Coming Up...

Things have been really quiet lately, but I have quite a few large cakes on order that are coming up soon.  Then of course there's my daughter's wedding cake to look forward to, but that's only in March 2012 - but that one's going to be impressive!

Death by Chocolate

I think I can safely say that this was my favourite cake to make so far.  I loved doing the bright colours of the flowers & butterflies.  I really wish I'd taken pictures of the cake once it was cut because I did an experiment that came out extremely well.  The bottom tier was two layers rich chocolate cake, and between those two layers was a layer of vanilla cake with grated chocolate mixed into the sponge.  All sandwiched together with chocolate buttercream.  The top tier was the reverse - 2 layers of vanilla sponge with grated chocolate & a middle layer of rich chocolate cake also sandwiched together with chocolate buttercream.

I covered the cakes with chocolate buttercream, surrounded the cake with Whispers (chocolate balls) & Chomp bars, and then filled with Whispers, Chuckles & Astros (coloured balls).

The cake looked & tasted fantastic!  It was for an 18th birthday & everyone enjoyed it immensely.

Spongebob

It is my youngest son, Tyler's birthday next week, and I made this cake to take with us on holiday so we can celebrate his birthday with my mom and dad.  The Spongebob is made from sugarpaste, and the name from fondant.

The cake is surrounded by Chomps, and I chopped up chomps and added them to the cake filling.  The cake is a caramel mud cake with caramel toffee frosting. 

Tripple Chocolate

Yet another variation of my chocolate mayonaise cake.  I made it for a friend who helped us by lending us his car when our car broke down on our way to a weekend away in March this year.  We are passing by his hotel again tomorrow, and I made this cake to thank him for his kindness.

Carrot Cake for Dad

My mom & dad live very far away, and I will be seeing them tomorrow so I made this cake for my dad for a belated fathers day present.  Carrot cake is his favourite.  I'm particularly pleased with the white chocolate collar I made.

White Chocolate & Strawberry

I made this cake for a ladies tea party this week.  It is a white chocolate cake, and it's the first time I've tried making it.  I was pleased with the result, and judging by how fast it was eaten, so was everyone else!

I iced the cake with white chocolate ganache, surrounded with wafer rolls, and topped with fresh strawberries drizzled with white chocolate.

18th Birthday

A friend of my son Michael is having an 18th birthday party, and Michael asked me to bake her a cake.  This is the result.  It's a chocolate mayonaise cake with caramel filling and chocolate icing.

The "18" is made from white chocolate which I coloured pink using strawberry flavoured chocolate.  I made the flowers and butterfly out of fondant.

I added the butterfly ribbon because I thought the sides looked a little plain.  I'm very pleased with the result.

Golf Ball Carrot Cakle

This cake I made for a friend's husband for his birthday.  It's a carrot cake with cream cheese icing, white chocolate golf balls and white chocolate drizzle.

There are pecan nut halves decorating the base and top of cake as well.

Simmi's Elephant

I made this cake for a competition in a magazine. You have to send them a photo of your child with their birthday cake, so although Simmi's birthday is in December, I made this cake especially for the competition because it ends on 15 July 2011.

Above is the photo I entered.  It's quite cute I think, and shows off the cake nicely.  I completed the cake at 23h00 last night, and Simmi was very excited when I told her it was her cake.  She's used to all the beautiful cakes going to other people :-).

This was another fun cake to make.  I used a ladybird moulded tin to bake the vanilla sponge, and then turned it into the elephant.  It tastes good too, but it really broke my heart to cut it!

Pink Flower

This is a vanilla birthday cake for a friend.  I love the pink & brown together. 

This is a huge cake which took a double batch of cake mix.  I torted the cake into 3 layers and filled all the layers with buttercream icing.  Hope she enjoyed it!

Carrot Cake & White Chocolate

This was a delicious cake that I baked to take away on holiday.  I covered it in lemon & cream cheese icing, and then made a white chocolate collar, and drizzled white chocolate over the top to create the lacy effect.

Ballerina Bear

I made this cake for a little girl's 6th birthday.  I must admit that I didn't enjoy icing this one as much as I expected.  I used a white chocolate ganache icing to do the base coat, and it was very difficult to work with as I was trying to cover a dark chocolate cake.  The dress was much more difficult to do than I anticipated as well, but in the end, the result was quite cute and the little girl loved it.

Motor-X

I am exceptionally pleased with and proud of this cake.  One of the things I find really difficult to do on a cake is "less".  I have to constantly resist the temptation to put too much decor on a cake because I have so many ideas sluicing through my brain!

The bike itself took about 3 hours to complete, and all the intricate detailing was very difficult for someone who doesn't really know anything about how bikes work!  I'm very pleased with the result though, and my client loved it, which is the most important thing.



Flower Power

I made this cake for a surprise birthday for two friends at work.  It was a fun cake to do, and I particularly enjoyed the dragonflies.

The cake was flattened by all the staff at work, and fed about 30 people which I was very pleased with.

Pretty Yellow & White

I made this cake for fun.  I'm going to be taking it to work on Monday to share with everyone and to celebrate 2 birthdays.  Cake number 2 is baked and awaiting decoration.

Need to work on my photography skills I think.  The pictures look a little dark.

New Cakes

Right, I've had a week off, and a bout of nasty enteritis, and now it's time to get cracking on my next batch of cake orders, so watch this space, I'll be posting shortly. 

So far I have 3 cakes to do for next week (shriek), a simple flower cake, a ballerina bear cake, and a motocross cake (this one will be especially challenging).  Then there's the fruit cake I'm busy with just for fun, not expecting to get sick and be unable to finish it yet.  I'm hoping to complete that one this evening.  For the week after I have an order for a giant flower cake, and then later in July (still to be confirmed) for a large carrot cake for someone who loves golf, so that should be interesting.  To put it mildly, I think I'm going to be very busy these school holidays, and I can't wait!

Lord, with you strength - I can!

Triple Chocolate

This is my latest offering.  It is a Thank You cake that I made to thank the kind friend who brought me my Wilton order from the USA. 

This is a rich chocolate cake, which I cut (torted) into 4 layers.  The outer 2 layers are filled with caramel, and the middle layer with rich chocolate icing.  I then iced the outside with more chocolate icing, and edged with the chocolate-covered sticks. 

Then I filled the top with shortcake-covered chocolate balls, and added some pink & white sugarpaste flowers, hearts and stars which I made.  I tied the ribbon and that was that.  Hope she enjoys it. 

New Tools

Today is an exciting day!  I purchased a whole lot of new cake making and icing tools online from Wilton, and had them delivered to somebody who lives in USA and was coming to SA on holiday (Wilton doesn't deliver internationally).  Today I received my purchases, and I'm so excited I don't know how I'm going to work today.  Watch this space, there will be a new cake up in the next two days!

Bumble Bee

Behold my latest creation!  A birthday cake for a 6 year old boy at the school where I work.  I used the Wilton butterfly moulded tin for the wings.  I know that bees have different wings, but I'm pretty sure that this is ok for a 6 year old.

I piped the edges and clouds in royal icing, and made the body from fondant.

The little bugs, grass and name I made from fondant.  If I may say so myself, they are so cute!  This was a very fun cake to make and I'm looking forward to making the next one.

Images of Bridezilla

I really, really want to make a wedding cake!  I have visions of the happy couple exclaiming with joy at the sight of a beautiful cake made just for them on their special day.  But then, this nasty little thought creeps into my mind and nudges me, "Um..." it says, "What if you get a Bridezilla?", and that's the end of that happy dream.  As far as cakes go, I can't really imagine much worse than having someone hate your creation, other than perhaps dropping the cake on the way to the reception.  All your hard work, and artisitc talent (and when referring to myself I use the words "artistic talent" very loosely) wasted.  All those hours and hours of planning, rolling, kneading and moulding and sculpting for nothing. 

My other worry is being asked to make something that I really, really hate.  I can't think of an example now, but there must be cake designs out there that I don't like.  No wait!  Actually, there is a very good example of a cake I would refuse to make.  I would put a picture here, but I would hate it if somebody thought I'd made it, so if you'd like to see what I think is probably the worst cake in the whole world, click here:  WORST CAKE EVER!  Please note:  I did not make this cake, and I never will!

Then of course there's the worry of what on earth to charge for a wedding cake.  I've heard experienced pastry chefs on TV say that it can 20 hours to complete a wedding cake, and I'm certainly not experienced - well not yet anyway, so I'm guessing I should double that time.  Nevermind that, they have assistants and huge ovens, kitchens & workspaces - I do not.  How do you put a price on hours and hours of time?  For me in particular, time is the most difficult thing about making cakes, what with a "real job", 4 demanding children and a husband.  I wish I was brave enough to just quit my job and stay home making cakes all day - but I'm not.  Maybe one day, but not today.

But still, I really really want to make a wedding cake!

Quickie Cake

It was my brother-in-law's 50th birthday yesterday.  He lives in Durban, about 600km away, so we didn't get to celebrate with him.  So I decided to bake him a cake and we could have our own celebration in honour of his birthday.  I decided this while I was cooking dinner, and in between dinner preparation, I made the cake.  I decided on a rainbow cake (just because I've been looking for an excuse to make one). 

I made all the decorations from fondant, and iced with butter icing.  Then I posted pictures on FaceBook so that Tian could see his cake.  Yes, and I know it has a rose on it which may not seem very manly, but at least it's blue ok?

Then we ate it, and it was good.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIAN!

Giant Cupcake Birthday Cake

My first paying customer - WooHoo!  A lady at work ordered a giant cupcake birthday cake for her daughter's birthday this week.  To be honest, aside from the elation of having a paying customer, the request filled me with dread!  I had no idea how on earth I was going to pull this one off.  I know that you can buy moulded pans overseas for this type of cake, but not here is South Africa (believe me I searched).  I therefore had to build this cake from scratch, which was not easy.  However, I am very pleased with the result.

The request was for pink & silver.  I've never worked with silver before, and was a little nervous of it, but I'm very pleased with the result.  I made all the decorations, except the ribbon.  The 'cup' is made from fondant stips that I painted with silver powder mixed with alcohol to make a paste.

This cake was quite difficult to photograph because the silver tended to reflect, which diffused the details.

Winnie the Pooh

This is definitely my most ambitious cake so far.  The lady who works with me in the school office was celebrating her 50th Birthday and I decided it was a perfect opportunity for me to try a stacked cake.  She is crazy about Winnie the Pooh, hence the theme.

This cake took me around 10 hours to complete.  I made everything out of icing.  The Pooh bear presented the biggest challenge, and the one you see on this cake is Pooh the 4th!  Sherae helped with the piping round the edges, and my youngest son Tyler helped cut out the butterflies, colour the fondant (a very messy job), and cover the cake board.

My First Attempt - Lolo's Lion

Just after I decided to try my hand at some serious cake decorating, my daughter (who works as a teacher's assistant while she studies) asked if I would make a birthday cake for a little boy in her class.  His birthday had been that week, and he had been very sad because he was the only child not to bring a birthday cake to class on his birthday.  His parents are very poor, and couldn't afford a cake.  I jumped at the opportunity and the lion cake above is the result.

I used a sunflower moulded cake tin for the shape.  I had to bake two cakes to get the height & 3D effect.  I made the face and ears from fondant, and covered & decorated the board in fondant.  The mane is buttercream icing, and the piping was done by my daughter, Sherae.

Lolo was thrilled with his lion cake, and didn't want the rest of the class to get too close to it!

Passion Takes Hold

I've always liked cake decorating.  Ever since my children were born I've always made them birthday cakes.  I've made a bunny, a teddy, a steam engine, a pirate ship - just to name a few.  This may sound impressive, but the truth is that they were pretty basic cakes.  I bought books on cake decorating, and read them from cover to cover, but I was always too afraid to try making all the beautiful cakes I drooled over.  I was fascinated by fondant-covered cakes, but when my first attempt to cover a fruit cake about 6 years ago went awry, I never tried it again.

Then something happened.  I accidentally tuned into a cake decorating competition on TV, and was riveted.  I watched those talented professionals decorate the most incredible cakes and something inside me said, "You can do that!".  So I mustered up all my courage, spent a fortune on cake decorating equipment, and went for it. 

This blog is a record of the results of my decision to try my hand at cake decorating.  Enjoy!