Bowling Cake

At long last - a celebration cake! Phew, I cannot tell you how bored I am of making cupcakes. It is not-so-little- P's 9th birthday this weekend, and a request of a cake to go with her bowling party has been loudly hinted at for weeks. As this is my last chance for a celebration cake in this current job, I gave in and devoted all of 1 hour to baking, and 30mins to decorating (all the time available with 6 kids running around!) 

Having moved all my baking equipment into my new house, I was rather unprepared for baking this cake - hence the simple design (got to love a tray bake!) and slightly uneven lean to it (I never thought I'd miss my cake leveller this much!) But in true nanny style- I improvised a tin (roasting pan) and spatula (knife) and leveller (copious amounts of buttercream and a layer of chocolate philadelphia that I have found no other purpose for) and voila, a cake was baked.

To the fun part - decorating! An experiment in painting a cake proved to be quite successful for a first attempt! Good quality gel food dye painted on with a very wet brush then almost rag rolling with kitchen towel to give a wooden effect, + slightly drier brush strokes for the darker plank effect = one very quick and easy bowling lane. Add to that fondant skittles with a red painted stripe held in place with cocktail sticks and a coloured fondant bowling ball, and the whole thing is done in next to no time at all! 

Phew! Back in the cake creating game... what next I wonder?

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Inspiration please!

This is a plea to all my followers - I'm bored of cupcakes!! I need some inspiration and a new challenge. Answers not on a postcard, but in comment form would be greatly appreciated. If there is something you haven't had time to try or fancy stretching my baking skills - anything you'd like to see, or something you just want pretty pictures of, let me know - I'll give it a go!

Strawberries and Cream

I've been lacking inspiration recently. Other than 72 of the usual glittery mixed flavour cupcakes for a charity ball I haven't had many commissions. So to branch out a bit, and to put a new twist on classic British summer favourite (loving the late summer we seem to be having this week) I thought I'd experiment with these little darlings!

These simple vanilla cupcakes were definitely fun, quick and easy to make. There is a surprise strawberry hidden in the centre of the cupcake, topped with whipped cream mixed with a dash of caster sugar and decorate with sliced strawberries. Light, delicious and not too shabby to look at! Give them a go, you know you want to...

An Apology

Sorry about my unexplained absence recently dear readers! I have no excuse other than simply life has gotten in the way, and unfortunately I have been lacking in time to do any really exciting baking (the occasional 100 odd cupcakes here or there an exception). I promise you though, I shall be back soon with a proper post hopefully with something a little more interesting in it than this!

Cheshire Cat Cake

This was a cake put together for a friend's Alice in Wonderland themed party. Unfortunately one of his stripes and his tail died in the heat! This was a triple layered red velvet cake, covered in pink fondant with purple fondant stripes. It took me a while to figure out how to make the stripes look good, but in the end I went with cutting them into thin, long triangles using a pizza cutter. Would have looked fab if one of them hadn't fallen off on the 2 hour journey to the party. Oops!

Treasure chest

Just found this photo on my phone! I super quick treasure chest made for little C's Pirate Party. So simple and easy - find a shoe box with a hinged lid, paint the whole thing brown, then ad darker brown lines to make to look like pieces of wood, and black lines (or gold if you have the paint) to add the finishing details. DONE.

Jungle Cupcakes

I had a very last minute order put in for 12 jungle themed cupcakes this week. So I had to go for something simple but hopefully effective. I coloured some buttercream jungle green, sprinkled on some glitter and painted some sugar icing sheets to look like safari animal prints. Kinda fun I think. Might add some sugarpaste leaves next time. I think they need something more. Any suggestions?