Austin's 6th Birthday - October 2009

Ewan's 5th Birthday - August 2009

So Ewan requested a pirate theme party, along with a pirate ship cake.......and accommodate his playmobil pirates. This cake had been planned a good few months in advance and there was a lot of cake involved.

The sails which were made ahead of time were made from fondant, the crows nest was a carved out ice cream cone. After several cones and attempts at poking a hole through the bottom to allow the dowel rod to go through, i finally cracked it! Literally! The plank, anchor and lettering was also made from fondant. The 2 ends of the boat were formed using the sports ball pan and then hand carving, then i stacked them. The dowel rods doubled up as support and masts and worked out really well!! The rocks used on the cake were also edible, i found them in a candy store in downtown Plymouth, and they were really yummy!

The entire boat sat on a 2 layer sheet cake which became the ocean and one corner an island where the treasure could be found!

The fun part for me was not having to do perfectly smooth frosting for the sea and went to town on the two toned colors and texture.

A lot of time & hard work, but me mateys loved the cake and it definitely served as good old fashioned swashbuckling grub!!!

Jungle Cake for Jayna

I was asked to do this cake by a mum at Ewan's school for her eldest daughter Jayna.

I wanted to do something a little bit different and modern. The cake was made up from a 2 tier yellow cake with chocolate & vanilla buttercream frosting. Two 9 inch cakes stacked, and one 6 inch cake on top. The Palm tree, rocks and zebra stripes are all edible and made from fondant. The palm tree trunk is an Oreo stick! I had to eat several since they were so delicate and kept breaking! Shame! All animals are plastic! I designed the writing to look like vine leaves and this theme continued around the top of the cake. Brown sugar was sprinkled around the base to look like sand.

Afternoon Tea for two!

My eldest son just graduated from his preschool , so i made his teachers a British Afternoon Tea gift baskets, containing, homemade scones, European strawberry preserve, cups and saucers and a tea-towel! Cheers!

I just bought some mason jars and fruit pectin in the hope that i will attempt to make my own jam preserves, then I can use them in my cake fillings. and thus no preservatives, fruit juice sweetened and good for you!

Ryan's 3rd birthday

So Ryan wanted a Thomas birthday cake for his 3rd birthday. To make the cake i found a tutorial onthe internet which i base most the cake on, but also used serval othe references since no Thomas toy is th esame, I had to use what toys i had in the house. And being an Architect i also had to try and get it to scale the best i could! I mouled this cake by hand from a 12x18 inch 1.2 sheet pan. This is the largest cake i have ever baked. The cake which was chocolate filled the entire kichen aid mixer to the brim!

I also froze the cake in advance as suggested (first time i have done this to), but it really helped with moulding the cake, and did not impair on the taste of the cake at all! Thomas's face, wheels and lights were made from fondant. the rest was frosting, including the coal in the back of Thomas which I piped individually.

The cake was a big success, and made my little boy very happy! The entire cake was eaten!

I also made cupcakes in yellow cake and iced them in blue royal icing. the toppingscame from a cake box mix that I bought whilst in England containing edible rice paper images of Thomas and Friends and royal icing mini train sprinkles! Perfect!

Saturday Night Fever

So things have been fairly quiet on the cake making front, however whilst on my annual trip home to the UK I did make a fondant cake topper for my best friends's husbands party. Alas i wa snot able to make the cake since I would be getting back from a short trip to London with hubby, so i suggested i did this instead! The theme taken from the invite was of my friends husband in the John Travola pose in front of a giant disco ball: See link below for a picture. http://www.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/Saturday_Night_Fever_DVD/saturday_night_fever_30th_anniversary_collector_s_edition_dvd__large_.jpg

So of course i had to replace John T's head for John B's head! Here is the result!

Tiered cakes

So this is my first attempt at a tiered cake, as well as my first attempt at homemade MM fondant, made in honor of my British friend here for her 40th birthday celebration.......

The cake consisted of a 8 inch round bottom layer made of chocolate cake filled with a layer of white chocolate ganache, fresh strawberries and raspberries, and topped with raspberry buttercream frosting. The second layer (6 inch)and top layer (4 inch) were a light orange chiffon cake filled with orange buttercream frosting.

All cakes were covered in buttercream frosting and MM fondant.

I researched all the different ways I could do a tiered cake and also had to take in to account I had to get it to the restaurant in one piece.

i used dowel rods in the bottom and second tier for support and used a long dowel rod going through all 3 tiers. And this is where the fun started. It was recommend to me that each layer should be on its own cardboard plate, so as I was pushing the dowel through the top tier the card buckled into the second tier, thus pushing it into the cake, when i noticed the middle tier was bulging, i immediately stopped. to my dismay the middle tier had a crater! Consequently I removed the plate on the 4 inch and discarded it!

Needless to say the cake still held, and arrived in one piece to the venue, and most importantly tasted and looked great! Not bad for a first attempt.

With regards to the MM fondant, it tasted really good, so i will definitely be using it again in the future! I just wish I got the knack of putting it on the cake without creases and tears! Practice makes perfect! And most of the time you can cover up the imperfections with the decorations! Shh! Don't tell anyone!

Here is the results of the mini christmas cakes I made for Ewan's teachers at school. The fruit cakes were started in November (later than i should have) using a great recipe from a british cake decorator book by Mary Clee Cladman. I used 5.25 inch round mini springform cake pans. The cakes were topped up almost weekly/fortnightly with brandy until the final layers of apricot glaze, home made marzipan and royal icing were used to finish the cake off. I decorated the tops of the cake with fondant trees and royal icing baubles, and ribbon around the edge.

They were presented on a decorative ceramic plate with a candy cane and wrapped in a large seasonal celophane bag! I was really happy with the finished product, with contained a card explaining how and why we have christmas cake in the UK.

Christmas cake is normally served at around teatime. A Christmas Tea is traditionally very light -- cold meats, cheeses, pickles, salad, sandwiches, Christmas cake and mince pies. (Although to be fair, on Christmas day, the eating never stops from lunchtime to bedtime: chocolates, crisps, biscuits, cakes, fruit, nuts, sweets etc. Well, we do buy a lot of food -- so we do our best to eat it all!)
Christmas cake was originally Twelfth Night Cake, a rich fruitcake made to celebrate Epiphany. But the Puritans had removed Twelfth Night from the church calendar and by the late 19th Century it was becoming a night associated with mischief making, so Queen Victoria banned it as a feast day in 1870. The bakers, not wishing to lose any money, simply iced the cakes they'd already baked to represent a snowy scene and sold them as Christmas cake instead.
Homemade with raisins, sultanas, currants, glace cherries, candied lemon & orange peel, grated zest and juice of oranges, butter, eggs, flour and lots of brandy. Then baked for several hours, left to mature for several weeks and finished with marzipan and royal icing. And finally presented to you from the Palfreyman Family as a gift to enjoy! Just store this cake in an airtight container and it will last for several weeks!

If you are interested here is the wording on the labels!!!

"Christmas cake is normally served at around teatime. A Christmas Tea is traditionally very light -- cold meats, cheeses, pickles, salad, sandwiches, Christmas cake and mince pies. (Although to be fair, on Christmas day, the eating never stops from lunchtime to bedtime: chocolates, crisps, biscuits, cakes, fruit, nuts, sweets etc. Well, we do buy a lot of food -- so we do our best to eat it all!)
Christmas cake was originally Twelfth Night Cake, a rich fruitcake made to celebrate Epiphany. But the Puritans had removed Twelfth Night from the church calendar and by the late 19th Century it was becoming a night associated with mischief making, so Queen Victoria banned it as a feast day in 1870. The bakers, not wishing to lose any money, simply iced the cakes they'd already baked to represent a snowy scene and sold them as Christmas cake instead.
Homemade with raisins, sultanas, currants, glace cherries, candied lemon & orange peel, grated zest and juice of oranges, butter, eggs, flour and lots of brandy. Then baked for several hours, left to mature for several weeks and finished with marzipan and royal icing. And finally presented to you from the Palfreyman Family as a gift to enjoy! Just store this cake in an airtight container and it will last for several weeks!"

Ethan's 3rd birthday

So I finally did the lighting McQueen cake., and the red and black turned out well! It took me hours of colour mixing and piping, as well as a problem with the McQueen pan (i hate those pans) everything always sticks. Tip lots and lots of shortening! YUK! Anyway, after a second attempt of the cake, it turned out well!

The final cake was chocolate, with buttercream frosting. The car shape sat on top of a 9x13 cake that was piped in a white and black chequered flag. The car was then carefully placed on top and then i decorated that which took me the best part of half a day.

The end result though was worth it, and Ethan loved his cake! So did my eldest as well, he demolished the biggest slice of cake he has ever had! Kids, chocolate and frosting, you can't go wrong!

Well my next big job will be to finish off my Christmas cakes. I have to make the marzipan, fondant decorations and the royal icing! The smell of the brandy is soooo yummy when i unwrap the cakes to top them up with more brandy!

Here is the cake I just made for my friend Sarab, who's had a bit of a bad pregnacy and only just alsmost human again. So I wanted to treat her and make here the best chocolate i have made so far! She is also an ugg boot fanatic (she has at least 4 pairs) so I decided to make an ugg boot out of fondant and gumpaste. The Ugg boot turned out well and was also the perfect size to be a candle holder! The fondant circles were added to for a modern twist to the cake!

The cake was filled with whipped chocolate ganache (using a good quality cocoa powder) and the chocolate cake was flavoured with raspberry extract, and covered with chocolate buttercream. The chocolate cake was from a new recipe, using sour cream instead of milk, which made it quite moist. My friend loved the Ugg boot, to, and I am sure it is the world's smallest Ugg Boot!