3 Ways With... Halloween!

Do you know what is terrifying me this Halloween? My own bad time management. Seriously. It’s terrifying. Mostly because Halloween is such a good time to try new things and be really creative but I didn’t manage it very well and have left myself feeling disappointed. Take this giant cupcake for instance; it didn’t turn out like I had it in my head, mostly due to no time for planning.

I don’t like it. That’s that.

But anyway, moving on to some things I did actually a little bit like, here are 3 ways with Halloween:

1. Cake Pops

I always dread a little bit being asked to make cake pops, mostly because my skills with them aren’t terribly reliable – sometimes they work great, other times not so much. I know a worklady shouldn’t blame her tools but I think the candy melts play a big part in whether the pops are going to be a success or not: sometimes they are beautifully smooth and perfect consistency, other times they are thick and lumpy. It varies from make to make and from colour to colour.

So when they actually go right, like with this lot, I make sure I do a little happy dance.

These were for my cousin Oliver who loves the cake pops. He loves them so much that when my auntie asked if I would do him some I already had it in my diary because he’d already placed an order! His brother, Sam, also loves the cake pops but hates Halloween so he got some plain ones and everyone was happy.

These little Frankensteins are the most creative I have ever been with the cake pops and I was pleased with how they turned out. Could this be opening the door to cake pop adventure land? We’ll see…

The cake pops for the ghosties didn’t cover so well but that wasn’t so bad because they were covered with fondant sheets. Wooooooo!

2. Iced Biscuits

Oh I do love an iced biscuit! The only thing I love more than decorating an iced biscuit is eating one. We make so much cake these days that we’ll take it or leave it in our house,but everyone is all over these sugar cookies and the lovely royal icing.

Iced biscuits are something I would love to work with more often – they are just time consuming because there is a lot of drying time required but I think the results are worth it.

Again, I had more ideas in mind for these but time got the better of me. But I think Frankenstein and his bride turned out pretty well.

3. Cake

I got to do a Halloween cake…For my Nanna! Love it! Her country club put on a Halloween party so she wanted to have a cake to take to give to the committee to say thank you. Now that may sound very sweet but I was having nightmares about what she was going to say about this cake. My Nanna has entered that stage of life where she doesn’t care who she offends. (BTW I adore my Nanna she is the loveliest, most generous woman who just makes me giggle with her old lady sass!) So I was worried about the comments. The least terrible being: “yes, Rosie it’s very nice.” The worst being “What on earth is that? It’s rubbish. I can’t give them that.”

Her actual response was: "Oh isn't that lovely! They're going to be over the moon with that!" Yay!

When I Googled Halloween cakes this one instantly caught my eye; I thought it was suitably grown up and just creepy enough. Mine is an amateur take on this one, which I just completely adore, but I think it turned out ok. My favourite bit is the black roses topper – makes me think of an eerie wedding cake.

Funny story – when I was trying to cover this, I accidentally hit myself in the chin with my silicon rolling pin. Those things are heavy. Given the noise that occurred I was lucky to escape a cracked tooth but I do have a bruise (thankfully) under my chin and my left ear just isn’t quite right. Baking is dangerous, kids.

Ok.... 4. Cupcakes

Just because it's Halloween. 

Black velvet cupcakes with meringue ghosts! Spookilicious.

Word to my mother for these Halloween cupcakes!

Halloween: next year I'll be really ready for you!

Vicky xx

All The Pretty Pins: Cartoon Cakes

Following on from this weekends Catbug cake, all this week's pins are fantastic cartoon themed cakes, So bright, colourful and fun!

Clockwise from top: Garfield, Spongebob Squarepants, Care Bears, Hello Kitty, Pink Panther, Katsuma, Tokidoki, My Little Pony, Lumpy Space Princess, Powerpuff Girls, Adventure Time, Dexter's Labratory

By the way, how awesome are those 3D Hello Kitty cookies?! I need to be finding the cutters for those!

Vicky xx

Lalaloopsy Birthday Cake Pops

I've said before how much I love doing children's cake and these super sweet cake pops were no exception!

 

I was asked to do some cake pops based on the Lalaloopsy dolls. That's La-la-loopsy. (We had to ask about 5 times before we got that.) Lalaloopsy is a collection of rag dolls, each with their own personally and theme. I have to be honest: I want one. Or would like to be one when I grow up.

 

If  you were to Google these little ladies, you would find a huge variety of colours and hair styles, so it was quite a task to pick the ones I wanted to re-create!

My favourite things about these little ares are:

1. That they are really slightly creepy. Little rag dolls with button eyes? Sounds like something that could come after you in a horror film. But strangely I found that to be part of their charm.

2. It was amazing to see these come to life (.... :/) once the details of the eyes, cheeks and little stitched mouths were put in place.

I have ambitions to get these faces on a sugar cookie to really try to capture the details and try out even more colour and hair style combinations!

Big thank you to the little lady who asked me to do these; I had a blast! :)

Vicky x

Posting Pops, or: How to give yourself sleepless nights

I mentioned in a previous post that, after putting some cake pops up on my Facebook page, I was asked if I could do some cake pops and if I delivered. I don’t deliver; even when I do cakes for people close to home they always come and collect them. I would, but people just chose to collect.

So being asked if I would post to Cheshire was a bit of a challenge (and a shock!)

Before I replied, I had a look on the internet, and, sure enough, I managed to find this tutorial from Cake Pop Princess, which gave step-by-step instructions on how to package the pops and have them arrive in one piece. Knowing other had successfully  posted made me feel slightly more confident about doing it.

My Mum, however, was not so convinced – she was a bit unsure of whether it would work. (Are we gathering yet that my Mum = font of all knowledge [but not always listened too! :p]) I, however, was reassured by the fact that the lady asking for the pops was a friend’s mum, and because of that I was able to tell her that I hadn’t done it before, wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, and was slightly worried about the whole thing. Oh I do know how to sell myself, don’t I? :p She understood all of this and was really lovely in saying that we should go for it and see the whole thing as an experiment. So kind of her! :)

She asked me to do ‘spring’ cake pops and so picked yellow and pink for my candy melt bases. I had to use the Renshaw melts because there weren’t any pink Wilton ones in stock but they ended up looking quite purple. This was still pretty but not as advertised!

I used white royal icing to pipe little swirly bits on some, made fondant flowers for others, and generally just tried to make them look sweet. I made the cakes pop as late as possible to keep them fresh but made sure I left time for the decoration to dry over night to make sure everything was firmly attached!

When I was sure they were dry, each cake pop was given its own little bag tied with ribbon to keep it all together, and just generally make them look like a gift. 

Next it was on to the packaging! Eeep! I found a box (well done me) and lined it with tissue so it would look pretty once I’d finished. The polystyrene stand went in first and then the cake pops were layered up snugly next to it. Each cake pop was wrapped individually in bubble wrap before it went in the box. 

I put a layer of thick bubble wrap on the bottom and interlocked 6 pops onto this making sure nothing was sticking into anything. Tissue was stuffed in between any gaps so they couldn’t go anywhere. More bubble wrap was put on top of those and then the second layer of pops went on. This was topped with the another layer of thick bubble wrap and finished by folding over the tissue paper.

 

The final touches were the card I was asked to put in wishing the recipient a ‘happy birthday’, and a little instruction page on what to do with the cake pops!

The whole thing was finally wrapped in brown paper and I wrote a begging note on the side for the post person to be kind to it!

We had a little discussion about how we would post them and tried first to get a few prices for couriers but this seemed to be looking like it would cost more than the price of the cake pops, so we decided against it. We instead braved special delivery with the post office and hoped my packaging would hold up.

And…. It did! Hurrah! I am told the cake pops arrived in ‘perfect’ condition, which was so relieving. Waiting to hear about whether they even arrived was slightly nerve wracking, mostly because I was filled with thoughts that the box was going to arrive crushed to bits and should have been couriered! This is a way I might try in the future, if not just to see how much it would cost.

I am excited that it worked and do look forward to sending more parcels out. Because everyone likes getting post, especially when it’s cake! :D

Vicky xx

Pretty Coloured Cake Pops

Oh, I have been such a naughty blogger: I have yet to implement any of the features and things I had envisioned starting this month! Slapped wrists for me. I did, however, take lots of pictures for a technique feature I want to start. To cut a long (boring) story short, I have decided to put it off for a while until I can get myself organised.

In the meantime, I have been busy making things. 

 

 

Cake pops! I feel like I am getting a lot more comfortable with cake pops, and practicing definitely helps. It’s all about making sure the cake pops are the right size and aren’t too big, and that candy melts are deep enough in your bowl for easy coverage.

I made these a little while ago. I wanted them to be seen as Valentine ones but, like my whoopie pies, that didn’t turn out. 

But I was still pleased with the final ones – I really like the turquoise with the fuchsia pink. So bright but still sweet and pretty.

And it turns out that someone else liked them too because I got asked to do an order for a birthday…in Cheshire. I don’t live in Cheshire. And I definitely can’t personally deliver there. So next week I will be facing my first delivery challenge and posting cake pops! Eeeek! I will keep you posted about that!

But for now, let’s stay calm and look at another pretty picture…

Vicky x