Father of the Bride cake - NICHE

So April Mann is a HUGE Father of the Bride fan, and I have always fancied recreating Steve Martin out of sugarpaste, so her birthday cake was a no-brainer, obviously:

To explain for the uninitiated, this is George Stanley Banks (father of the bride) in his "Armani" suit which is actually a cheap navy knock-off. The button on the floor next to him is from where he loses one at the wedding reception ("Hey a button, it's navy, must be yours!") The swans waddling around the tulip border (which Franc creates especially!) had to be included, and the border is crafted from hot dogs (8) and hot dog buns (12) which feature in one of Apes' favourite scenes....

GEORGE BANKS IS SAYING NO!

Yo, sushi!

A while ago Meals sent me a link to these beautiful sushi cupcakes http://www.flickr.com/photos/crumbsanddoilies/5529525564/ and since it was her birthday, I decided to do my own twist on the sushi cupcake theme.

I started by baking a batch of vanilla muffins and made an orange butter cream icing with icing sugar, non-salted butter and freshly squeezed orange juice (love any excuse to use my devil's elbow - thanks Lakeland!) Then I made the sushi as follows....

I made the rolls by colouring a lump of sugar paste black and making it into a ring on top of the muffin. The rice is dessicated coconut and the filling is dolly mix and icing coloured red for the pepper and neon green for the wasabi!

These were easy - just blocks of sugar paste coloured bright yellow and texturised with the end of my paintbrush, then I put strips of black sugar icing left over from my sushi rolls over the top to make them a bit more interesting. The glitter is edible and available online, it's fab!

The nigri is a cube of icing painted with edible glue (available at cakecraft.com!) and then dipped in dessicated coconut, then the prawn topper is just pink icing with a darker pink for the tail and detailing.

Oishii desu ne!

I. Declare. BANKRUPTCY!

US Office is the greatest. I made these Office cupcakes to celebrate the momentous occasion of Michael Scott proposing to Holly:

I wish I had photographed them better! But I made about 12 muffins with lemon icing and made the faces of the characters out of sugar paste and glace which I then placed on top. I made speech bubbles from paper and cocktail sticks for their memorable quotes (non-edible FYI...)

I did get an okay picture of Jim Halpert at least:

I love Jim!

Llamas, Ostriches and Emus

I asked Hutch what sort of cake I could make her for her birthday - she asked for an emu, a llama and an ostritch....eating a cake with an emu, a llama and an ostritch on it....eating a cake with an emu, a llama and an ostritch on it. The challenge was set, and so my first ever ridiculous cake was created!

Thanks to London Zoo for inspiring my animal icing - although their llamas definitely look less evil than my one, even if it is holding a jolly umbrella.