Super Safari Cake

Our latest order was for a 65th birthday meal, the birthday boy is keen on wildlife and had recently returned from a safari. The idea for the cake was to have silhouettes of some of the animals he'd seen on the safari along with some numbers reminding him of his age! Additionally our client requested a fudge filling for her Dad's cake.

After baking the cake we made the fillings and tried not to eat them both before they made it to the cake. We poured the chocolate fudge filling into the bottom layer of the cake and left it to set.

Now it was time to make the decorations whilst trying really hard not to look at the cake in case we were tempted by it. We used cardboard templates for all of the cut-outs and hand-painted the designs on the numbers (should have done bigger markings on the giraffe - it took forever to do!).

Finally the cake was gently transported down the motorway in a car running out of fuel - a very nerve racking journey - and made it intact.

The ups and downs of Raa Raa the Noisy Lion

We recently got asked to create a cake based on Raa Raa the Noisy Lion (a character in a childrens TV program). It didn't matter what the cake looked like, it just needed to have Raa Raa on it. We decided to do a 3D standing model of Raa Raa, initially all went well....

 We created the supports then built his legs, arms and tail before putting him in the fridge to set.

  

 Once he was set he got measured up for his rather large tummy and head:

And then the unseasonably hot British weather struck (even with all the windows and doors open), he melted! First his legs became nothing more than short stumps and his belly connected with his toes. Finally his waving arms dropped forward and fell off! And so we started again, theres no pictures of this bit as we were in too much of a rush making 36 decorated cupcakes at the same time.

 In the meantime we made, filled and decorated 36 cupcakes, mostly with small coloured butterflys:

To decorate all of the cupcakes we had to flatten each one by cutting the top off. Instead of throwing the tops away we sandwiched them together with Italian Meringue Buttercream and Milka Ganache:





















Finally I managed not to get lost delivering them ready for the big 2nd birthday party

Our first cake order!

This week we've been busy making our first ever ordered cake! The cake was for an 80th birthday with the birthday girl enjoying walking, cycling, croquet and gardening. The initial design was 2 cakes (an '8' and a '0') with the 8 being a croquet course and the 0 being a small park scene. We started creating elements of the cake early on in the week:

However the watering can just looked a little bit droopy :( Attempt number 2 went a lot better and was deemed good enough to be used on the cake along with some cute duckies that got made in the mean time.

We also made some small flowerpots and croquet markers/balls for decoration before starting work on the main cakes.

The '8' was a plain sponge cake and the '0' chocolate. Both had a Milka ganache and italian meringue buttercream filling with the same ganache used for the crumb coat. Once the ganache had set slightly in the fridge we covered the cakes with sugarpaste and added the final decorations.

Our first attempt at grass went horribly wrong, the heat meant the sugarpaste was too soft and squidged through the sieve rather than creating the individual grass strands seen on the flowerpots. Having loads of buttercream left over we dyed it green and covered the top of each cake, poking it with a paintbrush to give it a more textured look. We then added the croquet markers, balls and mallets to the 8 before hitting our next disaster.

It all appeared to be going very well, we made a thick semi liquid substance from arrowroot, water and blue food colouring to act as the water in the 'pond' on the 0. It ended up semi transparent and looked the part when poured into the center of the 0. We added a duck, who promptly sunk and then was accidentally be-headed during his rescue. At least the other 3 ducks were ok! Then it got worse, the 'pond' starting melting the sugarpaste, dissolving it in a watery sugary gloop. It had to be scooped out and the hole filled with blue tinted buttercream instead. Below you can see photos of the original 'water' and its replacement. Luckily the ducks floated on the replacement and can now be seen happily swimming in their pond.

After the final few decorations were added the cake was packaged for its journey across the Solent on the hovercraft.

Pre-Historic Bakeoff

For Red Nose Day 2013 work held a pre-historic bakeoff competition. Although we didn't win we're still proud of our cakes and thought we'd share them :) Rob wanted to go with one large novelty cake and I wanted to go for cupcakes so in the end we made both. After 8 hours of work here are the results:

Robs
Scrat from Ice Age after being trampled by a dinosaur, he's still managed to keep hold of his Acorn though!

All tidied up and awaiting judging:

 

Trudis

25 cupcakes used together to create an image.

Working on adding the decoration to the dinosaur cupcakes (and making lots of mess).  

The finished product ready for judging:

Be careful what you wish for.....

This cake was a non-birthday birthday cake. Upon seeing the photos of my Granny's birthday cake on Facebook a friend asked whether she could have an early birthday cake. We fulfilled the request and delivered the cake to a slightly embarrassed colleague for everyone at work to enjoy.

Rob once again showed his skills as a master carver by making the cake nice and rounded

The cakes were stuck together with our new favourite filling - Italian Meringue Buttercream

Before it got covered in scrummy ganache

We then made it look like a football

And added a scarf based on her favourite teams colours (Man U)

Twit Twoo!

For this cake we tried to combine a 3D figure with some 2D and 3D cake decorations. All of the brown icing was chocolate, combined with chocolate ganache this made a very scrummy cake weighing in at 3kg!

Firstly we ganached the cake and made the main cake decorations

 We then covered the cake in sugarpaste and constructed the tree

 

Then leaves and butterflies were added as well as the owl model on top (sorry forgot to take pictures of his construction!)

Finally we piped a greeting on top before delivering the cake to my wonderful Granny :)

Please note: he was given a beak 5 mins before leaving the house when we realised he didn't have one!