Cake Time: Ruby Wedding Anniversaries

One day in September after work I met my family in the local pub where they had been having tea for my cousin’s birthday. No one thought to wait for me, by the way, or even order me a plate of chips. Or dessert. Rude.

Anyway, my Mum took along Rosie’s birthday cake and there it was sitting at the opposite end of the table minding its own business. Then there was a kerfuffle and the waitress who was clearing up, after much conspiring with my aunties, was making her way down to my end of the table. Apparently she was desperate for a cake and at this point any old cake baker would do.

She wanted a ruby anniversary cake for her parents at quite short notice and lucky for her I had just the thing!

Here's one I made earlier...

This might seem like being unimaginative but we'd already done this cake for a different anniversary and it worked really well. Keeping it simple but pretty and elegant. I think when we did this one we managed to get a nice balance: you don't want it to look like a wedding cake but it still needs to be something special.

And nice waitress lady loved the cake so we got to do it again!

My mum ended up making the sugar flowers for both of these cakes - I think the division of labour meant it just fell on her both times but she is the experienced pro and can do them twice as fast (and better) than me.

I love doing cakes likes this in amongst all the children's and character cakes and I would love to use sugar flowers more often. High up on my to do list is teaching myself how to more than just roses! Watch this space!

We made just a few changes to the designs when we did it the second time: we lost the hearts that had been a request the first time, used red ribbon on each tier instead of white, and changed the lettering on the board as per each request.

I still haven't quite got the technique for piping lettering round a board yet! It doesn't seem to flow round very well.(*adds to to do list*) but as the main focus was my mum's pretty sprays I tried not to get too upset about it.

Here's to many more years for the happy couples!

Vicky xx

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