Totoro Cake time!

What??? Really?! I haven't posted since SEPTEMBER !!! 

That is truly terrible... 

Though I have been busy... sadly busy at work, not baking! :( I have not been creating as much as I love, just overwhelmed with the new job really - barely had time to come up for air.  Though made up for it this weekend... THREE birthday cakes all for yesterday...! 
 
Firstly for Princess Sehr... 4 years already... last year, you may remember she was Angelina Ballerina ... this year she has a new baby brother, so they were pirates and princesses ! :)  

The other one was for my brother in law... a big studio Ghibili fan, it HAD to be a surprise Totoro cake... 6 layers of fluffy red velvet sponge sandwiched together with tangy cream cheese frosting... Evidently, I hadn't thought it through enough... he did NOT want to cut into Totoro, it was too traumatic! :P  

 

Dancesation Expo! Baking up a storm!

An amazing, inspiring day of selfless, talented people coming together for a great cause in Danceaid ! Showcasing talent beyond words, through creativity, hard work and a need to do more than just ask to be heard.

I was honoured to have been asked to be a part of Dancesation Expo 2012, a fantastic dance extravaganza organised by my friends, Yvonne Chan and Candice Doogan de Rosales in aid of Danceaid.  As official sponsor, there was no way I was just going to do a plain run of the mill cake stand... I hope my small contribution helped to bring awareness to this wonderful cause!  Please do have a look at the website, and see the amazing work these guys do on a daily basis for the kids who need it most, both here in the UK as well as abroad.

If you are inspired yourself and still want to be a part of it, you can pledge a donation right here, whether big or small, every penny helps!  Thank you in advance from Dancesation for Danceaid!!!

Congratulations Dat on winning the raffle cake!   

Happy BEElated...

Truth be told, I am still undecided about whether I like novelty cakes... Am I allowed to say that...?  I love and appreciate the craft and skills that go into making them, though am not sure that is where I want to be.  Though didn't I say that about sugarcraft before I had my first taste of it... Alright then... I am a sucker for the evolution my cake designs... :)

That's probably why I have yet to turn down any requests for cakes of this nature!  I think as I am still very much learning and I love the challenge - so am always intrigued to see where these projects will take me and if I can deliver.

This time, it brought me to Bobbi - I didn't name her, her owner did!  Bobbi was a belated birthday cake for a friend, who is also a BEE by name... despite her innocent appearance, Bobbi is stacked with all things sweetly sinful, a moist chocolatey, pillowy soft chocolate sponge, sandwiched between chocolate fudge frosting and cream cheese frosting, and dark cherry jam... !

The wind changed.. Bobbi's face cracked

Though the biggest lesson of this cake was actually not in the making... I think it's important, as I write the blog and chart my cake journey, not to just showcase the cakes in all their apparent effortless  glory, though to show you what goes wrong when you are careless too!  So, as you can see, Bobbi, when finished, was a happy, beautiful Bee queen... though fresh out of the oven on Friday night, filled and covered and decorated by Saturday morning and ready to go by the afternoon.  So what went wrong? 



I think there were a combination factors that contributed to the downfall...  Maybe the jam "botox" injections into the dome ends of the cake, compromised the structure of the already moist cake before I frosted and covered it with the sugar paste. It could have been because it was finished not long before it made it's journey, the sugarpaste was still fresh and soft, and hadn't had much time to breathe and air dry a bit to set into shape. Or maybe the sugarpaste itself was a little thin (as you know how I feel about thick sugary icing!) ... or most likely SPEED BUMPS.  Too fast, too bumpy... Poor Bobbi... LESSON: Bumps do not like cakes.  

Smooth smooth pert BEEhind...

Quote of the night "Bees, chocolate cake.. it's the best"

 

The WEDDING PROJECT

My Biggest Project to date... 4 tier wedding cake, to feed 450 people...

After a quick practice a few weeks back, and much to-ing and fro-ing with the flower choice, this was it, the big one.

This was a mammoth cake... the largest tier was 14", weighed around 9kgs, was covered with 2.5kgs of sugarpaste...The whole 4 tiers of cake itself need over 20 blocks of butter, 60 eggs, all tiers plus the extra 14" square cutting cake took 10kgs of sugarpaste... Epic, to say the least.


Having experienced this all first hand, I now I truly appreciate why there are typically large price tags that accompany beautiful wedding cakes. I started 3 days in advance of the wedding, baking on the Wednesday, and filling, stacking and covering on Thursday, Friday was a leisurely pace to finally finish and bling up and box the cakes ready for a 100mile trek to Birmingham delivery.  No kidding, wedding cakes take a lot of time, and love, to make sure everything is absolutely perfect for that one special day.

A true evolution of cake... from tin, to covered and finished

The tilting Turntable

As this was my first wedding cake, I decided NOT to risk it, and deliver the cakes individually boxed, and setup in situ. Definitely recommended for a cake this size, weight, and the distance that was needed to get there... it did mean another hour to finish once I got to Brummyland, though for peace of mind and a smoother, less stressful journey up, it was worth it!

This photo is just funny, looks like my hands are working 
at a frantic pace... hahaha!

Jubilations

Wasn't the Jubiliee weekend fantastic, so much regalia and the flying flags and celebrations! Loved ALL the street partying and general good feeling everywhere... Congratulations to the Queen, a truly remarkable lady!
 
 

Here was my efforts to join in the fun, actually, not too much, as I also had the wedding cake that weekend, though this was my contribution to a fantastic street party in Clapham!

This cake was baked for the same weekend as my BIGGEST project to date... THE wedding cake... Post to come...  


(I really need to find out how to upload these pictures properly, so they go where i want!!)

 

Cakes For Boys!

Trial Run to test the firey breath... :)

Yes, it's true... I am reallly getting all sugarcrafty... 

Well, this year has been all about cakes for girls, though what about the boys???  Of course we can't forget them either!!!   And what a fantastic project this one was, C was turning 4, and wanted a proper boy's cake, with some sort of dragon theme... Dragons... not TOO scary though... 

What's more exicting than a dragon cake that really breathes FIRE !!!! :)

A little pearlescence too... :)

Special Cakes (Part 2)

I am so poor at this blogging... I am so behind in logging all these new cake adventures I have been on this year!

Well, following on from part 1 of the cakes for lovely girls, I had another birthday cake in March that I need to tell you about. This one, was again more work with icing, though it was a happy medium, as I used my usual sponge recipe, and filled it with Rose and Vanilla cream, and fresh strawberries... then topped with multi coloured macarons! The birthday girl's favourite !!! Her other half dubbed it the best gracie cake he has had yet... The birthday girl was also very happy with it... :)

Hubby thought the concept was very cute, he liked the colours of the multi sized macarons, said they reminded him of the LV colours he had seen on one of their wallet designs! What do you think?

 

Special cakes for special girls...

Well, there have been a few new developments in my cake baking journey. Following on from MIsty's cake, and my first proper dabble with sugarcraft, I got another commission for another birthday cake!  

This one was for a beautiful little girl, she was turning 3 and is the most girlie of girls. She wanted an Angelina Ballerina cake.. TWO tiers!  My first tiered cake... Ooo, I was so excited! For days before the event, I woke up in the middle of the night, just thinking about how I was going to do it, what I wanted to do...  It would be pink, very pink, frilly - it is a ballerina cake afterall.  FIlled with her favourites, strawberries and vanilla !