Cakes Cards & Crafty Stuff

My friend and neighbour asked me to make her a cake for her daughter’s 6th birthday. Hannah is really fond of Tinkerbell and fairies so a new challenge was set!

I felt a little unsure how well I could make a fairy that would look like Tinkerbell so cheated and bought a little ornament to sit on top of the cake instead. I hope you agree that it doesn’t look out of place and sits nicely on the little mound of grass.

The cake was a vanilla sponge with jam and butter icing filling. I made the toadstools with mini-marshmallows and fondant icing. I made the grass by squeezing some green fondant through a garlic press and attached it with some water and sugar.

I’m still trying to perfect my piping skills so to ensure wording that was both the right size and position I printed out what I wanted the icing to say then placed it on top of the cake and used a pin to prick out a sort of dot-to-dot image. I used royal icing to write out my message.

A few weeks ago Amy and I were invited to my friend’s daughter’s birthday party. I hate to visit people empty handed so made some cupcakes to take with us.

I use a basic vanilla sponge recipe for my cupcakes and top them with buttercream. I experimented this time round by adding melted chocolate instead of cocoa powder. It made for a firmer topping but still a scrummy one!

I made the topping for these cakes with the same buttercream recipe but this time added melted white chocolate with real vanilla pod.

The dolly mixtures on top added a bit of fun and were appreciated by children and adults alike!

My daughter Amy is a huge fan of Waybuloo – if you haven’t heard of it you can check it out 6pm every evening on CBeebies! Her 2nd birthday party took on a Waybuloo theme and I started to research cakes to match. I had never before made characters so it was a new challenge but one I was looking forward to facing.

Unfortunately I didn’t use a strong enough glue to join the arms and by the time I got it photographed Yo-Jo-Jo’s arm had fallen off – oops!!!

As the guest list was predominantly adults I opted for a carrot cake with white chocolate ganache filling. I suspect that next year Amy will decide for herself both the flavour and theme of her cake!

This cake is probably the one I am proudest of to date – it turned out exactly as planned, something that doesn’t happen too often in my experience!

It was a rich chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache and iced with fondant.

My little niece had great fun picking off the blossoms and eating them!

Let me tell you how this all began! I have always been surrounded by good bakers, my Mum’s apple pie is legendary in these parts and my Gran’s pancakes were world beaters (I know everyone says that but truly, they were!). Despite Mum’s best efforts I had never shown an interest in baking and any attempts I did make were anything but successful so I was quickly disheartened and left it to the experts.

My first decorated cake

Then my beautiful daughter came along and I wanted to be able to make her sweet treats and birthday cakes that would wow her! My dear friend felt the same and so she and another dear friend bought me vouchers for a cake decorating course at ‘Truly Scrumptious’ in Linlithgow. We had a ball and were very pleased with our first attempts.

The results from all who attended the course