My Week in Cakes

I know a lot of you have regular posts about your week, and it usually involves photos and a brief description of what's going on.. so I thought I'd do one just for this particularly busy week I've had! I was supposed to be having a week off work for holiday but it just turned into a mad baking session! Business is booming here at Cakes by Kirsten, and I'm getting orders all the time! :D Remember to check out the Facebook page here, a 'like' is all it takes to get the word around :)

1) Sherelle's 21st shoe box cake; the shoe and roses are made out of Flowerpaste and finished with PME Clear Finishing Spray! 2) Luke's 18th Bra Cake; I got a call at 11am, the customer said the original cake was involved in an accident and needed another one by 6:30pm. I got there at 6pm. BOOM! 3) These vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream are decorated with general supermarket sprinkles, but were sold to raise money for Breast Cancer Care! Over £230 raised!! 4) This chocolate fudge cake with chocolate buttercream cake is finished in the style of my Hello Kitty cakes, with edible sparkles. The tubing around the edges was created using my oh-so-nifty sugarcraft gun! 5) As simple as this victoria sponge is, I think it's flawless in my opinion! The flowerpaste numbers are finished with non-toxic glitter.

There you have it, a week in the life of a cake designer :) Children's cakes and a Glastonbury-themed engagement cake coming soon!

Happy Baking x

Cooking up a Cookson

A book cake? Yeeeeahhh, sounds easy enough! I assumed when I was asked to do this that it would be something simple, like the Twilight books, or a bible (ha!). Nooope! It was "The Dwelling Place," by Catherine Cookson. Now I've never heard of this book, so after some googling I was petrified about the cover. All the editions bar one had photographs on the front, and I'm really bad at recreating people (see Princess Tiana :p), so I went ahead with the edition that had a painting on the front.

I covered the victoria sponge cake in the usual way, then attacked the image on the front cover by doing it in sections. I started with the foreground, the rocks; then the river; then the hills; and finally the clouds. I used a marbelling technique of rolling different coloured icings together to get this effect, which was really frustrating because if you over-knead the icing it just becomes one colour - so you have to work very quickly with it!

I again used my sugarpaste gun (my favourite piece of equipments by FAR! THANKYOU in-law's!!!) for the lettering. The thinner letters you see for the title really took a toll on my hands though: I used a very small hole stencil to get the thin snake-like icing, and my god, you really have to pump the gun to push it out the other end. My poor hand is now blistered :(

Above: What I was trying to recreate!

After delivery, I received a really lovely testimonial from the lady who ordered it, so I thought I'd share it with you: "hi kirsten thanks for the cake everyone loved it and mum was over the moon with it she was nearly crying ,she said it was beautiful and you were very talented you made an old woman very very happy thank you so much hun."

AWW. Happy Baking amigos x

Cartoon Character Cakes

I've finally finished university!!!!

So, that said, I should really have more time to spend on my blog now. So here goes! Last week I had another cake double-whammy, and was up until 3am on Saturday morning finishing them off in time for a Saturday afternoon delivery. The things I do for my customers...

Fireman Sam

A good friend from university asked me to create a cake for her nephew's 4th birthday. More than happy to oblige, I made this Fire Engine cake complete with sugarpaste Fireman Sam (it's my first attempt at a sugarpaste figure, so please excuse his er... appearance!). The sponge itself is the usual victoria sponge with jam and buttercream concoction, which I had to cut specially into fire-engine shape before covering in fondant. I had a few problems with this cake, firstly, that Sam's head decided to fall off. Then the newly-built Sam fell over mid-delivery, but no harm done. I think I need some lessons on sugarpaste figures, though. Bit peed off with how he turned out :(

Homer Simpson

I am SO happy with how Homey turned out!!! I used a stencil to cut out the shape of him, then covered in the usual way with fondant. Then came the fun part of cutting out special shapes of his beard and shirt to match his body perfectly. Also, for my birthday, my in-laws got me a sugarpaste gun which I had wanted for aaaaaages - ever since Peppa Pig. It helps you create really perfect sausage shapes (and more, it comes with loads of shapes) without the icing breaking. As you can see, this is how I made the black outline of Homer, and I think you'll agree it works perfectly. I managed to keep his hair pieces in place by placing a thick cookbook under them, and left it overnight 'til the icing set in place :P This cake was made for Jim's dad's birthday party, and it went down a storm. It was gone by Sunday, which is what I like to hear!!

I have just recovered from two days filled with baking fruit cakes in preparation for July's cake orders, and am now taking a well-earned break until next week, when it's Jim's birthday :) Getting closer to moving day, too, so I'll have to do a post on my new flat :D

Happy Baking x