A Wedding Anniversary and a Birthday

Hope you are all enjoying yourselves in bloggerland. I am so busy at the moment my days are running into each other. I am currently preparing fir my Christmas Cake orders and I have my list of request already. As well as preparing for that I have had my granddaughter or a couple of days whilst my son and his partner went to Alton Towers. Luna is walking now so I was on the go all the time, I had forgotten what it us like to have an active toddler in the house. I received two orders this month from the same person. He had asked me to make a cake for his parents Golden Wedding Anniversary and he wanted their wedding photo on it, which i was able to do as I have a printer which is set up for food use. It is really fun doing these and I hope to use this for some of my Christmas Cakes. Here is the finished result, it was one of my fruit cakes decorated in white with piped icing around the edge of the photo with painted gold lettering. I came across this paint in Hobby craft and it is edible so it is quite safe to use. There are other colours which I will buy at a later date.

The same person also at the last minute asked for a birthday cake for two of their relatives one was celebrating their 70th and the other her 40th hence him asking for me to combine their ages. He was taking this away on holiday with them as they were having a family gathering. I hope both parties go well.

Silver Wedding

One of our Site Managers celebrated his Silver Wedding Anniversary last week and he asked if I would make them a cake, it is a fruit cake with white fondant icing, roses, and lettering. The ribbon was white silk with a silver heart pattern along it. I hope he liked it, they came to collect and stayed for a chat and a cup of tea.

A Donation for a Coffee Morning

Hello to you all, I have been rather busy of late with baking working and genrally running the house but then aren't we all. I am now getting ready for Christmas (as in making Christmas Cakes) I have 17 orders already for my cakes and that does not include all of my previous customers. I am hoping I will have more. In between all that I have been receiving orders for other celebrations. I was asked by one of the managers at work if I would donate a cake for a Macmillan Coffee morning they were having one one of our developments, the choice was mine on what I made. I decided I would go for a chocolate hit and made my Chocolate Victoria sponge cake filled will strawberry jam and chocolate butter cream. I then covered it in chocolate fondant, this was something I had not used before and is quite difficult to work with. I think the chocolate content makes it easier to melt if worked too much, but I managed to cover the cake. I made some flowers with ivory coloured fondant and put a cream ribbon around it to finish it off. I think it looks the business and the coffee morning went down well raising around £500.

And finally "The Wedding Cake"

Yes, I did it I have made my fist ever official Wedding Cake and delivered it to the venue, sadly I did not get more photo's but I a hoping to get some from the actual bride and groom on their return from honeymoon. The cake had originally been ordered as a three tier but they wanted and extra one at the last minute. The big day was on the 1st September, so we came back from out two week break early so I could finish decorating it and also make the sponges for the other three tiers. I took the cake in four boxes and assembled it there, my hands were shaking when I put the finishing touches to it. But I was pleased with it and I hope they were too! The four tiers consisted of: Top - Chocolate sponge 6" Second - Lemon Sponge 8" Third - Vamilla Sponge 10" Fourth - Fruit Cake 12" All decorated (obviously) in the required colours and dowelled on the lower layers to give it strength when stacked. I hope this is finally the start of my little "empire". I am now thinking of the Christmas Cakes I will be making, I already have orders for these, so am getting planning now. In the meantime for next month I have a Silver Wedding Anniversary Cake and an Golden Wedding Anniversary Cake to make. These are both fruit cakes so these can be made now and stored away until I am ready to decorate them.

Holiday in Cornwall

We finally made it, we we had out holiday in Cornwall. This was a much needed holiday to re-charge our batteries. The year we have had so far has not been pleasant. Firstly there had been issues with our Son and his new family, but now this is sorted and they are busy settling into their new home. The next thing that hit us was hubby's dad was diagnosed with prostrate cancer, we received this news on the jubilee bank holiday weekend, things did not go very well especially what we were being told and we seemed to be working our way around the north west visiting him in the various hospitals that he was taken to. He is now safely home and although is still an invalid he is getting back to his old self, we had been lead to believe that he was going to die from the cancer and also that he had a very serious heart attack all of which was not true when hubby and his sister went to visit dad's doctor to find out exactly what had been going on, it was such a big relief to find that yes he had got prostrate cancer but it had been successfully treated and no he had not had a heart attack but an infection which had caused him problems with breathing. Dad is 83 and still has a lot of time left in him, like everyone we will all pass away eventually but his time is definitely not yet. He is home and doing well, there are carers that come in four times a day to help out and the physio was due to be started last week and the aim of this is to get him walking about on his own and ultimately to go upstairs to use the bathroom and sleep in his proper bed. At the moment he is sleeping in a hospital bed which is in the living room. A stair lift has already been installed for his use, so there should be no problem in him going upstairs when he wants to. Kevin's sister does most of the running around it is lucky that she doesn't work and lives quite close but it has been an immense help that she there. On top of everything else our dog Kaara was also diagnosed with cancer, unfortunately it is T-cell Lymphoma which cannot be cured but she is receiving chemo therapy at the Liverpool Small Animal Hospital this will last for 25 weeks and believe it or not she is in remission lets hope this lasts, although we are under no illusion that eventually this will get the better of her but at least she is receiving the best treatment. I know I had a bit of a rant there but had to get this of my chest. We travelled down to Cornwall and started out holiday at a cottage on a farm at a place called Goonhaven, this is about two miles or so from Penzance. Here are a couple of photo's for now, I will post some more in my next update I took quite a few and we are planning to go back next year.

A quick Birthday Cake

Before we went away my son rang me to ask me to make his partner a birthday cake, Donna's birthday is a few days after mine so it is easy for me to remember. I hadn't got much time to plan anything, but carried on with a theme that I had done for the Handbag Birthday Cake I had made previously, this cake was only a small one so I made some easy roses to go around the bottom and a smaller version of the purse I had made previously. He came and collected it and Donna was pleases with the surprise. I enjoyed making it to as I do all my cakes it is very good therapy doing these especially after completing a stressful day at work.

Return from a welcome break

Having now been back for a week and also back at work it seems a long time since our two week break. Before we started we spent a day out with our granddaughter and took her to the park which was a 10 minute walk away from our son's home. She is growing up fast now and is almost walking, here are a few pictures, we stopped at MacDonalds on the way for some lunch and at one point she looked as though she was having quite a serious conversation with her Granddad who was chatting away to her. She also had her very first go on the swings which I think she was a bit unsure of but by the time she finished she was really enjoying it. She also had a go on the slide with her dad but I did not manage to get a photo of that although her mum did. I will have to see if I can get that one. I think going to the park with your children gives grown ups especially dads the opportunity to be silly. We had a lovely afternoon out and Kaara joined us to.