, I had made these in advance but still had problems with them setting as the sugar paste didn’t want to dry, I think it might have been the addition of the colour that may have affected it. In the end I had to put dowels in the ears so they had more structure to them.

Carving the cake was quite straight forward as he’s a bit chunky around the hips section and has a short neck which helped keep the head up. Covering him with the fondant was made easier with it being dungarees and t shirt. Finishing touches were the buttons and a number 2.

Jungle Themed Cupcakes

This was a bit of a last minute order, the customer had had cakes from us before and hoped we could put together 20 cupcakes for her grandson’s birthday.

The design was jungle themed with kid style animals. With it being last minute I picked four animals that would be recognisable for a young child - so a monkey, a lion, an elephant and a hippo. The toppers were all made freehand as it was too late in the day to buy cutters, I probably would have had to send for them. It’s amazing how versatile a circle cutter can be. The background colours I kept in pastel shades.

Hand Painted Floral Cake

This was an 8” Victoria sponge covered in ivory fondant and decorated with hand painted flowers.

It’s the first time I’d hand painted a cake and it was only because the customer had said ‘I’ll leave the design up to you’ the only specifics was the theme - floral and garden.

I’d recently bought some new paints that were specifically for painting on to fondant, the only thing I had to do was come up with a design and then put brush to fondant, or something like that. It was quite scary painting the first flower, I kept thinking ‘I hope I’ve started in the right place’ and ‘what do I do if I go wrong?’. But once I got going it was just like painting on canvas.

The only thing I was disappointed with was that the paint in some places didn’t dry and was still slightly wet when the customer picked it up. So that was disappointing but thankfully they all enjoyed it and I don’t think anyone ended up with paint on their teeth. I’ve not used those paints since, they are probably best used in fruit cakes so there’s more time for drying, I know for next time.

Heart Dome Anniversary Cake

I’d been asked by a customer to make a filigree heart dome out of royal icing. My first thoughts were eeekk, and then I explained to the customer that I hadn’t worked with royal icing since my sugar craft course a number of years ago but that I would give it a go if she was happy with that. Thankfully the lovely customer was and said if I was unable to make the dome that a flat filigree heart would be more than ok. I’m quite a stubborn person and when asked to make something I have to make it exactly how they imagined it to be so I set about mastering royal icing.

The first thing I did was go shopping for a heart shaped mould of some sort so I could pipe on top of said mould and then lift it off once dry, easy right…. Wrong, it took a number of attempts just to get a nice filigree design and then lifting it of in one piece well there’s the tricky part. Four attempts down and I’m starting to consider a flat heart until my fifth heart dome came off in one piece and looked lovely. Hallelujah! All i had to do then was dust it with lustre and not break it!

Next I made the Victoria sponge, covered in cream fondant with a lattice design around the sides and finished off with the heart dome that I secured in place with royal icing pearls.

I had to deliver this cake so I packed a tool kit to fix any problems that may have happened on journey over, thankfully it was plain sailing and got there in one piece, phew.