A Pretty Pastel 40th Birthday Cake

Hello again!

2 posts in a week, yes I must be in a cake baking lull!

Today I have for you a pretty little 40th birthday cake I made for Laura, who had two birthday cakes from me as she was also the recipient of the Frozen cake I made for Better. I honestly, do not know where they put all this cake...

Although I have been enjoying having the chance to create original cakes for the team at Better, it is quite nice when someone sends you an image and tells you exactly what they want. Laura wanted something like this from Designer Cakes by April but in only 2 tiers.

We left off the diamante top tier and went for the more patterned tiers to make the most of the cake we had. Bless my mother for creating a diamond template and hand cutting all those diamonds! I would have done it but they wouldn't have been anywhere near as good, or straight...

And dots or circles are always a winner in my polka dot covered book!

My favourite part of the cake has to be the bows. Bows on everything! They are made from flower paste in order for them to keep their lovely, loopy shape. I replaced the diamond from the top of the original cake with another bow to keep a bit more consistency throughout the cake.

I did have a diamante 40 to go on the top of the cake but, to be blunt, I didn't like it, so we went for a paste 40, which unfortunately had to wait until it was in place at the party before it went on. But it looked like this:

With the wonderful gift of hindsight, I can now see that the cake would have had an overall better look about it if the bottom tier had been a bit taller. It's more cake and more icing and more stress trying to get the cake covered but I think for future tiered cakes, bigger bottoms is the answer.

Cake flavour: vanilla sponge with jam and buttercream bottom tier and a chocolate top tier

What we listened to: My cat being a pain in the butt

Anything else: This cake and the cake I was making simultaneously for Laura's son restored my faith in myself after a tough few weeks (in which I had quit at least twice.)

See you next time!
Vicky

Star Wars Themed 5th Birthday Cake

Every time I think about this cake I get the Indiana Jones theme in my head. I think Harrison Ford makes Star Wars, and when I think Harrison, I think Indie.

Indie > Hans

I didn't grow up on Star Wars; it's only recently my boyfriend introduced me to it (original, not those new things.) I enjoyed it but it didn't make me want to run off to outer space to save the galaxy in the same way Indiana Jones makes me want to buy a Fedora, run from boulders, destroy Nazis and save all the treasures.

But this wasn't my cake.

Dreams of treasure hunting aside, I definitely did still have a good time making this one. It's fun and not over fussy. I love the 2 tiers with just the stars on and the star impressions on the board. This means nothing is taken from the characters which are really the focus of the cake.

The bottom tier was a yummy chocolate cake and the smaller was a good ol' vanilla sponge.

What do I love most about this cake? Well, obviously that the young chap who asked for it was called...wait for it....

LUKE!

So amazing!

I can't take credit for the design, which belongs to Jane of Jane's Cake Tragedy, although there is nothing tragic about her cakes!

May the Force be with you! (Had to be done.)
Vicky 

Cake Time: Every Little Helps - Tesco Van

One of my Mum's colleagues asked her if she could have a cake for her brother's 60th birthday. So with it being a special birthday we imagined that we would be doing something special for the cake.

But that's not quite how it went...

She asked for a Tesco van! The reason being he works at Tesco...and hates it! We though it was cruel and she thought it was hilarious. And it turns out it had been a family decision so the whole family also found it hilarious! So we got in on the hilarity and quite enjoyed it. 

But it got us thinking what would some one have to put on a cake that would really annoy us. For me, hands down, it would be a tin of baked bins. Oh man, how I hate beans!! :( 

I'd love to know what form your nightmarishly hilarious cake would take?

Vicky

Things I Love Thursday: Birthday Cocktails

One day, my Mum and I were in York, and over cocktails we decided that for her birthday we would have a dessert table/cocktail do (with a body shop party randomly thrown in there.) It was all very exciting and as we decided on this in October we really managed to convince ourselves that we would do some good planning and be super organised. Yeah, right...

I was still making scones at 2pm when the festivities were due to begin.

I was disappointed in us. No one else was surprised.

So typically, things didn't look how I wanted them to, the outlook didn't look like it did in my head (there was no beautiful dessert table set up) and we had no time to take pictures of anything. Thankfully my cousins and their iPhones did some snapping for me, which I am grateful for! 

But everyone enjoyed everything, there was a lot of laughter and love in the house, and my Mum had a lovely birthday, which, at the end of the day, is all that matters.

Spotty & Rudolf vanilla cookies

Mince Pies

Pavlova Wreath

Orange cake with cranberries & pistachios, peppermint mocha cupcakes

Things I love: My Mum!  iPhones  vanilla cookies covered in royal icing  my family - extended and otherwise  advent calendars   the strange satisfaction that comes from cleaning the oven  learning about, and watching, Japanese anime, no matter how bizarre, with Kurtis  watching how happy and proud of herself my Mum is using her new phone!  how actually cute my best friend is - adorable!

Cake Time: Ben 10

Ben 10, Alien Force, Omniverse, Omnitrix, Ultimatrix, Nemetrix, Anodites, Osmosians... Stop me when you know what I'm talking about... Null Void, Techadon Robots, Ascalon... 

Children's cartoons have got complicated!

It's actually pretty terrifying when you have to do a cake that spans multiple universes and has multiple seasons - how do you know what bits to put on on which characters should be included?

So for this Ben 10 cake, that needed Ben as the focus and his alien alter egos surrounding him on the cake, my mantra was - 'oldies but goodies'. I Googled a list of original characters and went with those. 

Upchuck

Heatblast

Upgrade

Ghostfreak

Humungosaur

Wildmutt

If these are the protectors of good, I would hate to see what the baddies look like!

And here is the main man, ol' Ben himself in his human form:

Yup, that guy has it all under control.

Vicky

Cake Time: Gruesome Shark Attack Swimming Pool Cake!!

Oh another fun children's cake!

This was for the son of one of the ladies’ from Better, who had wanted a shark cake and was having a swimming party for his birthday, so we merged the 2 together and made: Gruesome shark attack swimming pool cake!

I loved doing this cake! It was such fun! I think deep down inside, past the kittens, cupcakes and twirly skirts, I maybe enjoy a bit of gruesomeness.

My favourite was this guy at the front who did have 2 arms before one fell off while transporting him to the cake. One shocked expression later, and he was the victim of an attack, who had bravely lost an arm trying to battle the shark.

Sadly he didn’t do so great because this guy got it…

I did try to inject some humour in to it with the floating shorts. Probably best that the owner of said shorts doesn’t feature on the cake…

And someone needs to get this young lady a slice of birthday cake. A large one. With a side of ice cream.

And finally, I went red and tried to capture the ‘Jaws’ theme with the lettering of the name.

Overall it was a fun cake that I enjoyed doing (once it started to come together) and was enjoyed by kids and adults alike. That’s all I can ask for :)

Vicky xx