Christmas 2014

First of all happy new year, I hope you had a good break.

For Christmas each year I normally make cake for myself and one for my mum, however this year I was a little disorganised, usually I make the cake in September so I have a few months feeding it with brandy, but circumstances wouldn't allow that, but I was determined that I would still make my cake and not buy it.

It is a rich fruit cake recipe which I got from Heather, who is my aunt, she has been using this recipe for years, it is also the recipe we used when making my wedding cake.  This year I thought I would have a go at making my own fondant, so I decided to make marshmallow fondant, not sure I would ever do it again as I found it a lot of hard work, even harder to colour, but when on the cake with the marzipan it tasted lovely.  It's not as sweet as shop bought fondant so it may be worth another try and see if it gets any easier.

For the decorations this year I wanted something a little fun as we had my step daughter Alice with us, so I made a Santa/Father Christmas face.  This may sound strange but the hardest bit for me was getting the hat right, but happy with the overall finish.  For my mum she wanted something simple and asked me to use an old cake topper she had, so I went with simple silver snow flakes.  I hope you like them.

Sisters birthday

It's been a tough few months and I have missed creating cakes, but couldn't let me sisters 50th birthday pass without her having a cake.  As I can't stand for long had to do something simple so decided on a rosette cake, which I have wanted to do for ages but never got round to trying so thought this was a great opportunity.

The cake was chocolate, all my family seem to want is my chocolate cake. I decided instead of the usual chocolate icing I made vanilla buttercream and coloured it dusty pink, then crumb coated the sponge and then piped on the rosettes, the cake was then dotted with pearl balls and edible glitter.

My sister Tina loved the cake and I also used my candelabra for the first time and together the cake looked great even if I say so myself;).

Friends wedding cakes

Since making my wedding cake, I have created cakes for two of my friends.  The first was a last minute cake for my friend Tracy.  She wanted a simple cake so I did one chocolate with cherry and chocolate buttercream and then a vanilla with vanilla buttercream.  Both teirs were then covered with fondant and dressed with a diamanté ribbon.  Tracy then displayed the cake with the wedding photos of her and her husbands parents also with beautiful flowers.  I went to the evening do and when the cake was taken round the server was saying you have to try this cake as its one of the best she had tasted and she didn't know I was the baker, so was very flattered.

The other wedding cake was for my friend Becca. I agreed to do this cake before I slipped a disk and only managed to complete this cake with the help of my husband John.  I always try and do something new on each cake and this time I created edible lace.  The moulds were purchased of eBay, and then used Lakelands Magic icing and was easy to use.  The cake had three tiers largest was fruit, then a chocolate cake as I created for Tracy and then the top tier was lemon with a lemon curd centre and a lemon buttercream.  All tiers were covered with pink fondant and decorated with the edible lace, and flowers.  I tried to make edible pearls but I couldn't get them to come out of the mould cleanly, so they are the only part of this cake that isn't edible.  I will try the pearl mould when I am back on my feet again, determined it won't beat me. (I have a very stubborn side😃).  I was gutted I was unable to attend her wedding due to my back problems, but she and her husband loved the cake.

My niece is getting married August next year and I have offered to make her cake, so searching through Pinterest for ideas, love the research part, got to be a natural or bohemian style, will keep you posted.  If you wish to see some of the pins it is on my Pinterest under the board named Kirsty's wedding cake ideas.

My wedding cake

The first time I made a wedding cake was for my wedding back in September 2012, I was scared but we couldn't afford to pay someone to make our wedding cake.  I went down to my aunts in Dorset and we made the fruit cake to an old family recipe in her arga.  Talked to my other half and decided that all tiers would be fruit as I didn't want the stress on the run up to our wedding.  

I decided I wanted to make roses, so I spent ages practicing with plasticine, had trouble getting the colour to match my dark red scheme, but got there eventually.  Had my good friend Emily who also likes to decorate cakes come over for an evening and while we watched a film we made a shed load of roses.  The mistake I made was to put them all on wires which meant I could cascade them down each of the tiers, so I gathered them into bunches and put them on each layer.  I spoke to my florist who did me a small arrangement for the top which matched my bridesmaids bouquet.  

Overall I learnt a lot and was happy with the final result and had a lot of compliments on the day.

Over the last few years I have created birthday cakes for my step daughter, you can tell which was the first.  It was the peppa pig, it was my first go at run in icing, had real trouble with it cracking when I transferred it to the cake.  The second was a character called buzby from the show Beehive, then last year I created a sleeping beauty cake.  I have loved creating these cakes and loved that she recognised each of the characters although she was confused why Sleeping Beauty was in a bed, made us laugh.  This year I am hoping to make a repunzel cake, but I am waiting for back surgery so fingers crossed I can make it for her.

My first celebration cake

My first celebration cake was for my then future mother in law, it was her 65th birthday and I offered to make her a cake - got to keep the mother in law on side😊. I decided to make a chocolate box, I had never used fondant before and I had a nightmare trying to get it smooth, would have helped if I had brought enough to cover the cake, luckily I managed to get it so no chocolate sponge showed.

If I was to do this cake again I would make the truffles for the inside and make my own chocolate fondant.  Still I was happy with final result although now I can see all the imperfections, my trouble is I don't like to fail in my cakes and other people will love it and all I see are the mistakes!

Time to start my blog!!!

It's been 6 months since I created this blog while I stayed with my friend Jane who is an avid blogger.  Now I have accessed the account it's time to get started!

I have always enjoyed baking, but I got the bug to make celebration cakes when I decided to do my wedding cake, so needed to practice and develop my skills. I am not what you call artistic but somehow I manage to create something people are happy with.

I welcome any comments on my baking as I am a hobby baker and create for my friends and family.