Sunday 17 July 2011

Mums Birthday Card

It was my mummy's birthday this month so I decided make a nice simple card for her. I've used a QVC kit called Kanban Reflections (I think I will have to double check it). All the pieces were in the kit so made it nice and easy to put together and (as with all Kanban kits) came with an idea sheet to make that little bit easier.
A simple girly card but I feel very effective!

Mummy's Birthday Cake

After making my Grandad a Winnie the Pooh cake for his birthday, my Mother wanted one for her birthday but made with fondant icing rather than butter icing. This was surprisingly easier than I thought it was going to be and turned out pretty well. I even managed to get the correct colours.
I actually took stage by stage photos as I was rather please with how 'spongey' the sponge looked. I have never had one come out so well!
This was just made with my general sponge recipe that I use for Wilton tins and Giant Cupcakes. I was given the recipe by a good friend who LOVES baking and it has never steered me wrong!!
To get the shape of Pooh Bears separate pieces I pressed the separate colours into the different part of the tins.
The yellowy-orange for Pooh Bear was made using Wilton food colourings. A bit of Wilton icing colour Orange and a little bit of Wilton icing colour Lemon Yellow. They worked really well and came out with the perfect colour for Pooh Bear.
The yellow of the hunny was just Wilton icing colour Lemon Yellow and the centre of the foot was just Wilton icing colour Orange.
Pooh Bears top was coloured with Wilton icing colour Red Red. It came out in the icing quite pale and thought the colour was going to be wrong for him but it turned out REALLY well!!! I am tempted to buy Wilton icing colour Christmas Red and try that another time!
The hunny pot was a ready to use icing called Regal Ice Chocolate flavoured. I have found it difficult before to make brown and couldn't get any Wilton icing colour to make my own so bought so ready. Made life a little easier =)
I placed plain white fondant icing around the outside of the base of the cake so it was all covered.
The black outline was just a bit of icing coloured with Silver Spoon black icing colour. This was quite fiddly to  do but worked really well.
The writing on the hunny pot was a bit of 'normal' icing as I call it. Just a bit of icing sugar, water and black food colouring. I made it quite thick so I could pipe it through a piping bag!

Mum absolutely loves it and thinks it tastes amazing. I'm so pleased that it worked out better than my Grandads' cake and even managed to get a 'Well done. It tastes really nice' off my brother! =)

Not sure what my next project will be but I can see it being a test for my Dads' birthday cake! =)

Monday 4 July 2011

Raspberry Victoria sponge

I can't remember who told me but I was told my Grandad liked raspberry Victoria sponge so I decided to make one for him. I also decided to put some raspberries on top just to make it a little bit special.

Look Freddy, Cupcakes!!!

I was watching TV and saw the Morrisons advert with Freddy Flintoff. This made me want to make cupcakes. They're just a simple fairy cake recipe with coloured buttercream icing and sprinkles.
I had fun making them and my other half had fun eating them!