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.