(T)it's your birthday...

Darren Smith wanted an obscene birthday cake. I refused, but as a compromise agreed to construct him some boobs out of sponge...

I baked a square sponge and then two muffins, which I placed top down on the bottom of the square. Then I used my sharp knife to narrow the top of the square and make it more 'chesty'. I mixed red and yellow food colour to make a fleshy pink, coloured a big handful of roll out icing and covered the whole cake. I then coloured a strip in hot pink which I cut into a bra shape and stuck on with jam. The black polka dot detail is buttercream and was piped on afterwards with an icing bag...

And I stuck a little bow on too, just for fun! The nipples are just sugar paste, cut into circles and textured with the end of a cocktail stick. I finished it off by writing a lovely birthday message to Daz across the chest...nice.

Not quite so ridiculous cakes...

I went to a cupcake decorating class at the Cocoa Box in Hampstead on Saturday, and the lovely (and very skillful!) teachers taught me how to make pretty cupcakes!

My buttercream piping skills need a bit of work, but at least I know how to do it now, and I've learnt how to fill an icing bag properly which was a long overdue lesson! Hopefully next time I ice I won't get it all up my elbows and 80% of it outside the bag...

The cakes were already baked (three vanilla, three chocolate) and then we had cream cheese icing, fondant and strawberry buttercream, plus bowls of sprinkles, glitter and sweets to play with.  My favourite design they taught was the cupcake on a cupcake...and my little piggy!

Oink oink.

The class was really fun, recommended! http://www.thecocoabox.co.uk/ Maybe I'll start making sensible cute cupcakes for birthdays now instead of epic 3D ones? (Although I do have a 3D one in the pipline for Windor's birthday that is going to be quite special...think Lionel Richie's 'Hello' video. Pics will be up for that one early August!)

The Tin Lizzy

For her Ruby Wedding anniversay party, my auntie wanted a cake replica of her boat, Tin Lizzy:

So I made one!

I started with a square sponge on a cake board which I covered in blue roll-out icing. I used some surplus bits of icing for the waves, and then used white butter cream icing for wave foam on the crests and around the front of the boat. I used blue buttercream in my icing gun to detail around the base.

For the boat, I baked another square sponge and cut out the shape with a very sharp knife, then covered it in white icing, and a layer of red icing underneath. I used white buttercream to detail the edges, and then grey buttercream to fill in the deck, which I then covered in sugar sprinkles.

The figures of my uncle and auntie are just sugar paste, coloured and moulded into the right shapes, although they came out a bit too pink! Getting too much sun on the boat clearly.

Finally, the sail is just two cookie sticks taped together for the mast (I have no idea what one would use a cookie stick for? I just found them at the Jane Asher shop!) and then rice paper. Easy peasy.



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.