Mum's Tiered Birthday Cake

I decided to try and do a tiered birthday cake for my Mum this year rather than a normal single layered. I thought a tiered would be best as my mum (apparently) was the only one who likes carrot cake so I did a 4 inch on for her, my sister and I are on a diet so I did a 6 inch low fat ginger cake for us and everyone else eats chocolate so I did an 8 inch chocolate cake. I have decided I need more than one day to do a tiered cake as I only finished the cake 10 minutes before my mum actually turned up. Nothing like cutting it close!!!
I used my new Square Cake Pan from Lakeland and I have to say I LOVE it sooooooo much. I was recommended this cake pan by @nixabix on her blog Nom! The Indulgent Baking Blog and I am so grateful to her for it. I am thinking of getting more dividers those.
There isn't really much more to say so here is the pictures.

Just a quick note. I did the Happy Birthday on the Cricut Cake =) I do love that machine. It is a lovely BEAUTIFUL machine!!! I'll get a picture and post it one day =)

Bro-in-law Cake

My future bro-in-laws birthday rolled round in January and as I had done a cake for his sisters birthday, it was only fair that I did him one.

I did a plain sponge cake decorate with fondant icing. He loves pandas so I made 2 pandas for the top. I also added a model made to look like him leaning on pillows with an xbox at his feet. As he is a huge Harry Potter fan his cake wouldn't be complete without a small gesture towards HP so I created a wizards hat and placed this at his feet.

The Happy Birthday and border were cut out using the Cricut Cake Mini.

The cake was greatly appreciated and seemed to go down well although, to me, it wasn't the best as it was very narrow. It didn't seem to raise much. I think I need to get a new pot of baking powder as I've had it for quite a while and the potency (apparently) can deteriorate.

Grandma Birthday Cake

I received a phone call from my mum about a week before my Grandmas birthday saying she had bought herself a Giant Cupcake Mould and decided she wanted to make one for my Grandmas birthday. We made a lovely chocolate sponge which we filled the centre with chopped fresh pineapple. I thought it was a lovely idea but have decided for future cakes the pineapple needs to be a bit smaller and more of it.

The topping was plain buttercream with fondant icing decorations cut out using the Cricut Cake Mini.

The cake went down well so all was good. =)

Eeyore b'day cake

I was asked by a friend to make a cake for her mum for her birthday. She asked me if I could do a Victoria Sponge with a bit of decoration.

Was simple when she told me that she loved Eeyore. To make the Eeyore I used fondant icing and followed instructions for a 'bear'  and just changed it slightly to make the Eeyore. Both her and her mum loved it so I was very happy.

Fortitude

This was a cake I made for a Star Trek con (Trekology 2012) It is a cake shaped like an intrepid class ship (i.e. Voyager). This was a congratulations on a great con for the crew of the USS Fortitude.
I am part of this crew and have got to say everyone did a fantastic job and this cake was well deserved (I may be the navigator but I should be the baker lolz)

This is my most difficult cake to date as it was a shaped cake. I did have someone make a cake board that was specifically designed to make it a little bit easier.

Christmas cake

My mum asked me to make all her decorations for her Christmas Cake this year and I have to say I am absolutely chuffed at how they turned out.

They were all made out of fondant icing which had be left to air dry once the had been formed. I have managed to do this using Ann Pickards book Idiots Guide to Christmas Cakes. 

I also used her cake characters book

I really enjoyed doing this and have decided I can make these and possibly make some money from them as I received 2 more of her books for Christmas!

2 Cakes 1 Week

So this was a very busy week. I had a thank you cake and a birthday cake to make in one week not to mention working! This was very challenging but great fun!

Firstly is the thank you cake. Not often you see a thank you cake but one of my friends was making uniforms for our entire crew (Fortitude) within 10 weeks. It was stressing her out and we were all so thankful for her doing them. She is FANTASTIC at making anything and she loves my cakes so it was .... fate.

She love coffee and walnut cake and I was surprised to find that one of my baked and delicious magazines (issue 5) had a coffee and walnut cake recipe. I was so happy I got down to making it straight away. The crumb coating and centre of the cake is coffee buttercream which smelt LOVELY.

As for the decoration, my friend is a HUGE star trek fan. Her husband is a Klingon and she is a Trill (surprisingly she also looks like Jadzia Dax) so it was only fitting that on the cake I did the klingon symbol and  trill spots. She absolutely LOVED it and said it tasted amazing (as I don't like coffee I didn't actually try it).

The second cake was for one of my best friends birthday. It (unfortunately) didn't turn out looking like I wanted to. This girl is amazing and has the most amazing .... assets so I just HAD to do a boob cake to celebrate the amazingness of hers.

The cake was just a lemon sponge it was BEAUTIFUL and the centre and topping was lemon butter icing (it's a good job everyone likes butter icing!) The base was iced with fondant coloured with pink sugarflair paste (possibly wilton food colouring can't remember hehe). On the top was supposed to be a nipple tassel made with fondant. It was very pretty and everyone really enjoyed tucking into it.

 My friends little boy saw both these cakes and (while I was unveiling and taking photos) he got very upset that no one was serving or cutting the cakes. Bless him!

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! =)

Me to You Cake!

My friend loves Me to You bears so I made a giant cupcake for her birthday with a me to you fondant bear on top.

The cake is a simple Victoria Sponge recipe. The base of the cupcake is covered by fondant icing coloured with pink food colouring. The writing is simple butter icing. The top of the cupcake is decorated with butter icing coloured with pink food colouring. The butterflies on the top as the same fondant as the base.

I am relatively impressed how the inside of this cake turned out as my previous cupcakes have never had that great an inside I feel.

I did make the bear myself! I personally think this isn't bad for a first attempt! =)