Lynne's cake

Today is my DIL's mother's 60th birthday and we are going to celebrate by going out for a meal. This cake is a complete surprise for her....I hope she likes it! It is all my own work, including the sugar flowers.

 

Rachel's wedding cake

Here is the last wedding cake I intend to make. I only agreed to do this one because I had already made the bride's sister's wedding cake two years ago.

Why the last one? Because with my health problem, I worry that I would not be able to deliver on time. The pressure is too stressful! I adore making them, but the strain is too much!

Cake assembly

This is how Howard and Charlie's wedding cake was supposed to be assembled!

Making Sugarcrat Roses

Roses - completed

These are the three sizes of roses that I have decided on for my design of the cake. The only thing that I have to do to them is to dust them with shiny, ivory petal dust, but I won't do this until they are very dry and hard. Now then, back to the next 3 dozen roses! LOL.

I cannot do any more to the cake as it is far too soon. Although rich fruit cake keeps for years, the marzipan colour can leach into the icing if it is done too soon. I always use the natural marzipan instead of the yellow, which helps to minimise this leaching, but I won't take any chances!

Roses - next stage

In this picture I have put three different sizes of the roses, so that you can see how they develope. When I am happy with the size and shape......each rose seems to develope a character all of its own - rarely are two exactly the same.....I finish them off with a green calyx and seed pod. I will post a picture to show the finished flowers.

Wedding Cake Roses

I have not done any tatting for a while now for two main reasons.

One: I have had to travel long distances to see a professor about my back problem and:

Two: I am now in the throws of making my son's wedding cake flowers. The rich fruit cake is already made and maturing nicely. I made it with a half bottle of brandy in the mix, so it should be well matured by the time the wedding comes along in September!

Charlie's bouquet is going to be roses and so she wants roses on the cake.

I start with making a teardrop shaped bud on a wire (as you can see in the first picture). I made 6 dozen centre buds! I then add each petal individually. So far I have done 3 dozen with 4 petals each. Some will stay as tight buds, the others will grow into larger flowers the more petals I put on them, and also increasing the petal size.

I will post more pictures as they develope.

Wedding cake all finished!

The finsihed article!

Now I can relax until a couple of days before the wedding when I shall make the sponge cake for those who do not like fruit cake. Mind you! I have had people come up to me and say that they didn't like fruit cake, but they loved mine! Maybe it had something to do with the amount of alcohol I put in it ;-) !!! Fancy not liking rich fruit cake!

A little preview!

I thought you would all like to see the flower arrangements that I have done ready for my next cake which is for August 2nd. This wedding cake is going to be for my son's best friend, Adam and his lovely fiance, Lauren.
Today I marzipanned the three rich fruit tiers ready for icing tomorrow. I can't wait to see it finished! When I have a picture in my mind of what I want to do and what the bride wants it to look like I'm always relieved to see the finished article - it doesn't always look like I expect! LOL! But this one is going to be just right!

4th July Wedding Cake

Remeber the hibiscus sugar flowers I posted about last April? Well here they are on the cake they were made for.

I couldn't finish the cake until today because one of the tiers is made of sponge! I don't usually make one of the tiers in sponge because of the time limitations. My usual method is to make all of the tiers as rich fruit cakes that keep for months, even years so that I can decorate them well in advance. I then make a quick sponge cake, decorated with plain icing that can be kept in the kitchen of the venue and then cut for any guests who do not like fruit cake.

The reason I do this is that, being as I am only one on my own doing someone's very special wedding cake and relying on me to deliver, I like to be done well in advance in case of accidents or illness (you never know what is around the corner!). Big bakery companies have more than one deocrator they can call on! But on this occassion, the customer is one of long standing and extremely valued so I broke my own rules! LOL. Mind you, I breathed a great sigh of relief about an hour ago when I had finally completely finished! Phew!!!

21st birthday cake!

My brief for this cake was:
A 2-seater settee on which are:
A boy with light hair and glasses which a small black laptop on his knees;
A girl with long brown hair with a larger orange laptop on her knees;
A plaque with "happy 21st birthday Carly"


Here is what I came up with!

Hibiscus Sugar Flowers

As many of you know, my other passion is cake decorating. I have a customer who is getting married on 4th July and has decided to have a 4 tier square wedding cake decorated with hibiscus flowers and bear grass. She was very good and brought me a silk flower to work from and to match the colour.

So here are the finished flowers! It is the first time I have done hibiscus and I don't have any instructions for them either! Therefore I am quite pleased with the results.

Birthday cake

Here is the little cake I did for my Mum's 82nd birthday. I took it to the residential home, where she now resides, so that she could share it with her new pals!

June Wedding Cake

Although the wedding for this cake is not until June 21st I have finished it today. This is because it is a rich fruit cake and therefore the longer it stands the better it gets! But also because I am going to have an operation on my shoulder on May 16th and could not take the chance that I might be better in time to do the decorations after the op, if you see what I mean!

I had a few flowers and leaves left over and so I thought I would make a small arrangement for the knife as an extra gift from me. I would normally charge for this service, but as the couple are collegues of my son I thought I would change the habit of a lifetime! :>)

Another young lady came to see me on Friday about her wedding cake for August who hadn't got a clue what design she wanted! However, when she saw this one she wanted the same thing with a slight variation i.e all three layers stacked on top of one another - and she wanted the exact same colour roses - but with just beargrass and no leaves so that it matches her bouquet.
I did explain to her though that she couldn't have all tiers as fruit cake, stacked like that, otherwise she wouldn't be able to pick it up! The bottom tier alone weighs about 10 pounds - there is also aprrox. 10 pounds of marzipan and icing on the three tiers!!! So she has settled for a sponge centre tier - with that, we should just about be able to pick the whole thing up - BUT NOT ME!!!

Looks as if I am going to be very busy making 4 dozen claret roses before May 16th!

Imogen's Christening Cake

This is the cake, now complete, that I did the little bootees for. And this is the gorgeous little girl that the cake is for!

Anyone for cricket?

Another design for the portfolio! I have now started making my own sugarpaste and am saving myself a lot of pennies! I have been making the petal paste for the sugarcraft flowers for quite a while but the roll-out fondant icing is new for me. This is my second mix and each one is getting better. I think one more slight adjustment to the recipe and I will have got it just right!

An 80th Birthday Cake

Another one for the cake portfolio!

Sample Wedding Cake

This is the sample wedding cake that I have done for the bridal display in the beauty salon window. It was very strange icing polystyrene cake dummies, they were so light that they wouldn't keep still! Give me a real cake anyday! :D), mind you, that might have something to do with the fact that we always have cut-off bits to eat - the bits I take off to level the cake.

Sugarcraft Flowers

I haven't blogged for a while as I suddenly had a lot of orders come in for cakes all at once. Isn't it typical? nothing for weeks and then 6 wanted in a short space of time! I thought you would like to see some of the flowers that I have done for some of the cakes so far.

Pretty in Peach

I was asked to step into the breach as my niece, who is away on holiday, was supposed to make a cake for Millie for her 90th birthday party on Sunday! Niece was so busy getting two little ones and DH off to the lakes that she completely forgot about this cake. Aunty to the rescue again!!!