New Business Venture

Where does time go?  There is never enough time in a day to fit in all the things you want to do.

With the encouragement from family and friends I’ve plucked up the courage and set up a face-book page and website dedicated to my cakes (admittedly this is still under construction).  Hopefully the advertising through this will help me set up a business.  Quite nerve racking to be honest.

I’m very passionate about cake decorating, and seeing the pleasure it brings others.  I love bringing a cake alive.  Cakes are obviously made/bought for one or other type of celebration, therefore they should bring joy to the recipient.

Cakes come in different shapes, sizes, colours and flavours and can be decorated in so many ways.  I try to personalise each cake as much as possible, and spend many hours gathering my ideas and putting them into practise.  So far I have achieved every challenge set for me.

My absolute favourite cake maker/decorator of all time has got to be Debbie Brown.  I met her about 8 years ago, (meeting her was like a child meeting Santa Claus for the very first time!)  and think she is absolutely awesome with all her wonderful ideas.  I’m so inspired by her work of art!

Of course there are other amazing cake decorators out their too, such as Maisie Parrish, Karen Davies, Lindy Smith and Carol Deacon.  Recently I picked up a book written by Tracey Mann, another lady to keep your eye on, together with Helen Penman. Their books are brilliant too.  I would love to meet them all and spend time watching and learning from them.

Who are your favourite cake decorators and why?  If you have others I’ve not mentioned and you think they are awesome let me know.  I’m always looking out for new and interesting talents.

 

Sugarcraft Flowers

As I haven’t got any cake orders on at the moment I thought I would share photos of some of the sugar craft flowers that I have created.

A few years ago a friend was making a wedding cake and  I was in total awe of the beautiful flowers she had made from sugar paste.  Having seen her work of art, I then enrolled on a course at college, and soon learnt to create these beautiful flowers myself.

Nature is a wonderful thing, and when you look at flowers more in depth, you can see how intricate and detailed they are.  Having learnt the art of producing sugar flowers, I take a lot more notice of the real flower now.

Here are some of my examples:-

Christmas flowers, with holly and sprigs

Close up of Christmas Spray

Sugarcraft card and pulled flowers

Flower Spray of Lillies, Lily of the Valley, Roses and pulled flowers

Roses, daises and ivy with hearts and flags

Blue and White roses, pulled flowers and fantasy flower, with ivy, blue feather and mini disco balls

Please feel free to leave a comment.

Success

As promised, photos of the 3 tier 18th Birthday cake.

I am delighted to say that my cake was a success.  The theme for the cake was a masquerade mask and a basque, with a colour scheme of pink, green and black.

I thoroughly enjoyed making this cake, as it had a very theatrical feel to it.

I made the mask from Modelling paste, decorated it with edible glitter, gold paint and dust, then added the peacock feather for a dramatic effect.  I tried to capture the colours in the mask and basque to those found in the feathers.

It’s amazing how we can look at things, but don’t actually see how beautiful they are until we actually study them.  I say that because the peacock feather is absolutely beautiful, vibrant in colour and delicate. and would not have realized this if it weren’t for adding it to my final piece on the cake.

The idea of the basque came when I discovered that the Birthday girl would in fact be wearing a basque on the evening.  I thought this would create the perfect image, with lace effect and tie up front for a centre piece.

Stacking the three tiers on top of each other completed the look I had hoped for.

When decorating cakes you always wonder what the recipients reaction will be, and the moment they smile and raise their hands in joy, you know you have succeed in creating their dream cake.

Have you ever created a mask cake?  Please feel free to share your experiences with me.

Masquerade Mask

Sugarcraft and feathers

Basque with lace effect

A view from above

Time to party

Mission Accomplished on the 3 tier 18th Birthday cake

Woke up this morning bright and early, and got stuck into my project.  (well – once I’d got my first cup of tea!)

I mixed up all the butter icing required to cover the three cakes (my excercise for the day), and used strawberry conserve as filling for the Madeira cake, Nutella in the chocolate cake and lemon curd in the Lemon Cake.  This gives the cakes a little more texture and flavour.

Once this was complete I then set to work icing and decorating the 3 tiers.  I find sugar craft very therapeutic, and almost go into a trance when I’m concentrating.  A lot of thought, time and patience makes such a difference to the finished product.

Unfortunately as much as I would love to put my photos of the cake up tonight, I can’t as the birthday bash is tomorrow and it would total ruin the surprise for the Birthday Girl.  So sadly you’ll have to wait a couple of days, and look forward to them.

What a great feeling, when you’ve completed a mission, and it’s all gone to plan!!  Another successful day!

3 Tier cake well underway

I’m excited!  I’ve successfully baked the three cakes required for an 18th Birthday this weekend.  The aromas in the house today have been mouth watering to say the least.

I started off with a 7″ Madeira cake – the old trustworthy traditional cake.  I’ve used this recipe from the very first attempt at baking, and never looked back.  A  light flavour, moist and holds it freshness for a good few days.

Once set aside to cool I made a 9″ Chocolate cake!  This is definitely not the cake to make if you are on a diet, as it is so tempting to have a piece of luxury chocolate with each bit of ingredients you add to the mixture.  This is a heavenly cake, light and fluffy in texture, creamy and so, so chocolatey.  I can feel the weight spreading on my waistline just thinking about it!!

So i’ll move on…..

Then lastly I made a 11″ lemon cake.  This is a wonderful recipe, so tangy and tasty, made with fresh lemon juice and the zest of the lemon.  This has a lot of flavour and is a light, fresh cake.  An excellent choice not only for celebration cakes, but for afternoon teas with friends and family.

When making a number of tiers, it is lovely to have a variety of flavours to suit all palettes, and pretty sure you wouldn’t have much left over at the end of the day!!

All three cakes are now wrapped up awaiting decoration tomorrow.  I’m really looking forward to putting my creative touch this project, as I put the colours, patterns and ideas together.

What are you favourite flavours?

Chocolate Heaven

“please sir, can I have some more”

Traditional cake used for celebration cakes

Tasty flavoured cakes

1st Wedding Anniversary Cake

An occasion to celebrate!!

My sister and brother-in-law celebrated their first wedding anniversary today, and as a surprise I decided to bake them a cake.

I thought the idea of lace and hearts was a romantic theme and adding two teddies that looked to be in love, would add character to the cake.  I also liked the idea of having blue butterflies as butterflies represents life.  So you have life, love and romance.

They have celebrated their first anniversary, and I wish them many more happy years to come.

This week I will be busy on an 18th Birthday cake, something I’m looking forward to doing – again another challenge.  Lets hope it all comes together!  Will keep you posted.  :)

 

Triplets 21st Birthday cake

Triplets all in one cake celebration.  

Last week I was asked to make a cake for triplets celebrating their 21st birthday.

I was told that there were two girls and a boy. One of the girls was really into Lacrosse sports, the other studying Porsche at University, and the lad a policeman.

I wanted to capture all three onto the cake to make it more personal to them.  I knew this would be a challenge and after pondering on it for a while I decided to make the girls sitting in a sporty Porsche, with a policeman standing at the side of the road.

I’ve never made a car before, but having looked at a number of photos of a porsche I thought I could do it.  I really got into modelling the porsche and putting in the fine little details.  Once the characters were added it really completed the scene.

I was pleased with the final result and hoped that the triplets would be too and thankfully they were really delighted with it.

My next challenge is an 18th birthday cake, but I won’t say anything about that just yet, as that will give you something to look forward to.

ABOUT MYSELF AND HOW I GOT TO BE HERE

I started making cakes 17 years ago for my daughters’ 1st birthday and then for every birthday following.  When you have children it is surprising what you find out about yourself! I found I had an artistic side I never knew I had, and thoroughly enjoyed the decorating of cakes.

Over the years my confidence has grown and my cake decorating improved.  A few years ago I saw a friend’s talent of making sugar craft flowers and was so inspired by her work that I decided to do a course at college on it.  I thoroughly enjoyed the course and before I knew it I was making a variety of flowers and other sugar-craft items.

In the last few years I’ve made many personalised cakes for family and friends. Some of the cakes have been simple and others more challenging, but all requests have been achieved and enjoyed. (Admittedly on the more challenging ones the language has been blue, from the frustration of not getting it right first time!)  My husband often says I’m too much of a perfectionist, and very self-critical … but if that cake’s not right it isn’t going anywhere!!

On occasion when working on a cake I’ve had one or other family/friend watch me, and have been told I go into la la land when i’m focussed on my project, but hey i’m concentrating.  There have been times when my ideas won’t come together and that’s when I walk away and come back later, and then it all falls into place like magic.

Cake decorating is fun, and with each request there is a new challenge as I try to personalize the cake to suit the occasion.  Family and friends have been on at me for years to set a cake business up, but have never had the confidence or courage.  However, last weekend on talking to my brother-in-law about my cakes, he sat down and started this blog.  So here I am.  I will shortly be posting photos so be patient and again watch this space.

Not long now…

Hi

I’m just starting up and over the coming days I will be putting photos up on some of the cakes I have made over the years.  I am really excited about getting this up and running so watch this space.