It's my birthday (cake)!

My best birthday present was some Ninjabreadmen cookie cutters. Can't wait get baking with them!
(just a cupcake order to get out of the way first though)




And I couldn't post about the Ninjabreadmen cutters without following it with a couple of pictures of my birthday cake.

It's June, so it has to be strawberries and cream, sandwiched between some lovely light sponge cake. Yum.

Thanks to Sam, who baked the cake, while I was busily assembling 48 cakes for a Christening.
x

Ruby's 6th

Ruby is 6! Yippeee, let's celebrate with some horsey cakes; no, some chocolate Malteser cakes; no, some horsey cakes, um no, I really want under-the-sea cakes... Are those my horsey cakes, Mum? oh yes! I remember I wanted under-the-sea ones...

Once Ruby had finally decided on a theme for her cakes, I made her some chocolate Guinness cakes (only a tiny amount of alcohol, which I'm sure disappears on baking, before anyone reminds me that she's underage!), topped with sea-green vanilla buttercream and fondant icing decorations.

Happy Birthday Ruby chan!


(Not quite as neat a job with these cakes, as the last under sea ones, but they were done in quite a rush - sorry, Ruby)


Goldfish and gold bubbles


A dolphin (though Danny wanted to pretend it was a shark)


Starfish


The ubiquitous 'blowing out the candles' photo.


Jelly and Ice cream.


Second lot of cakes for the second (family) party on her actual birthday.

Danny's 4th Birthday

This weekend is a real anniversary for me, because not only is it my son Danny's 4th birthday, but it was Googling cake ideas for his birthday last year, and thinking, "I could do that!" that gave me the inspiration for my little business.

For months now Danny's been telling me that he wanted Spiderman and Cookie Monster cakes, but at the last minute he also added Elmo to the mix. Good because I wanted to work a bit more on my Elmo design- his mouth is different to Cookie Monster's, and this time I put some white icing on the cake first, so that his rugby ball-shaped head is more obvious.

I also baked some of Nigella Lawson's Butter Cut-Out Biscuits (from her Domestic Goddess book), and Danny and I iced them so that he could take them into school and share them with his nursery friends.

Chocolate Guinness cakes with vanilla or chocolate buttercream and fondant decorations






Blowing out the candles.


Look out, it's SpiderDan!


Ruby chose Cookie Monster and got a bright blue mouth!


Icing the number 4-shaped biscuits for Danny to take to nursery.


You can probably tell which he did and which I did.


Unbelievably, Danny is 4!

Martha's 4th Birthday

Since there were lots of boys and girls were going to Martha's 4th birthday party, her mum, Claire, didn't want to have an overly girly theme.
It was fun to get all the bright colours out and make some really vibrant cake decorations. I know Martha likes Hello Kitty, so I couldn't resist doing a couple of Kitty faces for her too.

Chocolate cakes with chocolate buttercream and fondant icing decorations.


I don't normally take photos of the cakes before they're baked, but I just thought they looked so cheerful in their colourful jackets, waiting to go into the oven.


The finished decorations, in the right order.


And the finished, iced and decorated cakes, though not quite in the right order :-)


Kitties, flowers, butterflies, hearts, stars... these are a few of my favourite things.


...all adding up to a sea of colour.


Side view.


Boxed up and ready to go to the party!

(more) Lego Cakes

Helen (who hadn't even seen the chocolate Lego men cakes I made before Christmas), asked for 12 Lego-themed cakes for her son's 6th birthday (the party was at the Legoland Discovery Centre).

This gave me the chance to try out some multicoloured Lego Men (I'd seen some online and wanted to try and copy them) and to try my new Lego Brick mould too. Both decorations are made with 'Melting Candies' which are a bit like colourful chocolate, but don't really act like chocolate when you put them in the mould, so it was a real learning experience!

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, even if there were some air bubbles in the moulded decorations. I think the red cake cases and the yellow buttercream really make the cakes and decorations come together.

Vanilla cakes with vanilla buttercream and Melting Candy decorations.


The Lego men emerging from the mould.



Lego men cakes...



...and Lego brick cakes

Hieperdepiep Hoera! Jip & Janneke are here!

Royal icing outlines.
I started by experimenting with royal icing. The easiest way to draw Jip and Janneke accurately seemed to be to trace them with icing.


The outlines were then 'flooded' with runny icing and left to dry.
In theory they should dry to hard shapes that I could have lifted onto the cakes.


...In practice they never really dried (Either I got the recipe wrong, or I think I might need to buy a dehumidifier!) and then they went really strange.
Obviously I didn't use these.


royal icing weirdness.


Luckily, I had a plan B: cutout fondant shapes!


Dag, Jip en Janneke!


Jip


Janneke




and cat.


Marleen also wanted a pile of books on one of the cakes.




The finished box: Hoera!


Marleen asked me to make 6 cakes for her mother, who turned 70 this year. Since her mum is dutch and likes books, she wanted to use some famous characters from dutch literature, while making sure that the cakes still appealed to her 5 year old daughter.

I love Jip and Janneke- the illustrations are so graphic: the children and their pets are always drawn in black silhouette, whereas the background might be really colourful.

These cakes were a lot of work, (especially with the failed royal icing) but well worth it, I think!

Gefeliceteerd, Marleen's mum!

Happy birthday to me!

A birthday wouldn't be a birthday without chocolate cake (according to Danny, age 3), so he helped me make these Chocolate and Brown Sugar cupcakes. Served with cream and a cherry on top for that Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (that's Black Forest Gateau to you) -vibe.

Thanks for the suggestion, Danny. They were delicious!