At long last I’ve eventually decided on a new name. No more am I BeadsnPieces…
Off The Rails Cakes – that’s me!
I thought it summed up some of the more wackier cakes I’ve done and as I work ‘on the rails’ during the day, it seemed fitting that this is what I do when I’m ‘off the rails’.
This cake was made for my very good friend Emma. She helps keep me sane when work drives me nuts. She’s the voice of reason when I’m being overly critical. We steal each other’s files and claim them as our own on our respective building projects. She’s mad as a badger when she’s not being the voice of reason, extremely accident prone (never let her near a sharpened pencil with an elastic band attached to it) and we generally misbehave like naughty children, laughing until we’re crying when we’re in the same room.
Her mum asked me to make her cake for her 40th birthday. Do whatever I like but incorporate various things that sum up Emma. She likes……Harry Potter, Aliens, Books, Films, Food (not yoghurt) Baseball Caps, any Modern Technology.
I decided to make a book shaped cake – that’s ‘books’ covered – and then add decorations to cover the rest of the list.
I used simple elements for Harry Potter that would be instantly recognisable but not too taxing trying to model. The Sorting Hat, Harry’s scarf and a Golden Snitch. The Snitch was harder than it should have been! Ruddy thing had a death wish! A simple idea – sturdy florist wire bent into a hook at one end and inserted into a ball of fondant/modelling paste with rice paper wings. See….simple. Except the ball was quite heavy and had a kamikaze habit of falling over to spite me which meant I had to keep repairing the wings. Initially the wings were slotted directly into the ball. I’d repaired the wings at least twice before spraying with gold lustre spray….. and the dampness of the spray caused the wings to melt right off GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!
Back to the drawing board. I sprayed another couple of sheets of rice paper and let them dry completely before cutting them out again. This time I attached them to a cocktail stick so I could stick them into the ball which had hardened. The effing thing fell over once more an hour later not long before we were due to take it to the party and it came quite close to being thrown into the wall. Several deep breaths and much construction worker fruity language later and I repaired it for what I hoped would be the final time (packed the edible glue for the party just in case).
I decided to cover Aliens, Baseball Caps and Modern Technology in one. I made a simple frame out of florist wire for half an alien and covered it in modelling paste, gave him a baseball cap and a teeny-weeny iPhone. I also made a larger iPhone by covering a Nice biscuit in black fondant and adding fiddly little apps logos which were hand painted.
Cinema Tickets were added to symbolise ‘Films’. It’s only now as I write this that I realise I missed off ‘Food’ from the list. Oh well. It’s cake, I’m sure that counts.
I’m pleased to report that the Golden Snitch arrived intact!
Pretty Flower Cake
Ribbon Roses on Marbled Fondant
Christmas Cake – Snowman Bauble Design
My husband Shaun made the cake from a Delia Smith recipe and had been lovingly feeding it with brandy for several months much in the same way as you feed a baby – a spoonful for baby, a bigger spoonful for Daddy…
Last year’s cake didn’t get iced until February I think so I was determined this would be done earlier. Marzipan went on a few days before Christmas and on Christmas morning, once we’d opened our pressies, I got out the fondant and set to work. I kept it very simple but got to use some of the cutters from my (outrageously large) stash in the spare room. I fancied covering the whole cake in pale blue with snowflakes but Shaun wasn’t so keen so by way of a compromise, I covered in white and added a blue disc to bring out the snowman and snowflakes. The snowman and holly leaves were cut using plunger cutters, the blue disc using a glass big enough to surround the snowman. The falling snow and holly berries cut using the end of a large icing nozzle.
I’m very pleased with how the ribbons came out, they were done using fondant mixed with Tylo powder and cut using a strip/ribbon cutter that cuts several identically sized strips at once (made by Jem I think) attached to the cake at one end with a dab of sugar glue then twisted a little and attached at their other end.
It was a lovely moist cake full of juicy fruit and I love the combination of marzipan and icing. I’m going to let him bake another one next year – I’m good like that!
This poker cake was made from a chocolate chip Madeira sponge, split then filled and covered with chocolate fudge frosting. It was then covered in fondant – green for the ‘baize top’, marbled shades of brown for the ‘wooden’ sides.
The playing cards were cut from Mexican paste using patchwork cutters and painted with Sugarflair gel colouring paste that had been thinned down with alcohol. The poker chips were cut using a simple round metal cutter out of a 50/50 mix of coloured fondant and modelling paste; the markings were painted on with Squire’s white gel colouring paste (which didn’t really want to stay and drove me nuts – next time I will take the more fiddly route of attaching very thin pieces of Mexican paste instead). The ’50′s were cut with FMM Tappits and attached to the chips with edible glue, before painting the whole disc with edible glaze.
The remaining visible board was covered with fondant after completing the cake; I rolled out a long sausage of paste, shaped it roughly to the layout of the board and rolled it flat before lifting it onto the board, trimming to fit and fixing in place with a dampened paint brush. The inscription was added using Klik-Stix.
For once, there wasn’t too much stress doing this cake as I was able to complete most of the decorations in advance at my own pace. I just need to be a bit more disciplined with doing as much as I can in advance for future ones instead of my usual last-minute, late night, stressy winging it and hoping for the best.