Pussy Galore: Bumper Post

Hi y'all! Back from the Big Apple today so I just had to tell you about the recent cake extravaganza I embarked upon 24 hours prior to departure :)

I couldn't really say no to doing two cakes just before I set off on holiday - both were family orders and plus I really really wanted to do them. I was commissioned to make a Hello Kitty cake for my second cousin's first birthday, and a triple-whammy-James-Bond-themed-birthday cake for my other cousin's friends' party.
Phew.

So in a mere 48 hours I took upon the challenge of baking, icing and decorating two cakes, and here's the final results. (I haven't done a progress post this time as I was sooo strapped for time what with packing and uni-working too, so the final product is what you see is what you get.)

James Bond silhouette casino cake - Madeira Sponge with vanilla buttercream and jam filling.

Hello Kitty character cake - Devil Food Cake with chocolate buttercream with edible SPARKLES for decoration (note: no glitter - sparkles!!)

And remember the failed Red Velvet cupcake post I did last year? I tasted my first American-style cupcake from a little cupcakery on the stylish Madison Avenue and oh-my-goodness they are heavenly. Literally velvety, a hint of chocolate, and very frothy frosting! I HAVE to find a good recipe soon!!!

Happy Baking x

P.s I hope to set up a Facebook page soon for my 'Cakes by Kirsten' business. Link to come soon, I'd love your feedback!

Valentine's Day

I'm a bit late on my Valentine's post, sorry folks! But here's the cake I made for my other (not better, mwahaha) half since I'm a little skint these days (blame the holiday in NYC I just booked...!)... I received a sweet little silicone heart-shaped cake mould for christmas and I've been dying to put it to good use, so I googled for inspiration for a V-Day cake. Heart cakes aren't uncommon, but boy is there little imagination used! I saw one designed like this one, where the cake acts as an imitation chocolate box, and then added in a few Milk Tray choccies on top :) All of his family and friends were so amazed by it, to quote his mother "You clever girl, this cake is so beautiful. It'll be hard to beat...I've tasted this perfect perfect cake and it really is soooo perfect!" :P I think I need to set up a testimonials part of my blog haha!

What I'd like to mention about this cake task was the use of silicone moulds... HOW effective are they?!!? If you've never used one, buy one. There's no need for greasing and papering the cake mould, as you literally just turn it out of the mould. They're amazing, can't wait to make another one!

My Valentine's Day: The bottle with the candle in is the bottle of champagne my parent's drank at their wedding. Who say's romance is dead?

In reference to Valentine's Day, I'd like to have my own little rant. I think this year I've come across more "Ugghh I don't do V.D, it's so commercialised..." than soppy stuff and I felt really disheartened by it all. Personally, I love V.D. Jim and I have never gone completely all out for it, this year we stayed in with a rack of lamb and Sherlock Holmes, but it was still lovely to spend that day together celebrating how much we're in love. Yes, you can do that any day of the year, I know that. It's not like the words "I love you" are off-limits for the rest of the year. But I love the flowers everywhere, the candles, the cutesy presents and of course the chocolates. I'm not saying I'm materialistic, I just think it's a sweet day and everyone's all smiley. I saw a guy walk out of a jewellery store a few days before, and he had the biggest grin on his face and a tiny bag in his hand... I bet he was proposing and made someone a very happy and lucky lady. Anyway, I like the day. Some people haven't even been together long enough to celebrate an anniversary or whatever, so V.D is also a way for those people to have a special day, too. Before I met Jim, my best friend and I used to send each other Valentine's cards, just as a little reminder that we were there for each other. Rant over.

Happy Baking x

Peppa Pig Cake

Happy 4th Birthday Charli!
A friend at Uni asked me to do my FIRST COMMISION! for her daughter's birthday, and she was so excited by the results of this Peppa Pig cake that she's asked me to do her other daughter's birthday cake in March. I'm such a busy bee at the moment! I'm about to start a Valentine's cake tomorrow and then another next week... Ahhh!!

Anyways, so this is the progress of how I went from sponge to pig. Sorry guys, I really did try to do a video tutorial like I mentioned before, but trying to hold a rolling pin and a £600 camera at the same time as shooting a mini-vid is very hard. Ah well, when I'm rich I'll just have to hire someone to film me :P

I actually traced Peppa straight from the pc screen onto some tracing paper and then used that as a guide for the three parts of the cake, then split those parts in two horizontally to add jam and buttercream. Those three parts were then coated in a crumb coat of buttercream and popped into the fridge for 1/2 an hour. I used white rolled icing to do the first coat of icing, which set overnight. Then I used three shades of icing to create her skin, tiara and dress. Everything else was handmade and stuck on with Sugarcell. (You can't see it very well but I did use white lustre dust on the stars, too.)

I have a massive wishlist of cookery items that I really need to get more professional at these cakes, and one of them I really could have done with for this cake. A Sugarcraft gun would have produced a perfect log shape for creating her darker pink outline on her face, and also the outline of the fairy wings. Unfortunately it's just impossible to create logs that long and symmertrical without them falling to pieces. I hope Jim's got the hint and has bought me one for V. Day :D

More to come soon, Happy Baking! x

P.s What do you guy's think of my make-shift business cards? I'd like to get some properly made up when I have the money and a solid idea - maybe replace the damask picture with my own sketch of a cake/cupcake? (Yes, I'm saying cupcake again. I suppose I'm not going to be very popular if I still refer to the them as buns. Which they are...)

Wedding Fever Part 1

Hi folks! I can practically still hear wedding bells with all my latest antics! Two great people I know got married after being together for 10 years! Here's my favourite photograph of them on their happy day, don't they look beautiful?!

As mentioned in the previous post, I recently made an engagement cake for the other's half's cousin. I had a few ups and downs with this one, but they seemed pleased enough with it, and so did the whole family :D So much so, I got another order! This time for a Silver Wedding Anniversary cake, which I'm actually baking right now. Thought I'd get round to posting the other cake while it rises...
I made a simple square vanilla madeira cake, covered it in rolled icing and then decorated with icing letters, ribbon and a bow. I'll tell you where I went wrong further down the post...

N.B. If you intend to make madeira sandwich cake like I did for this cake, you'll want to cut off the top of the cake to level it. This ultimately leaves you with half the cake left, so make two if you are sandwiching it :) Also, you can see in this picture that there are a few air bubbles in the icing. Use one of the pins to pop the bubbles and just smooth it over again with your hand. Use icing sugar to fill in the little hole.

Ingredients (for an 8 inch size square cake tin):

- 11 oz Butter

- 11 oz Sugar

- 6 Eggs

- 7 oz Plain Flour

- 2.5 oz Self-Raising Flour

- 6 teaspoons milk

*Optional* Buttercream and Strawberry Jam for the filling.

Decoration:

- 2 x Silver Spoon Ready Rolled Icing Sheets

- Red Rolled Icing

- Ribbons and bows (from all good decorating shops)

- 2 x Glass-Headed Pins

- Royal Icing (You can buy this ready made. RECOMMENDED. I made some from a recipe in my book and it gave me enough to cover a cake. I only needed a bit to pipe around the edges.

Method:

I bought a cheapy whisk from Sainsbury's to get my bottom drawer started. So go buy one for £4.18, chuck all the ingredients in a bowl and whiiiiiisk :P Haha, cheat. Bake for 1 hour and 35 minutes on 160'C.

When covering the cake, use a very thin layer of buttercream to make a glue for your first layer of icing. Remember to either ice your cake twice, or cover it in marzipan and then icing - depending on your tastebuds. Use a rolling pin to carefully pick up the icing and place over the cake. Use your hands to smooth down the lumps and bumps and chop off any excess icing with scissors. On the corners, pinch the excess icing together and chop it off. Brush a little boiled water over the first layer, then add your second layer. If you only use one layer of icing you will get a bumpy finish.

   I used alphabet letter cutters to spell out "Congratulations Natasha and Chris" onto the cake in red rolled icing, and then cut out a big and medium sized heart in red rolled icing to finish it. When fastening bows and ribbons, use a glass-headed pin to secure them in place. Just remember to tell your recipient there are sharp objects in the cake!

Okay, so where did it go wrong? For my 18th birthday cake, the ladies who made it managed to give the whole cake a glittery finish over the icing. I thought I'd try this. Remember the silver edible spray I used for the Caravan Cake? I sprayed some of this into a small pot then used a brush to brush some of the glitter spray onto the cake. This doesn't work. At least, if it's a silver colour. You can get other shades, including a pearl sheen for special cakes, so don't let my mistakes put you off. Anyways, I ended up with silver streaks on my white icing, effectively giving it a dirty finish. I just had to grit my teeth and try to blot it off with damp kitchen towels, and when that didn't work completely, went to the cake shop to pick up some white dusting powder. Well, here are the results. Obviously, I couldn't get in between the letters very well, which is where the worst of it is:

Happy Baking x

Caravan Cake

So my auntie heard about my new business venture into the world of cake-making, and asked me to make a caravan shaped cake for a work colleague who was leaving. Ironically, he hates caravans so the joke was on him, poor soul. But apparantly the cake went down a storm in the office and I thought I'd share with you how I made it :) Also, the cat in the basket was made my mum and auntie, who thought it would be funny to add on to the design - hence the shoddy workmanship of the basket and lack of scale towards the caravan. The cat is a figurine by the way, not modelled. Silly women!

(I do apologise for the quality of the photos - my SLR is at my in-law's house, and my battery ran out on my compact digi cam, so it was up to the ol' mobile phone snapper to help me document this post.)

Firstly, I made four madeira cakes in loaf tins. I'll post the recipe for this type of cake soon, as I've also made another recently. After they set, I  used my brand new Lawson's cake leveller so get rid of the lumpy bumpy bit on top of two of the cakes, giving a nice smooth top surface. I kept the other two loaves the same as when they came out of the oven, to give the curved feature of the caravan's roof.

Next, I used Betty Crocker's Vanilla Buttercream and Sainsbury's Strawberry seedless jam to create a filling and also a glue to stick the pieces together. I arranged the cakes so that they resembled a cuboid shape, and continued to fill it.

Then, I used a sharp knife to cut down one side of the cake to give the curved edging of a caravan, however I only grooved into the cake as a guideline, I used my cake leveller, and brought it down the side of the cake to give an even finish.

After this, I finished the cake off with one thin layer of buttercream, ready to stick the rolled icing onto. *Tip* When covering cakes, use either marzipan then icing, or two layers of icing if you don't like marzipan. I don't, so I used the two layers of icing, albeit very thin - it would be too sickly. To stick the two layers together, I used a cooking brush and boiled water. Boiled apricot glaze also works, or even a clear alcohol like vodka for all you alcys :P When covering a square shaped cake, pinch the corners together and cut them off, then use a sharp knife to get rid of the excess edges at the bottom of the cake. Remember to keep your hands well dusted with icing sugar whilst handling icing.

I let the cake set for about 3 days before decorating, so that the icing could dry out and make it easier to assemble objects on to. The little blob of icing on the side of the cake is the towing bar you see on caravans - I used an edible silver spray to get the metallic look on the hook, and inserted into the tow with a small bit of a cocktail stick, so it stayed upright.

Use your imagination when it comes to modelling, use paint brushes, cutlery items, modelling tools - anything you can get your hands on to give different effects. For example, if you were making a sugarpaste person, put a blob of sugarpaste through a garlic press to make their hair! The numberplate is also writen in a liquorice edible writing pen, and also happens to be the guy's own numberplate for his car. Add personality to your projects!

Anyways, that's all on the caravan cake stuff. Sorry it's been so long (again), I've been in Barcelona for a week and such like :D But on the plus side, I got my results back for my 2nd year of uni, and am happy to report that the highest marks I got were for my blog (yes this actually did start out as a uni project!). A lovely 2:1 overall for the year, and only one more to go!

Happy baking munchkins.
Kirsten x