A Birthday Cake for a friend

It was my good friend, Lezley's, birthday last week.  She wasn't feeling very well at all so I thought I should make her a cake to cheer her little face up.

A toffee sponge cake with big chunks of fudgey toffeeness inside - sandwiched with raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream.  

Not sure the raspberry jam should have worked, but it was all I had in at the time - apparently it worked quite well  :)

Then I topped with piped vanilla buttercream and sprinkled it with bright pink edible glitter.  Finally adding a walnut whip on the top to prove what a good friend I am.  

Walnut Whips are my very favourite and I don't often share them at all!

Pity then, that Lezley was full of cold and not only had lost her appetite, but couldn't taste anything either so she had to just look at it for a couple of days  :)

Lynn's amazing "12 Days Of Christmas" cake

Sometimes I am just totally blown over by other people's work, and this is one of those times.

Now, I know I can bash out a cake or two, and stick some icing on so it looks half decent, but please take a minute to appreciate the work in this "12 Days Of Christmas" cake.

It has been made by Carlisle Hobbycraft colleague, Lynn, and is currently in the window of the Carlisle store if you want to pop up and have a look at it yourself.

Just look at all those little figures.  How detailed and amazing are they?

5 gooooooollllllllld rings......

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree  :)

But before I go, look at this other one she did for the managers big birthday  :)

Do do do, da do do do, da do do do, da do do do do........ do........ do do........do do....... do do   (strippers theme  :) - have I given you an earworm now?)

A cake for my Mum

On Wednesday it was my Mum's birthday, so a cake was needed  :)

As she has a very sweet-tooth I decided on a very sweet cake.

Toffee cake, filled with strawberry jam and buttercream, then slathered in buttercream too.

Edged with chocolate fingers and held in place with a chocolate coloured ribbon.

Then a pile of chocolate coated toffee popcorn on the top.

Want a closer look at that toffee popcorn?  Thought you did  :)

Only one candle, as there was not enough room for all of them  ;)

...and with a slice and a chomp.... it was gone!

Do you remember the previous years cakes made for her?

2013   (Victoria sponge filled with strawberry jam & vanilla buttercream. Iced with buttercream & finished with praline filled chocolate flowers & sprinkled with popping candy )

2012  (Bottom layer is vanilla Victoria sponge, the top is Bero milk chocolate cake.)

(no photos of previous cakes before that  :) )

One birthday, two cakes.

Last Tuesday was my daughter's 21st birthday (my youngest child, gulp!!)  and she requested a "Barbie" cake - 'like what she had when she was young'.

Well, she actually had two Barbie style cakes over the years (other fashion dolls are available) -  a Mermaid and the Princess style with a ballgown.

Marie, her partner, decided to make her the mermaid style.  This was for the Sunday when they were having a small house party.

So, she popped round to my house, as they have an electric oven which they haven't quite worked out how the temperatures work on yet, and of course I have all the gadgets too - the electric whisk, the pipping bags etc...

So I guided her with hints and tips and off she went.

Didn't she do a marvellous job?  Just look at all those fish scales piped on with precision.

(Although dolly did have to have her legs amputated for the changing into a mermaid event  :) )

On Tuesday, I thought Shona should really have a cake for the actual day too, so off I went to buy another dolly, this one has managed to keep her legs though, although she was a bit tall for the cake I had made  (next time I will buy the doll first).

I had to build the waist area up a little bit with extra fondant so she looks a little strangely shaped around the waistline.

Still, she liked it  :)

Happy 21st Shona :)

Strawberry & Black Pepper Scones

They look quite delicious don't they?  And even though they were a complete experiment, I think they were quite nice, if a little flat.

What happened was, I picked a load of strawberries from my own garden, :I dug around in the nettles and brought up a t-shirt full of luscious red berries.   (Should have taken a bowl).

Two days later they are still in the fridge waiting for someone to eat them, I think they were a bit ugly to be honest, so I had to think of something to do with them.  Waste not, want not, and all that.

So, using the "Rich Scone" recipe from my tatty old Bero book, I bashed a load up - leaving out the dried fruit, chopped up the strawberries and added a good grind of black pepper - well, strawberries are supposed to go with black pepper rather well I have been told.

I patted it down rather than roll it out, but I think I took it a little too thin, along with the extra moisture from the strawberries it ended up being more "rock bun" like than scone like.

I chopped it into wedges and bunged it in the oven.

Then tested one hot out of the oven and nearly burnt my tongue off!  Those strawberries can really hold the heat  ;)

The black pepper gave a very subtle but 'you know it is there' kick.  Very nice, will make them again, but with a dried scone mix so they might rise a bit better.

Spotty Cake for Children In Need

This is this years cake for fund-raising for Children In Need.

It is a mild chocolate cake with chocolate butter icing, decorated in chocolate beans, surrounded by chocolate fingers - LOTS OF CHOCOLATE!!

Oh, with a white chocolate do dar thing in the middle.

If anyone feels the need to mention Trivial Pursuit, don't bother, Hubster beat you to it  :)

If you would like to win this cake and you are close to Carlisle, pop into Hobbycraft either today (Saturday) or early Sunday and pop down what weight you think it is.  You could be chomping into it by Sunday evening  :)

All proceeds to Children In Need of course.

Last year I iced a fruit cake, made by a colleague - fruit cakes are just not my thing, maybe because I don't like them personally.  But I was happy to decorate it  :)

Waterfall Cake Topper

I originally made these beaded cake toppers for a wedding cake, there was a large one on the top, with smaller ones pushed into the side on an angle.

I have made this one with Gemstones, but you can use any beads that you desire, just make sure they are not too heavy for the wire. This design also looks great as a hairpiece if added to a hair-comb, or as a plant pot decoration.

You will need:

• 75cm of 0.8mm wire 
• 2.5m of 0.5mm wire 
• Selection of beads (approx 40 in total) 
• 1 x Posy Pick )available from Cake Decorators

What you do:

• Cut a piece of the thicker wire -15cm long. 
• Cut a piece of thinner wire 50cm long and hold a piece of thick together with a piece of thin leaving about 3cm loose. 

• Start to twist the thinner wire around the thicker wire in a uniformed coil, make three twists. 

• Take a Gemchip or bead, thread it onto the wire and hold it in position about 3cm from the main thick wire. 

• Holding the thick wire tight in one hand, use your other hand to twist the beaded wire until it forms a tight coil and stands up on its own. 

• Twist the thinner wire around the thicker wire 5 times over the space of 1.5cm and repeat step 5 with another bead or gemchip, this time placing it closer to the main wire. 

• Repeat from Step 5 until you have 7 or 8 beads in various heights along the wire. Twist your wire a few times round to finish. 

• Curl the end of the wires two or three times round a round nose pliers, or knitting needle. 

• Make 5 of these stems. Then bunch them all together, it doesn’t matter about the design at this stage as you can move them about later. 

• Take a piece of the thinner wire and bind all the ends together. 

• Push all ends into a posy pick (from Cake Decorators – this saves the metal touching the cake) using a dab of glue if necessary. 

• Bend the wires to form a pretty waterfall feature.

© Sue Simmons /The Bead Shed 

SEPTEMBER 2007

Hobbycraft's 1st Birthday Cake

Saturday 15th September 2012 was the day of opening for the new Hobbycraft store in Carlisle.

That means that Saturday 14th/Sunday 15th September 2013 is the first birthday, well a cake needed to be made didn't it?

I bashed up a Victoria sponge recipe and made two cakes, so I could tier them up.

They are filled with strawberry jam & vanilla buttercream.

The coating is white chocolate candy melts, that sets hard & it is going to make an incredibly nice crack when it is cut.  You can actually hear it now can't you?

The toppers are just a mixture of random ones that had been put to one side due to a few in each pack being broken.

Happy Birthday Carlisle Hobbycraft.

Shona's Birthday Cake

My baby girl is 20 today....that means I have no more teenagers, just adult children now, what a sobering thought - when did that happen?  Where did those 20 years go, I don't feel a day older than then, but the mirror disagrees.

Anyway, birthday cake time.  What could I do that she might like.

Couldn't decide, and usually I have the idea in my head before hitting the supermarket shelves, but not this time.

Wandering around the baking aisle for inspiration I spotted a Betty Crocker Red Velvet cake mix.  Now, it has to be noted that I never use boxed cake mixes, never needed to as I can easily bash up my own, but for some reason this one looked really nice, and as I needed the whole of my baking cupboard replenished with flour, sugar, baking powder etc.. I ended up thinking it might be a quicker, cheaper and easier option.  So I bought it.

I did the mix in a large cake tin rather than the two sandwich tins that the box suggested to make a deeper cake and I have to say I was well impressed with the amount of cake it yielded as well as the beautifully spongey delicious texture.

I split it and filled it with a thick generous splodge of strawberry jam. Now, just to decorate it.

I bashed up some buttercream (as although on the box of mix the cake is decorated with a rich cream icing, you have to buy that separately) and smothered the sides in it, then I rolled the sides in crushed Gold Bars (Shona's favourite biscuit)

On the top I added popping candy, a chocolate heart lolly-pop and some edible wafer butterflies.

Ok, so it looks like a giant fishcake, it wasn't the golden, sparkly, eye-dazzling display that I had in my head, but it tastes GREAT !