Nine in a bed

This is a 8 x 10" fruit cake. The brief was a grandad reading a story to his 9 grandchildren. I was a bit daunted at first, but once I got going it was fine. First time using Karen Davies face mould and I am really pleased with them, just need to perfect my face painting.

Christmas cake

This is a very quick christmas cake for some guys that I work with. It is a 8" square fruit cake that has been marzipanned & regal iced. The holly is made from green flowerpaste and the bow from regalice with CMC added. The banner is grey flowerpaste, embossed with a patchwork cutter and then sprayed with PME Pearl lustre spray.

Santa Cupcakes

These were quick and easy cupcakes that I made for my kids school Christmas party for tomorrow. I bought the cakes from the co-op today to make it quicker. I saw these being made at the NEC in November. It is basically a circle of pink sugar paste, then a semi circle of red. Cut a larger scalloped circle out if white and then cut a moon shape. Then add Santa's nose, pipe his moustache & hat trim. Finally add a wedge of red to be the hat bent forward and a ball of red sugar paste rolled in disco red edible art glitter.

Christmas cake

This is the christmas cake that I made at my evening class. My first attempt at Poinsettia's, Ivy and also stencilling with royal icing.

Metallica Cake

This is a 12" HD sponge cake filled with Jam & buttercream. The Metallica logo was originally done as a runout but it cracked just as I was putting it onto the cake so I quickly remade it from paste and them sprayed it with PME pearl lutre spray. The Metallica writting on the side is a royal iced tun out while the lettering on the front ofthe cake is cut from curly tappits with the curls removed. Again it is sprayed with pearl lustre.

Ann Pickard Modelling course

Had a lovely day today modelling on a course with Ann Pickard in Swindon. We started off with the animals then progressed onto the christmas things and finally Santa.

Iggle Piggle

This is my first attempt at a number cake and possible my last. What a nightmare they are to cover. I also had problems with making the cake. Turns out I was over beating the mixture.

Teddy Bears Picnic

This is an 8" HD sponge on a 12" board for a little girls first birthday. The spare seat at the front is for the candle. I had two little helpers who made most of the things to go onto the plates.

Golden Anniversary cake

I love this cake. It is relatively easy to do with a bit of prior planning - so why was I still up at 1130 doing it???

The cake and board are icing in ivory sugarpaste. The gold colouring is achieved by colouring white icing with Autumn leaf colouring paste then dusted with gold lustre.

CHeltenham & Gloucester Exhibition

We have just returned from a great day at the Cheltenham & Gloucester exhibition. It was the first competition entry for all of us. James came out on top with his Handy Manny cake with a gold award and the trophy for his class and then he also won best in show for the Juniors.

Charlie got a bronze award with his Donald Duck cake and he is gutted that James has beaten him. He was only slightly happier when he found out that I got a bronze as well.

As i said, I got a bronze award for my tea tray of mini cakes. They are 2" fruit cakes. I got some good constructive criticism from the Judges, namely that they are huge so therefore they have far too much marzipan and asugarpaste on it. It also does not show make differing skills so next time I am aiming for at least silver.

BAE Systems Cake

I made this cake for the guys at BAES Chadderton who help me out with engineering issues on a daily basis. When we reached No 100 on the form that we use, Ian jokingly said that we should have a cake, so here is the cake. I love edible image cakes as they are so quick and easy to do.

They is a different VC10 picture on each side. On the top is the BAE logo, the RAF Brize Norton crest and a copy of No 100 of the form that we use. It is a 7" HD sponge cake.

RRU cake

This is an 8" lemon HD sponge. I made it to thank the staff at the RRU at RAF Halton for looknig after me. I is an edible image of the RRU crest and on the corners are sugarpaste balance board, hedgehogs, dumbells and an excercise mat.

Man Utd Football cake

This is my second football cake - thank god for the kitbox cutters which make covering the ball a whole lot easier. Just need to practice my piping a bit more.

Queens Regiment side drum

This was my first cake for non family or friends. It was the most stressful cake that I have dome so far, not much sleep last night.

The cake is 3 x 7.5" HD sponge.

The crests were supposed to be runouts but I had to use such a fine piping tube to get the detail that it kept breaking. Luckily I had my image printer so I spent several hours cleaning up a picture of the actual drum and printed it out.

The journey to deliver it was a bit stressful as well, the model fell over and then when I actually got to the house it broke in half. Needed immediate surgery with cocktail sticks but it is OK again now, ready for the party tonight. The lady who ordered it was totally happy with it, she said that it far exceeded her expectations.

Chelsea football cake

This is for my husbands birthday on Saturday. The top of the football is OK but thank goodness for the scarf. It was my first go with my edible image printer and it is so easy to use. Cant wait to have another go with another one. The model was made when I first started my new cake hobby at an Ann Pickard modelling course. I would have preferred to remake it as I think that me skills have improved slightly but at nearly midnight last night, I thought I would just make do.

Horse racing

Here is my second cake for the night. Not great modelling but hopefully the birthday man who is 90 will appreciate how long it took to make. I was going to put jockeys on the horses but it is past midnight already and I am at work tomorrow. The items on the top of the cakeare all edible images. Might be the next thing on my wish list - an edible image printer. This is a 7" sponge on a 12" board.

10th Birthday parcel

This is for Alice's 10th birthday, pink and girly was the theme. My first go at a icing bow and also the first use of my clay gun. It is a 7" square HD sponge.

Shoe box cake

This is a cake for Megan's 17th Birthday. It is a 9 x 6 inch HD sponge cake, torted twice with jam and cream. It is my first time making shoes and it did take me 5 attempts to get a passable pair - these should have straps on to male them sandals but the straps ended up in the bin. There was also a matching handbag that I tried to make but that also went into the bin.

Tardis Cake

This is James' first attempt at decorating a cake. I thought that this would be a fairly easy one for him to do but it wasn't. It was a bit too fiddly for him and I had to help him quite a lot - but he was determined to finish it himself at at 10pm he has just gone to bed but only after I promised that I would put it on the computer to show people. I think we will pick a different thing to so for the exhibition in September.

Spong Bob

This is Charlies first attempt at decorating a cake, pretty good effort for a 6 yr old. Although I helped him a little bit, he remembered everything that I said and stayed focused for the whole of the cake. Great first effort, He wants to do another one tomorrow but it is James' turn.

Scooby Doo

Here is my first attempt at a run out. My boys swimming teacher, who is a real star, took the boys to see Scooby Doo live in Oxford on Saturday which meant that I could go to Swindon to finish my royal icing course. As a thank you I thought that I would make her a cake. As it was Sunday when I decided to do it I couldn't get a wilton 2D pan so I had to thing of something else. I found a kids colouring page of Scooby doo and thought I would have a go at a run out. Using my new skills from the royal icing course, I made my first royal icing and then preceded to colour it and do the run out. I also ran out the lettering. The template for the letters was from the Mary Ford writing in Icing book.

The cake was almost totally successful but unfortunately I broke Scoobys pendant off as I removed the run out from the backing sheet. I quickly ran out another one and put it in the oven to dry off. An hour later it was dry, on the cake and the cake was delivered.

Teachers cake

This is the cake that I have made for my boys teacher. It is quite a large cake and I really didn't mean to make it that large, but I just got carried away, so Mrs Johnson has a 10" square chocolate HD sponge. I took the off cuts into work for the lads to eat and they said it was lovely so hopefully Mrs Johnson will like it too. She is retiring tomorrow, so I will probably never see her again for any feedback anyway.

As a filling, I have used mactop which is a filling and crumb coat that I was introduced to by carol from sugar celebrations in Swindon. It is a liquid that whips up to about 4 times the volume and tastes really nice. Not as buttery as butter cream but a lot smoother. I had some left over so I placed it in the freezer and my boys ate it like ice cream. I think it is a bit like Mr Whippy ice-cream.

It was quite a quick cake to decorate. I marked the wood grain using a Dresden tool and the screws were marked with an icing nozzle and then painted with silver lustre mixed with rejuvenating fluid. The lettering was my first successful attempt with patchwork cutters. Not sure what I did differently this time but I did not have any problems.

Mickey Mouse Cake

This my first attempt at using a wilton 3d cake tin. I went on a one day course at Sugar celebration in Swindon to learn the technique. The sponge is a chocolate HD cake ( recipe from the BSGUK forum). It is the first time that I have made this sponge and despite me leaving out the water in the recipe by mistake, it was very moist. Not sure what the water does, maybe it dilutes the chocolate flavour a bit.

Overall I am very happy with the cake. The red, black & yellow sugar paste is layered onto the cake. Mickeys face is dust mixed with rejuvenating fluid painted on. Mickeys hands have been dusted with pearl white to finish it off.

I feel happy to tackle any of these tins now and even more happy that they are only £2 to hire from local shops. Think I will be hiring rather than buying the tins.

Nappy Cake

Here is my first attempt at a Nappy cake, I made it for a friend who recently had a little boy. It even survived the royal mail. The bottom 2 tiers are disposable nappies and the top tier, little trousers, t-shirts and vests. The centre of the stack has toiletries stacked to help keep it together. Around the outside were home made cookies and finished off with a few pairs of socks.

Here are the cookies that were stuck around the outside of the nappy cake. I made the cookie cutters myself from strips of aluminium bent by hand. It is the same method that i used for the ballet shoe cookie cutters. It is so easy to do and you can have instant cookies rather than wait for the postie to deliver one.

For all of the cookie cutters that I have made, I simply find a picture of the cutter that I want, size the picture and then print it out. You just follow the outline of the picture with the metal strip and fix it at the end. I have rivetted mine but other people use strong double sided tape.

Doll Cake

This cake is made from the HD recipe on the BSGUK forum. I hired a tiffin tin for £3 from my local shop - but in reality they are only £9 to buy so I should have done that. I did bake 2 cakes and put one in the freezer - so I guess it was only £1.50 hire. I was my first real attempt at piping lines. Whilst it wasn't perfect, it was better than I thought it would be.

The bow on the back was also a first for me. Although one of the loops cracked, it stayed together but I piped a centre line of royal icing just to strengthen it a bit more.

I also piped the rosette for the candles. yet another first. I forgot to get ribbon for the board edge so I used my ribbon cutter for the first time. I love it - and prpbably will not buy ribbon to edge the board again. Much rather use matching icing.

Overall I am fairly happy with the cake as the candles and the blossom down the front of the dress covered the flaws. Might pop into the toy shop tomorrow, just see if there is a barbie necklace & tiara that I can find to just finish it off before I deliver it to Katie.

Zippy cake

After flitting between a zippy 3d model or a star sign cake, I finally decided to do a little model of Zippy on a rainbow using the little zippy to copy from.

The cake is 10" cherry madeira which I cut in half and stacked. I marzipanned the cake, purely to assist my poor cake covering skills.

I was trying to make my life more difficult for myself whilst cutting the rainbow. I have a circle cutter and I was trying to cut semi circles with it. After many failed attempts, I simply cut strips of sugarpaste and place it onto the cake.

I need to practise the placing of the tappit lettering a bit more but at least I have now got the hang of cutting them out.

I tried to make zippy from home made paste but it didn't work so I had to go and buy some squires kitchen MMP, so I guess more practice at that as well.

Mermaid cake

Here is my latest cake. It is another one from Debbie browns enchanted cakes for children. I found this the hardest one yet due to the modelling. I am not very happy with it but my friend loves it and it is for her daughter - so I guess, that is all that matters.

Ballet Shoe cookie

These cookies are my first attempt at iced cookies. I made and iced them in one night and posted them the next day to Guernsey. They arrived the following day in perfect condition.

Ballerina Cake

My final cake to date is for my Niece's birthday. I really enjoyed making this cake from Debbie Brown's Enchanted cakes for children.



The cake is an 8" round HD sponge (recipe from http://www.bsguk.org/). It is being flown out to Guernsey tomorrow s hopefully my mum gets it there in one piece. I also made Jennifer some ballet shoe cookies which I posted out for her birthday. If she has still got some left, I will get my dad to take a photo to add to this blog.

White chocolate Roses cake

The inspiration for cake three was a wedding cake that I saw on someone else's website. I am sorry but I cannot remember where it was - so I cannot give credit for it.

The top tier was a 6" high density baileys sponge covered in Baileys butter cream. The recipe was taken from the recipe section of http://bsguk.org/forum/index.php I made the roses after attending a few evening classes in Swindon. Not quite the colour that I wanted but good practice all the same.

The bottom tier was a 10" carrot cake covered in orange butter cream.

The sides of the cake were white chocolate. I melted it and then spread it onto a sheet of parchment to set before cutting it to size and sticking to the cake with more buttercream. I only found out about having to temper chocolate after I had finished the cake - yet another learning curve.

Mothers Day cake

The second cake was for Mothers day 2009. I had recently attended a one day modelling course in Swindon with Ann Pickard - what a fabulous tutor she is. If you get the chance to attend one of her classes, I would definately recomend it. She is back in Swindon on Aug 16th 2009

http://www.sugar-celebrations.co.uk/Courses/SwindonCourses/tabid/72/Default.aspx

Our final model of the day was a lady sat in an armchair. My lady was knitting and I decided to use it as a topper for my Mum's mothers day cake. It was an 10" madeira sponge cake (recipe from the Ann pickard books). Finish was not great and I do not think I kneaded the icing enough to make it pliable but we live and learn.

First cakes

These are the first cakes that I have baked and decorated from scratch.

The first was for my mum's 65th Birthday. It was an 8" fruit cake that i used patchwork cutters from the christmas midi set to decorate. I also used the tappits alphabet cutters.

I am Sarah and I am married to Plum and we have twin boys aged 6 who are just gorgeous. I am an aircraft technician in the military and I am currently doing an OU degree in the hope that I can retrain to be a primary school teacher at the end of my service.

I have always been interested in crafting and I have tried my hand at most crafts. After attending a birthday party for triplets last year where the birthday cakes were fantastic, I decided that I needed to have ago so that I can make by boys the best birthday cakes ever - hopefully by the time they get married, I will be proficient enough to do their wedding cakes, so that is how my interest in cakes developed.