Santa Came to Visit

I hope you have all had an enjoyable and indulgent Christmas and are now preparing for the New Year celebrations. I just thought I would bob on my blog today and just do a quick post. I received some really nice gifts, and will soon be trying them out. In particular I received one from hubby which I am really pleased with although I did not expect to get something like that as we tend to just buy what we want throughout the year rather than on special occasions, suffice to say I have not bought anything for him yet and he keeps telling me he does not need anything so I will have to get my thinking cap on. Can you guess what's in the red case, yes its a kindle and that is the gift I received from hubby. I am having fun downloading free books and catching up on some reading which I have not had time to do for a while. I have also done some knitting which I will update you on when finished. By for now and best wishes for the New Year.

Update on my work Part Two

Here are the last few.

An update on my Work Part One

Hello to all I hope you are enjoying your Christmas Celebrations. I am now chilling out at the moment after a hectic lead up to the holidays, I post some pictures of my earlier creations and now here are the rest. The orders I received also included a 40th Birthday Cake which came as a last request but I managed to fit it in.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. Sue x

Christmas Bear

Following on from the post I did earlier, here are some more Christmas Cakes. One of them is my particular favorate and I tried to do this one with children in mind as the person it is for has two young boys so I iced in pale blue fondant and made a bear for the top complete with hat.

Second Batch Completed

Well here we are frantically getting ready for Christmas and getting all those last minute presents. We are off to do our final shopping tomorrow, I am already on my Christmas Hols and Hubby will be starting his tomorrow. Meanwhile, whilst he is at work today I have been doing some more cake decorating. However yesterday I spent the whole day working on the cakes that I was delivering into work this morning. Here are some photos of the ones I have completed. I must say I am really pleased with them but one in particular is my favorate. ( See next post)

Christmas Cakes

I have been busy making all the fruit cakes ready for the Christmas Cake orders I had received and it is time to decorate them and hand them over to my customers. I have now finished work for the Christmas Break but am looking forward to doing the finishing touches without have to work every night like I did last year it was very hectic and I have been more relaxed and planned ahead so hopefully there should be no last minute panics. The first two orders have been completed and have been delivered, here is a picture of my first two. Now I am off back to my kitchen to decorate some more which I will be delivering on Monday. See you all soon.

Ladies at Lunch

First of all, my blogging friends I am sorry I have not been around. Most of you know I bake a lot and after my jumping in at the deep end making Christmas Cakes last year, I had plenty of return orders for this year, which has kept me in my kitchen for quite a while and out of mischief my hubby keeps telling me. At work a number of us ladies meet regularly for lunch in the office and take over one of the meeting rooms, we have an enjoyable break and put the world to rights and then some. We decided to have a Christmas lunch, we all chipped in for a sandwich platter from the company we use at work and then we also brought in something extra such as coke, crisps, pork pies, mince pies, I offered to make a chocolate log, very rich,we had that the next day as we had eaten so much at lunch but we had a really fun time. Here is a pic. I used to make Swiss rolls a lot in my younger days so had not made one for a while, I made a chocolate flavoured mi filled it with strawberry jam, a chocolate Ganache filling and then covered it in chocolate butter cream very rich but heavenly even I was tempted and it went well with a cup of tea for elevenses.

Boobie Cake 2

I received an order from a work colleague who celebrates his birthday this weekend and he asked me to make a cake for him. He has seen a photo of the one I had made my husband and asked for one the same. I use a different colour and added to little extras to make it look more authentic. It caused quite a talking point at work yesterday when I took it in for him and the conversations that were had got quite risque (not sure if that is spelt right). I think he was quite please with it so hope he enjoys it this weekend. Apologies for the quality of the photo, I am really no good with the camera.

Visiting

We visited our Son and his new family last Saturday and spent the afternoon wandering around the Christmas Market in Manchester, I have never been before and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Luna (our new grand daughter) I hasten to add slept all afternoon cosy and snug in her pram. Sadly I did not manage to get any photo's this time but they are coming to visit us next weekend and we are having a family get together so will make sure I get some then. She is beautiful and I got to push her around most of the time, it was fun. As a gift I took some cupcakes that I made that morning I made chocolate orange flavour sponge and added a chocolate orange butter cream and decorations, very tasty.

Coffee and Walnut Sponge Cake

I made this for hubby at his request in between making my Christmas Cakes, he just wanted something different in his packed lunch for work which I make him every day. Unfortunately, he only managed to eat a quarter of it as our mischievous dog Kaara decided it was her treat too. I came home from work that evening to find that she had managed to get the cake box off the worktop, the lid was at the bottom of the stairs and the bottom of the box was in the conservatory. The cake, what was left was still on its plate upside down in the hall, with all the walnuts gone and all the butter cream filling and topping eaten. How the plate did not break I will never know as we have tiled flooring in the hall and kitchen. She must have had a fun time whilst we were both at work.

Two Days Away

All year I have been saving my pennies from orders I have received for cakes and any other money I could squirrel away. What for you may ask? Well myself and my friends Jenny and Alison were going to the NEC, Birmingham for two days. We were staying over night and spending one day in the Craft Show and one day in the Cake International Show and what a fab two days we had. We went last year and spent a day only and did both shows there was such a lot to take in and so we planned to do it more leisurely this time it was far better and we are now planning for next year. The show for me was the Cake International, I had my list and got the things I wanted and more. I also spent a lot of time looking at the competition entries and here are some pictures, they are truly amazing. The skill and detail is fabulous. I can't wait for next year!

A Special Day

Yesterday was very special as we got to meet our Granddaughter for the first time, she is absolutely amazing and Mum, Dad and daughter are all doing well. We spent most of the afternoon with them at the hospital, mum and baby were meant to be going home yesterday so we were hoping we could have taken them home but it started to get so late we had to get back home ourselves. Apparently they were still waiting on some test result for mum and as everyone knows in hospitals these take time and move at a very slow pace. Here are a couple of pics.

Christening Cake

I am getting more and more busier with my baking and I love it. This same week I also had a christening cake to make and this was completed yesterday morning when I out the decoration together which I had to leave to dry over night otherwise it would have all collapsed. The request was that it had to have a train on it so I made this two tier sponge and hand made the train myself copied from a photo in one of my cake magazines. The cake was made for a colleague in our Finance Department at work whose christening for his son is today so the cake was taken in to work yesterday and hopefully he got it home in once piece. This will be the test as complete strangers will be seeing and also eating this as opposed to me making for friends and family. I hope there is enough for all as I heard he has about 80ish guests. Hope you like what I have created. Now I am off to get ready and do some jobs before we go to see our new granddaughter for the first time. Bye for now. Sue x

Mountain Bike Birthday Cake

Hello, to all my friends, I bet you thought I had left the country. Well I am still here, I have been so busy of late as usual in my kitchen making cakes, well what else, although I do have other hobbies I don't seem to have much time for them. I am trying to get ahead with the large orders I have for Christmas Cakes and have now made six fruit cakes of various sizes and more to do. In between I am still doing other orders and here is a picture of one I completed this morning. This is for a friends son who is mad on mountain bikes so that set the theme. It is not as perfect as I would like as I had problems getting the edible sheet to lie flat and I know it is because the fondant has not been as smooth as I would like. As on my last picture cake I was concerned about seeing the edges of the decor sheet so I have tried my hand at some piping work that we were shown in our classes earlier in the year. I have not done this since then so it is not as tidy as I would like but it does finish off that edge. Now the challenge is to get it to work in my car in once piece, I have not had any problems so far but you never know so I had better pack ,my repair kit to take to.

And finally we are now grandparents our son and his fiance gave birth to a wonderful daughter in the early hours of Tuesday 25th October, I have not been to see her yet but judging from the photo's we have had she is beautiful. Hopefully I will be able to share some photo's soon with you. PS: sorry for the second picture being on the side, never seem to be able to get that right but hopefully you get an idea of what the cake looks like. Bye for now. Sue c

First Attempt at Using my Edible Ink Printer

I have a new toy to add to my growing collection of cake decorating tools, I now have a printer which is filled with edible inks which allows me to print pictures and such on to a Decor sheet which is then placed on top of a decorated cake. A number of us at work had recently taken in some photos of when we were younger to guess who was who. I acquired a copy of one as I had in mind to make a cake for her 50th birthday which she celebrated today. Last night when i got in from work I made a vanilla sponge cake, decorated it then this morning I was up early so I printed off the photo on to the Decor sheet and attached it to the cake. I have added a picture to show the result, I am really pleased with it and can see this being used a lot. My friend said she was pleased and has taken it home to share with her family. I hope they enjoy.

18th Birthday Cake

Well I am up bright and early today, hubby has gone off to do a painting job and I am going to do the washing, well I need to make the most of the weather isn't if glorious (if a little too warm for working in the office)

Well I thought I would update you on the latest from my kitchen, I received an order for an 18th birthday cake the design was mostly left up to me, the only request was to make it girly. So, I thought I would try my hand at a two tier birthday cake here are a couple of photo's I think it worked really well. The cake itself is made from vanilla sponge filled with strawberry jam and butter cream. I covered both cakes in a thin layer of marzipan as I feel it gives a better finish when putting the fondant on. I then covered the larger cake and board in white fondant, then covered the smaller one separately and stacked on top. I can get away with this as the cake is not too heavy and will not need supports underneath which would be placed in the larger cake. I then made the little balls in rolled yellow fondant and cut out flowers in the same and there you go. Since having my cake decorating classes I feel loads more confident and am not too phased when trying something different, in fact I find it a very enjoyable challenge. Will let you know what my next cake is soon.

Update

Just had to let you all know I have dropped a right clanger,I have missed the "H" out of birthday, oh what a nightmare this has been. The birthday party has started too for the person I made it for so I will have to get in touch with them tomorrow and give them a refund.

Busy Busy

Well what a busy week I have had, I am trying to get ahead with my Christmas Cake orders, I have made two cakes already and they are stored away, hopefully another one will be made today. But this last week I have been very busy as I had a 16th Birthday Cake order to complete and a 50th birthday cake order as well for the same family. The 16th Birthday cake was easy, the 50th one was not so easy, making the cakes are a doddle and I even managed to shape the large cake to look reasonably like a football shirt which is what has been requested. I managed to cover it in marzipan, but the sugar paste just would not work, I ended up buying thee lots and in the end it wasn't until my friend Ali had had a look that we decided it was in fact a faulty batch, but not one but all three lots I had. We went back to the sop and I explained, they did say that they had had a problem with the blue and the pink sugar paste ( I had the blue) and they said that I could take all three back and they would refund me even though I had tried to use it. It just would not roll out and even when I tried to knead it to get is to be pliable this did not work either. I bought some regal ice and we coloured that instead, I got it as close as I could to the colour of the team that was asked for (Man City) the colour is not quite their but the customer said she was pleased with it and knowing this person she definitely would have said something if she wasn't. Here are the pictures, I also got to try out my new printer with edible ink in so managed to do a copy of the team badge. I am off to do some tidying up as I have all my cake decorating stuff out at the moment so will catch up with you all soon.

A cake for a 50th Birthday

Firstly I must apologise for not being around for a while. In my research for ideas for decorating cakes I managed to attract a few viruses so have had to wait until my hubby got around to sorting it out for me. As you can see I am now back, but I have been busy whilst I have not been able to play on my computer. I have finally got the inks and papers for my new printer which I am hoping to set up soon, so I will be able to add another element to my cake decorating and be able to print photo's etc on them. I also have another four orders in my diary for a 50th, and 16th birthday, with another birthday cake and also a christening cake. These are on top of my Christmas Cake orders. (I have now managed to make to fruit cakes and these are wrapped up and stored away). I am just preparing the fruit for the next ones. I am making the fruit cakes well in advance so I don't disappoint people as I am now getting very busy and I also need to plan what I am going to sell at a Christmas Fair that I am having a stall at along with my two friends who will also have one for their card making etc. I recently complete an order for a birthday cake for a colleagues mum's 50th birthday, I had shown them my book that I carry around with the photos of the cakes I have made and they were quite taken with a butterfly one that I had made previously. I changed the design slightly and added some words, I was pleased with the result and so were they as they kindly left a thank you card on my desk when I got back into work the following week. Here are some photo's I would like to share.

Trying out a new recipe

I finally got to do a bit of baking yesterday, hubby has decided he wants to try vegetarian food (he gets all faddy with his food sometimes and he recently read an article in the newspaper regarding the slaughtering of animals for us to eat) so now he wants to change. Anyway you know me I am always up for a challenge and so found a website called Cook Vegetarian. They have loads of recipes so printed off a few that I thought sounded really tasty and showed them to him, he said they all sounded great, so away I went. I selected a couple of recipes one of them being an Orange, Ginger and sultana cake it is made with olive oil instead of margarine/butter,plain flour, dark brown sugar, eggs, ginger, fresh orange (all of it including the peel which is simmered whole until it is soft then blended into a pulp, so you don't actually get chunks of orange peel)it all gets mixed together and then baked for about 40 to 45 minutes or until when a skewer is inserted it comes out clean. I am really pleased with the result it is really tasty and I think I will add this to my Christmas cake collection, it certainly tasted and smelt like a Christmas cake. And yes Kevin said he liked it to so that's a good start. Now I am off to try some more recipes.