Tuesday 11 December 2012

Lots of Birthdays and a Wedding

WOW it has been over a month since I updated, I knew that would be the case in October / November as it is a very busy time for me with birthdays. A few of my good friends and also my boyfriend have had a Birthday n the last month and I've made cakes for them all as well as having another couple of cake orders on top of that including my first wedding cake.

I also had a little break away to Dublin for one of my good friends hen weekends and of course there were (very) early morning cupcakes for the flight over there. Dublin was a great city, I'd never been before but I was very impressed, it was also full of great little independent cafes with fresh food friendly staff and great coffee. I was particularly impressed by one we visited on day one called Brother Hubbard. full of brilliant fresh homemade cakes and tasty coffee. I had the flourless orange blossom and almond muffin with chocolate ganache and it was amazing. One of my friends has demanded I try to re create it myself.

Any way so I'll start with the Birthdays. The first Birthday I baked for recently was my friend Jen's who had Birthday / Halloween party. Jen is obsessed with zombies and particularly loves the walking dead so I thought I'd make her a cake in homage to that. I saw a few ideas online and ended up with this:






She was overjoyed with it and dubbed it the "best birthday cake ever" however I do think she is biased haha. I had a helper making this cake and it was brilliant, my friend Alex came round and was a brilliant helper helping make buttercream, roll out icing etc, I could get used to that!

The next cake was for an order for the next day and it was a copy of a cake I have made before just with different writing and it was chocolate inside I didn't get a picture of this but it was the same as this one


Then the other 2 birthday cakes were for the same day, these were for my boyfriend and one of my best friends Mandie, who have birthdays just a day apart and had a joint celebration meal.

For boyfriends cake I went for a Lego themed cake as he is a big kid at heart who loves Lego, here it is:


Finding something to cut the circles for the top was the hardest part but the bottom of a large piping nozzle worked.

And for Mandies cake she had requested that she didn't want " A boring normal shaped cake" so after toying with a few Ideas themed around her hobbies (one of which is indoor rock climbing) I made this cake:












She loved it and was especially grateful as she knows how much I hate making sugarpaste figures.


Ok so that was all the Birthdays, now onto the wedding. A friend asked me a while back if I would make her wedding cake for her, she only wanted a simple cake, nothing to over the top but still it was the most nerve wracking experience ever. It's such an important thing and I was a nervous wreck by the end of it! I even dreamt that a creature got in my house and ate the bottom tier (I know I'm crazy.) but both her and her husband were very happy with the finished cake and it was cut up in the evening for all the guests who seemed to enjoy it. Here it is:



You cant tell too much as the pictures are bright but the bottom and top layer had little pearlised dots. 


And I just can't help tweaking.


The cake was fruit layer on the bottom, carrot for the second tier and vanilla for the top tier.

and that's it for now! back to all the Christmas baking.