Piglets and flowers

Just a very short blog to show off my little piglets that I made for a rush order last Friday.  Originally I was just going to cover the cupcakes with fondant discs made to look like pig faces, but I couldn't resist making these little pigs.  They were a lot easier than I thought they would be and they do look cute, don't they?

Jimmy Choo and Chanukkah

It was with a satisfied sigh of relief that I put the final touches on a Jimmy Choo shoe cake late last night.  This creation was for my daughter's birthday today and I had been slightly worried that I wouldn't have time to finish it in time.  Luckily she had said that she didn't actually want a birthday cake since she was a) "caked out" with all my recent baking, and b) she was desperate to have pumpkin pie.  So pumpkin pie it is for tonight's celebrations.  Nevertheless, I needed something to make the shoebox, so I cut off a wedge off one of my mega Christmas cakes I have been serving at the theatre, re- marzipanned it and covered it with fresh fondant.  The whole shoebox is only 12 x 7 x 4cm.  The shoe is not perfect, but overall I was pretty pleased with the result. A great many hours, and countless failures along the way were all made worthwhile when I saw her smile this morning as she was presented with her little cake.

Last week I decorated this fruit cake as a Chanukkah cake for a wonderful lady to whom I am much indebted to.  Encouraged by my turquoise Christmas cake I had decorated earlier and knowing this lady also loves turquoise,  I experimented with turquoise, blue and silver for this cake.  I daresay I like it better than my original!!!!  Maybe I'll remove the silver border and change it to blue rope with silver balls as well......:D

"Dickens by Candlelight" has kept me inordinately busy with cupcakes and Christmas cake, but it has been an invaluable launch pad for me.  Much praise has been received for my cakes and my business cards have been snatched up eagerly.  Sales have been brisk, albeit the few times when the audience has been small, so there weren't many potential buyers to begin with.  Lessons have been learned, methods streamlined and this week it is already becoming routine work for me.  The first week I massively overestimated sales, or rather, was paranoid of running out and sadly had to throw a great many cupcakes away.  Last week I was left with less than a dozen extras on my hands.

Best of all, I now have four cake reservations for the coming year!  I also have a cupcake order for a teenage birthday this Friday.  Originally the client did want me to make a cake, but with so much going on there was no way I could foresee that I could fit in another cake.  So piggy cupcakes it is.

I am overworked and tired these days, but also very happy.  Decorating cakes and baking in general gives me great pleasure; especially when a new experiment is successful.  Watching people enjoy my cupcakes or christmas cake at the theatre fills me with a sense of satisfaction.  And who could resist the pleasure incurred from all the lavish praise!

Now it is time to roll up my sleeves and get to work on the TLS "Dickens by Candlelight" cast party cake for Sunday...............

Cupcakes and Christmas cakes galore!

Sunday evening and I am one pooped out cake baker!  Four nights of selling my cupcakes and Christmas cake for TLS have kept me very busy indeed.  As mentioned in my last post I have several orders for Christmas cakes and the opening night for TLS's "Dickens by Candlelight" was on Friday.  Last Wednesday  was "sneak preview" night at the theatre and naturally I brought my cupcakes along.  Not many people were there, but all who were, bought my cakes. :D  I brought along my Death by Chocolate, Bourbon Vanilla and a new flavour, Mincemeat and Brandy.  Those who are into raisins really liked the latter.  This was the first time I had gone public with my cupcakes, and it was a relief to see how well they were received.   And well received they continued to be, although being completely new to the game I wildly overestimated how many cupcakes would be needed.  Strangely the mincemeat and brandy cupcakes only sold well on the preview night.  Tonight I didn't sell any at all, which made me a little sad.  Perhaps I will withdraw that flavour and try lemon instead.  Death by Chocolate is definitely the most popular flavour, so I will definitely be making proportionally more of those in the future. My christmas cake was also very popular, especially with the English crowd that came.

Also, the director of the play and founder of TLS was delighted with the toppers I had made, which was good because I was a little nervous that they were too blah.  But they incorporated the group's colours, neon pink, yellow and green and thanks to an old-fashioned potato stamp, each colourful disc had the company logo on it.

So to date all my christmas cakes are all baked; nine round ones and three large sheetcake versions to be sold in slices at the theatre performances.  You should see my decorating "studio" a.k.a the basement; cakes, toppers, fondant on every available tabletop, counter and shelf.  Even the ironing board is doing double duty as a place to put the toppers until they have dried!  Right now I am a little concerned that my mail order for about 20 bags of marshmallows has not arrived and I am fast running out of fondant!!!!!

I also decorated this christmas cake for display purposes at the theatre in my colour; turquoise.  I'm otherwise very pleased with it except that it screams "Douglas GmbH" all over.  For all you non-German residents, Douglas is a chain-store specializing in cosmetics, perfumes and bath products.  Their signature colour is also turquoise.  Surprisingly, no-one at the theatre made the connection........

Father's Day Cake

Strange as it may sound,  in some parts of the world it is Father's Day today.  So to celebrate I made a cake for my husband.  Yes, my daughter should have been the one to do this, but she was swamped with homework and tests to study for.....and I wanted an excuse to bake!  Since hubby detests fondant and buttercream, I  went for something completely different.   This is a vanilla sponge cake filled and covered with fresh raspberries,  blueberries and unsweetened whipped cream.  Then I covered the sides with chocolate cigarillos and the most non-girly ribbon I could find.  the result was very pleasing and my husband loved it!

In the meantime it has been a busy time in the kitchen for me.  I have been fortunate enough to get several christmas cake orders;  you know, those yummy, rich English fruit cakes covered in marzipan and...you guessed it, fondant!  They need about a month or more to properly mature, so my cellar is getting crowded with all the cakes that are stored there.  Also,  I have been given a great opportunity to promote my cakes and cupcakes with TLS, a brand new theatre group.  Check out their website for more information at www.tlsfrankfurt.com.  They are putting on their first play, "Dickens by Candlelight", a modern interpretation of "A Christmas Carol" in Sindlingen.  Performances run for a month and I get to sell my cakes at the intervals!  Great opportunity, but lots and lots of hard work!  On top of all that I have been asked to make their cast party cake for the middle of December.

With all these orders my family is in serious danger of being neglected this Christmas.......but nevertheless I am very excited and full of all kinds of creative ideas at the moment.   I am also itching to practice making carnations and gerbera daisies; flowers that to date I have very little experience with, but would love to be able to make properly.  All in good time, all in good time!

Witch's Hat cake

Tonight I am a very happy blogger.  Since my last post I found a better tutorial on making marshmallow fondant; one that made extensive use of a KitchenAid mixer, and this time I hit the jackpot!  My fondant had the perfect consistency and with the addition of bourbon vanilla tasted devine.

About the same time I received an order for a Halloween-themed birthday cake, so naturally I was  keen to try out my new fondant.  The birthday girl had requested a Witch's hat, but could not decide on flavour or colour.  After a moment's thought and a twinkle in my eye I jokingly suggested a rainbow-coloured vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream filling covered with purple and orange fondant.  I figured this would cover all the bases, but she loved the idea!  And truth be told I loved every aspect of making this cake.

It was fun dividing up the batter and colouring each batch a different colour.  It's a pity I can't show you what a slice would look like......Anyway, since I didn't have the appropriate shaped cake pans to make this cake, I improvised with three different ceramic bowls, the smallest of which was a cereal bowl!  Once baked, cooled, torted, filled and stacked I had to trim the cake into shape.  To say I "sculpted" the cake would be a serious exaggeration.

Once the hat was covered in buttercream it was time for the best part, namely rolling out the fondant.  It was smooth, it was pliant.  There was not a crack or a crease to be seen.  This was bliss!  I felt like a professional!  It was also time to try my new imprinting mat, which worked a charm!  Positioning the fondant on the cake was somewhat tricky, as I really could have used an extra pair of hands to hold the fondant aloft while I shaped the very top of the hat.  However, both my kitchen elves are in England right now, and hubby was working late.  Nevertheless, I got the job done and all that remained were the hat band, star and moon decorations and the birthday message.  The letters and shapes I had made ahead of time, so that took no time at all.  On an impulse I decided to add pearl lustre to the whole thing.  Together with the patterned "fabric" of the hat, the lustre just made the whole thing better.

Tomorrow the Hat goes to it's new home and I hope it is well received.  Yet even without compliments this cake was truly a feelgood experience.  I get such a rush when things finally fall into place and work the way they're supposed to.  I've been doing cakes for friends and family for as long as I can remember, but working with fondant is a whole new area for me.  Every cake I make is a learning experience.  These days every free moment I have I am working on new techniques, or practicing the skills I already have.  I get an almost child-like sense of happiness when I'm up to my elbows in icing sugar creating flowers and figures out of fondant and icing.

halloween cake

This cake represents two firsts for me: The first time I have attempted a tiered cake and the first time I have used homemade marshmallow fondant.  The result isn't quite perfect, but much better than I had hoped.  The fondant proved to be quite the nightmare.  I had to work it for at least an hour before I could roll it out.  Even then it refused to relinquish it's foam rubber look; in other words it was springy to the touch, and had an uneven quality that was quite prone to tearing.  Once I got the fondant rolled out almost as thin as I wanted and positioned on the cakes, I quickly realized that it was virtually impossible to smooth out the inevitable folds and creases.  The fondant also ripped, and not having the will to spend another hour working with the fondant to re-cover the cake, I opted for some cleverly positioned snakes, bats, cats and trees to cover up the imperfections.

Despite the setbacks and flaws in this cake, it was received with plenty of oohs and aahs by my daughter's friends.  The cake was my tried and tested Devil's food cake with chocolate buttercream filling, so I know it tasted good!  Also, it can well be said that even if things didn't work out the way I had planned them to, there were some valuable lessons learned here so all was not in vain!

Now it's back to the drawing board to come up with a tasty fondant that has the perfect consistency to work with!  Either that or I go back to ordering the professional stuff and try to improve it's flavour.

Marshmallow fondant

It has been a while since I last blogged; one can blame one's day job interfering with the real joy in my life of cake decorating and cupcakes.  Last weekend was cold and wet, so I entertained myself by trying out a marshmallow fondant recipe which so many people wax lyrical about.  Everyone who has ever posted anything about marshmallow fondant has claimed it is easy, tasty and infinitely cheaper than the commercial stuff available.  I've been wanting to try this out for a while, but it took a bit of dedicated research to find white marshmallows in Germany.  They all seem to be pink and yellow.  Eventually I got hold of several bags of the stuff and so I eagerly set to work.  First I melted the marshmallows in the microwave, being careful to stir at regular intervals.  When they had all melted into a smooth, sticky, very, very sticky mass I stirred in some bourbon vanilla and food colouring before coating my hands and my work surface with lots of shortening.  Then I emptied a box of icing sugar on to said surface before pouring the marshmallow goo on top of the sugar.  Next step was to knead the sugar into the marshmallow mix until it had the consistency of play doh.  Eventually the impossibly sticky mass did morph into something that looked very much like fondant icing, but the process was so sticky and so messy that I cannot bring myself to post a picture of me kneading the goo, even if my daughter had great fun taking the pictures!  Suffice it to say that eventually these:

turned into these:


The dark grey turned black over night, which was the intention and these colours will be used to make a Halloween themed cake and cupcakes for this coming weekend.  The orange also turned a more vibrant shade when left overnight.  So far the taste is definitely better than the commercial stuff, but time will tell if it is as easy to work with.

I will poste pictures of the Halloween cakes once they are completed!