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.

"You're in Bowser's world now!"

Linda ordered 12 Super Mario themed cakes for her boyfriend's birthday. She specified the characters Bowser and Donkey Kong too, so -not being a gamer- I went off and tried to find some images of those characters that I felt I could reproduce in fondant icing!

Chocolate cakes with chocolate buttercream, and fondant icing designs with edible inks.


12 assorted Super Mario characters.


Star.


Donkey Kong research images.
The picture on the right is what I think he looks like now (I'm no gamer), but the image on the left (I think it might be a cross-stitch pattern!), is much easier for me to reproduce in icing.


This was my first attempt at Donkey Kong, but I felt he was too lumpy.
I know you can't really see the pixels any more on computer game animation, but I kind of wanted to use the pixelated look...


Second, final, Donkey Kong design, complete with tie (it looks a bit like his tongue is sticking out from this angle though).


A better angle to show his red tie.


Bowser research images.
Again, I tried to combine the simple image (this one's made from Hama beads, I think!), with the more up-to-date picture of him.


The final Bowser face. I really like it that he's all pixelated and square too, so he matches Donkey Kong.


Side view.


3 little stars, for no other reason than I think it's a sweet picture.

Freya's 'Under The Sea' Cakes

Vanilla cakes with vanilla buttercream: I thought any other flavour dyed blue would be odd.


I put mid-blue, light blue/green and plain white buttercreams together in the same piping bag, and piped them out to give a multi-coloured effect.

The problem I have is that often I'm using new (to me) techniques as I'm fulfilling an order, it's always a bit nail biting* to be doing some new style of icing on the cakes that are actually going out to the customer. I was really happy with the colours and effect here though.

*Not literally- that would contravene my food hygiene training!


Freya's name and age spelled out on seashells, each with an edible 'pearl' sugar dragee.


Goldfish with gold dragee bubbles.


Blub.


Crazy-eyed starfish. The buttercream is also decorated with clear and blue edible glitter.




Pretty sure this is a scallop shell shape, which I think means it wouldn't make a pearl, but sometimes artistic licence wins over zoological accuracy!





Olga ordered 12 sea life cakes for her daughter Freya's 2nd birthday.

I really enjoyed making these cakes, especially as I finally got to use the dolphin cutter that I bought a while ago. The shell and starfish cutters are new additions bought for this commission, but I'm always happy to feed my cookie cutter habit!

Olga had also very sweetly said that she liked my photography, so I supplied her with a CD of these photos, as well as the cakes.