Rory's Monster Party

So Rory decided to go to his Monster Birthday Party as one of the Cybermen from Doctor Who!

 

 

 

 

He was very specific about what he wanted and it was not a 'nice' Monster Party but a 'mean' Monster Party, hence the cake with the fierce face and the cupcakes!

 

 

 

 

My lovely mum made Rory's party bags and I made some Monster Cookies to go with all the other bits and pieces that go into a party bag

 

 

My lovely husband carved a Monster Melon and filled it with fruit and for the first time at one of Rory's party's all of the fruit was eaten!

 

 

Here is a picture of my lovely husband who had his face painted by the lovely Josie Mullen who is a brilliant face painter.

 

More Christmas Cakes and Things!

So this is how my Mini Christmas cakes started.  I had seen Christmas Bauble Cakes on the internet and wanted to do something similar in design on my cakes.  After marzipaning the dome cakes I covered them in white, red and green fondant and then iced them and decorated them with fondant flowers that I had made.  I loved making them and they were very popular as a small gift for loved ones.  People gave them to teachers, friends and included them in food hampers.

 

 

 

The white ones were my favourite!

 

 

 

I also sprayed the cakes with silver food spray to give them a glow!

 

 

 

The red cakes were very popular too!

 

 

 

The stars of the show!

 

 

I also made my first Gingerbread House which was great fun.  I used the Gingerbread House Cutters from www.lakeland.co.uk and they worked really well.  I raffled the Gingerbread House at Fishbourne Schools Christmas Fair and raised £25.00 for the Special Care Baby Unit at St Richards Hospital. 

 

 

 

I loved the design of this Christmas Cake, simple but effective.

 

 

My Mini Christmas Cakes

 

 

 

I am really thrilled at how well my Mini Christmas Cakes have turned out.  I was in Lakeland (www.lakeland.co.uk) and saw these mini domed cake tins and thought how great they would look as Mini Christmas Cakes.  They are perfect as gifts for friends and family or perhaps to give to teachers to say Thank You.  I used a Mary Berry Christmas Cake receipe which is in last years Great British Bake Off Receipe Book.  I covered the cake with marzipan and white fondant and made some Red Glittery Stars for one cake and Holly with Berries for the other.

 

 

 

 

 

They are £6.50 each and come beautifully gift wrapped and delivered to your door!

 

 

 

Christening Cupcakes

I was asked by a lovely lady called Polly to provide her with some cakes for the Christening of her baby son.  Polly had contacted me after looking at my website and asked for a variety of delicious cakes.  These included some fluffy Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting and we decided to use pastel colours and I made a variety of fondant figures to put on the top.

 

I made some little ducks, very cute teddy bears and some little tractors and I was very pleased at how they turned out!

 

 

 

 

 

I also made my Strawberry Layer Cake, Melting Moments and Rocky Road Cupcakes

 

 

 

 

A great selection I'm sure you'd agree!

Williams Superhero Birthday Party

 

 

I was asked to make some Batman Superhero Cupcakes for my friends little boy William.  It was his fifth birthday and he wanted 'Chocolate and Batman'.  Luckily his Daddy is an artist and he made me the Batman template to enable me to cut out the faces.  Quite tricky as these are small cupcakes and so I cut out Batmans mask in black fondant and then his chin with pink fondant. 

 

I stuck the chin to the mask to make the whole face.  When the fondant was dry I used an edible pen and drew on Batmans mouth.  I used tiny pieces of white fondant for the eyes and Hey Presto there was Batman!  I used a mini Black Cookie Cutter for the bats and used Royal Icing to write 'POW'on the other cupcakes.

 

 

 

 

William was very pleased with his Cupcakes as were all his friends!

Melissa's Wedding Cupcake Tower

I was so excited to be creating a Wedding Cupcake Tower for Melissa's wedding at the Goodwood Hotel (www.goodwood.co.uk).  The bride was using beautiful red roses in her bouquet and the colour red was also included within the wedding colourscheme.  After talking to Melissa about what flavour cakes she wanted and what sort of look she was after, we decided on Vanilla Cupcakes with rich Chocolate Frosting.  To match the red roses in her bouquet I made handmade fondant roses, each with a small leaf to put on the top of each cupcake.

I had to make 80 roses for the large Cupcakes and 20 rosebuds for the mini Cupcakes, plus 100 leaves!  I worked out that if I made 12 roses per night, two weeks before the wedding I would have them finished before baking began!

Once I had baked the cupcakes, I had a dummy run to see how I would set up the cupcakes on the tower and then frosting began.  Now the day of baking and frosting was a really hot day and it was a real challenge getting the frosting on the cupcakes before the butter started separating from the chocolate! 

Phew, Cupcakes frosted and decorated and now just needed to be transported.  Myself and my lovely ma packed them up and drove very carefully to the hotel!  We set up the tower and arranged the cupcakes, which all looked beautiful.  I had taken some fresh red roses and arranged them on the top tier and then sprinkled red petals around the base of the tower.........

Et Voila!........

My New Neon Colours!

What a week...the Olympic Torch came to Chichester and it was my son's last week at school.  I can't believe it's been a whole year since he started and I just had to bake his teachers some Thank You Cupcakes.  I also made 30 Olympic Torch Cupcakes...one each for Rory and his classmates.  It was the perfect chance to use my new Betty Crocker Neon Food Colourings which I found on www.Americansweets.co.uk.  They have so many things I love from America including Neon Cake Sprinkles and Oreo Cookie Pieces which are in the shape of tiny cows!  Very delicious in my Chocolate Brownies...yum

The Neon Colours come in Green, Purple, Pink (my absolute favourite, it is like pink bubblegum!)and Orange.  They really look amazing on dark chocolate and with the leftover icing I make iced flowers and other decorations to use on other Cupcakes and Cakes....no waste in my kitchen!

I used them on Rory's teachers Thank You Cupcakes and I think you will agree they look pretty amazing!

All packaged and ready to go!