Christmas Cupcakes

Here are some of the Christmas cupcakes I've been making recently. I've managed to get some really bright coloured buttercream. I used paste colours rather than the colours you can buy in supermarkets. They colour better with a small amount and don't make it taste funny!! I had a lot of fun making these, the melting snowman was the most popular!

Halloween Castle

Above is a picture of my final project for my Sugarpaste course. I chose to make a Halloween Castle cake, complete with ghost on top!!

Superhero Two Tier Cake

This was my first two tiered cake to order!The cakes are vanilla sponge with buttercream and jam. The customer requested that it include Batman, Spiderman and most importantly, The Hulk! As he doesn't really have a symbol as such I thought I would sculpt his face onto the side of the cake. This was loads of fun to make and I heard that the little boy who it was for loved it!

A Little Red Car

This cake was for a little boys 3rd birthday. The request was for a red car. doesn't matter what type, just has to be red!!! I decorated the board for this one too and made sure that I put his name on the number plates. Inside was vanilla sponge with jam and buttercream, as requested by the birthday boy himself! I asked how the cake was...

'Loved it! Everyone said how great it looked and it was so yummy, He even read his name on the number plate. Thank you!!'

Hello Kitty 21st

This was a chocolate cake with a ganache buttercream filling. The customer requested for it to be covered in buttercream rather than sugarpaste. This is definitely harder to work with, I piped the buttercream round the edges to make it look neater. The only downside to covering in buttercream is that the cake may dry out quicker if it's not kept ion an airtight container.

50th Birthday Cake

I havent updated my blog in ages, so here goes!

This was a vanilla sponge with jam and buttercream inside. I cut it into the 50 shape and covered in duck egg blue sugarpaste, then decorated with little white flowers and soft silver balls (hate the hard ones!!) Having Plankton from Spongebob was a request from the customer, so I drew him on edible sugar paper and stuck him to the board :)

Dave's 'Spicy' Cake

I had been planning this cake for a long time! For a lover of all things spicy, 'Dave's Insanity Sauce' cake. The only thing I would change about it if I made it again would be its size!!! It was HUGE! I made chocolate sponges and filled the inside and all over with a chilli chocolate ganache butter cream. The chilli chocolate gave it a lovely warmth and was quite gooey! The cake was then covered in sugarpaste and I used paste colours to do the detail. I made sugarpaste chillis and spelt out Happy Birthday next to the cake!

Everyone enjoyed it, so I was extremely happy! :)

Bits and bobs

Above is a chocolate fudge cake I made for a friend's birthday. I used candy melts to make the lettering and used gold lustre spray too. Also, some dog cupcakes I made one evening as a treat for a friend I was seeing the next day! She has her own dog walking business so I thought she'd love the dog theme!!

Introducing.... Elmo!

I got to make another batch of cookie monsters for a friend to take into the office, and best of all, this time Elmo was joining them!! I used less coloured sugar than before so they weren't as messy to eat and added some yum butter cream to the inside of the cake. I've been told that they were all gobbled up pretty quickly, so I'm very happy :)

Lots of Cookie Monsters!

This weeks task was to make 30 Cookie Monster cupcakes for a friends baby shower. I used a standard cupcake recipe to make them so the decorating was the part that took longest!!! I made my own blue sugar, using granulated sugar and some blue colour creator and a lot of mixing! I covered the top of the cakes with a thin layer of icing so the sugar would stick. The eyes are giant milky bar buttons with choc chips glued on (with edible glue of course!)


Aside from them being rather messy to eat, everyone enjoyed looking at them and eating them!

Here's the review from my friend Rozi; "Sarah made these cupcakes for my baby shower and I was thrilled with them. My guests had never seen cupcakes like them and they were a great talking point, as well as being very tasty! I would definitely ask her for more cakes again in the future. :)"

 

Spongebob Birthday Cake

At the weekend I made a birthday cake for a friends son's 4th Birthday. It took me from 11am until 6pm to make and everything went to plan! I made a large rectangular tray bake and sliced it through the middle, filling it with butter cream and strawberry jam. Then cut the cake to shape and rolled out the various coloured sugarpaste and positioned them on the cake. To make the yellow sugarpaste bumpy I just pushed my thumb into the icing!

I was so happy with how it turned out and I've heard the cake went down well at his party! Here is the review; 'The cake was superb! The Birthday boy loved it! He spent the entire afternoon before his party looking at it and was devastated when we had to cut it. All our guests thought it was amazing and it tasted delicious too. Can't wait till his next Birthday to see what you can do for him then. Thank you so much Sarah you made his day!!!'

Two very sweet cakes

Today I've made a Lemon Drizzle tray bake, it's not that great to look at, but it tastes really good. I used the zest of two lemons in the cake mix and used the juice mixed with sugar to coat the top, very zingy!

I then tried out a 'Devils food cake'. It's a rich chocolate sponge with American frosting all over it. The great thing about it is it has an egg white in the mixture, therefore is goes slightly crunchy with a meringue texture.

Both these cakes are definitely for those with a very sweet tooth!

Swirly Cake

I tried something different today, it's kind of like a marble cake but I've piped the cake mix into the tin differently.

I like how the swirls turned out on the top and the marble effect inside, but for my next attempt I will try to achieve a stripey effect inside and try to reduce the cracking on top.

It tasted good though, that's the most important thing! :)

Totoro Cupcakes

 I decided to make Totoro cupcakes for my friend for her birthday.

I made the character from coloured royal icing and used a food colouring pen to do the details. To top the cakes I tried using 'Candy Melts' for the first time. Theyre so simple to use, once melted the mixture spreads so easily and then hardens once its cooled, perfect!

The second photo shows the different stages of the making process. I'm really pleased with how they turned out and I hope my friend enjoys eating them!!!

Afternoon tea anyone?

 Hello lovelies :)

Today I am feeling very British, what with us winning loads of lovely gold medals at the Olympics!

I've made some Scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam, Butterfly Buns and Mini Victoria Sponges! Now I just need to make a pot of tea to drink with them!

Nananananananana.... Batcakes!!

So, I did a lot of baking yesterday and thought as it was the UK release of the new Batman film, why not make Batman cakes?!

I used a standard cupcake mix and made sure I filled the cases nice and high so the cakes were a decent size. I used coloured royal icing and cut out the design.

Flower pot cupcakes

Today I used my new silicone flowerpot cake cases! Very exciting indeed! I didn't quite fill them enough with the cake mix, need to alter that next time I think. I used Oreos for the sunflowers and piped the petals. Think I need to add a few more details, watch this space :) ......