In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.....

Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole and that means comfort.

It also means we've tried to re-create one in cake! It is a fairly simple looking hobbit house but the hours of work that went into it were immense!

After Rob once again cooked a lovely cake filled with Italian Meringue buttercream and chocolate ganache he carved it into a hobbit house shape. To start with we made a "perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle". Well coloured with food colouring anyway...

On top of this we added the front of the building and cut a hole out for the door. Of course the hole I cut out in the 'middle' of the building wasn't in the middle in the slightest! Nevermind, time for brick work! We carefully tweezered 41 tiny bricks around the door and window. Each brick was about as big as my little fingernail.... it took a while!

We then worked on the grounds of the house. Firstly we covered the whole house and most of the board in green sugarpaste. This turned out to be the easy bit!

I then decided to texture the sugarpaste to give it the appearance of grass. To do this I stuck and star piping nozzle on my finger and repeatedly poked the icing....

This isn't so bad....

Approx 45 minutes into the process....

Almost 2 hours later.....

Roughly 2 hours 15 minutes later and I finally finished. I still dont think my back has forgiven me!




















But the cake wasn't done yet! We added in the 'timber' supports holding the roof up and a crazy paving pathway leading to the door. Plus a few bushes in the grounds of the house to make the landscape a bit more interesting!

I may have been going slightly insane by this point....

A small chimney and the cake is complete :)

Somebodys Turning 3!

Last week it was the birthday of one of our favourite 3 years olds and what better cake than a catroon dinosaur :) This blog is a bit more in-depth as we managed to take quite a few photos so feel free to just look at the pictures!

The body and head of the dinosaur were created using our spherical tins (these are becoming a bit of a favourite despite the long cooking times involved) which Rob then ingeniously carved into a dinosaur.

A few small holes later and we had room for the fillings:

We added a tail to the rear of the body and covered the whole thing in buttercream ready for the sugarpaste covering. The sugarpaste covering the body was seamlessly smoothed into the tail to make it seem like one continuous piece and then we added the smaller details like legs and nostrils.

A few final touches such as spines, spots and skulls rounded the dinosaur off and he was ready for the party!

Unfortunately it seems the reason for the dinosaurs extinction is their in-ability to run away when the birthday boy threatens them with a knife!

Now just to plan his 4th birthday :)

Spooky Happenings

This has to be the most fun cake we've ever made! We made it for an 11th birthday but it being halloween meant we could make it just a little bit gooey and spooky. This meant a cauldron full of eyeballs, green slime and skulls was the order of the day!

We started by making the skulls from chocolate as well as small pumpkins to hold sweets. The board was up next with a stone floor effect and some logs to rest the cauldron on. The cauldron itself was quite interesting to bake. Rob ended up using both of our spherical tins, suspending the smaller one inside the large one with barbecue sticks and then weighing it down with baking beans. It worked a treat, although next time we'll take the smaller tin out before the cake cools down and sticks to it!

 

Covering the cauldron was also a rather tricky job luckily we had many hands helping and soon got it done. Once it was covered it was time to have fun with the green slime (green buttercream) and start placing the eyeballs and skulls to look suitably spooky. To finish things off we added a couple of monster tentacles and brains!

 
 

Blue Nose Friends

This week we made my favourite cake order so far, a colleague at work asked for a cake featuring the Blue Nose Friends. Originally to be featuring Giggles, Cheddar, Goldie and Snowdrop only 3 made the cut in the end but the result was worth all the hours of modelling put in.

As this was a quick turnaround cake we made our standard plain sponge cake with chocolate ganache and Italian meringue buttercream (of which Rob is now a master). We used our favourite round tins by Silverwood (http://www.lakeland.co.uk/15096/Silverwood-Victoria-Surprise-Cake-Set), these clever tins allow you to create a hollow in the middle of the two cakes halves. This make it a lot easier not to get a bulge running around the centre of the cake caused by escapee buttercream.

The cake was covered with white sugarpaste and models of 3 characters were placed on top (Giggles the Baboon, Goldie the Labrador and Snowdrop the rabbit). But we couldn't stop there.... small party hats were added to each character and we placed some edible balloons in the background to set the scene. Finally we finished the cake off with a fondant bow and number.

The first animal I attempted was Goldie the Labrador as he was a fairly basic shape. To make the body I coloured some icing ivory and made a large ball then slightly tapered it at one end. To give the model a bit more support and make sure his head stayed on I stuck some dried spaghetti through him.

The head was made by rolling out a ball and then shaping it to have a muzzle. The ears are just small teardrop shapes attached with water. The arms and legs are sausages with tapered points and flattened ends for the feet. The next job was to make a small football for him to hold, next time I will do the football markings before placing it on the model!

Here he is all propped up by various piping nozzles, decorating tools and kitchen towel to harden before being given a cute little blue nose, small eyebrows and patches.

 I then applied the finishing touches (the eyes took forever, so small!) and voila!

Next up was Snowdrop, he was made in a similar fashion to Goldie so I've just included a few progress shots.

Next up was the Baboon and to my childish delight the soft toy includes a little pink bottom. I made certain not to miss this detail when making the model!

Now the fun part, assembling everything without breaking any of the models.....

Stay tuned for a rather unique cake next week!