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Monday, November 18, 2013

60th Birthday Garden Cake - with step by step pictures

Hi Cake Friends!

This cake I made for my Aunt's 60th birthday party. It is the biggest cake I have made! The base board measured 20" x 18" and once it was fully decorated it was very heavy!


To start making this cake I first had to measure the boot of my Mum's car, to make sure that it would actually fit inside! Once I knew how big I could have the board I then knew how much cake I needed to bake. 

I didn't want to try and male one large cake (it would not have fitted inside my oven for starters!) so I choose to make 4 cakes which I could put together. I also drew out a large 6 and 0 to fit onto the board and I cut around them. These became my templates. 

Here is a picture. I had already levelled the cakes at this point (using the leveller on the top of them!) and you can see the off cuts in the plastic box.


Just to give you an idea how large it was, here is a picture with my hand (to show the scale).


Next I put the cakes onto the board, laid the number template on top and cut around them. I did one number at a time as I would not have been able to cut around the 6 if the cakes for the 0 has also been on the board as there would have been no room! Once they were cut out I covered both in a crumb coat of buttercream.


The next thing to do was add a layer of sugarpaste (or rolled icing, or fondant, whatever you prefer to call it!). I coloured mine green for the grass colour of the garden. I knew I would not be able to cover this in one big layer so instead I rolled strips out and covered the edges first.


Then, using my templates, I cut out a 6 and a 0 for the top.


I used a small paint brush and wetted the edges of the sugarpaste (with water) to allow me to stick the bottom piece to the top piece. This meant the cake was now fully 'sealed'. 

My next step was to make the fence around the edge. I used a mix of chocolate flavoured sugapaste and white (as I thought the chocolate on it's own was a bit too dark) with some CMC powder added. I rolled out small pieces, and using a a tree bark texture mat I embossed the sugarpaste to give it the wood look. Then I cut out individual fence panels and let them dry for a little while before sticking them onto the cake (using sugar glue). The reason I let them dry a little bit before hand, and added the CMC powder to the sugarpaste, was because I did not want the panels to bend at the top. 


Then to finish I used flower moulds and daisy cutters to make lots of small flowers, and used other bits of sugarpaste to make vegetables and the earth for the flower beds and vegetable patch. The tomato plants were made using spaghetti as poles!

I have more close up pictures of the cake on my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.260473237439718.1073741847.153594251460951&type=1

So please pop over and say hi! 

This cake took a long time to make, but it was a lot of fun and I was really happy with how it turned out. And, thankfully, so was my Aunt!









Thursday, October 31, 2013

Halloween Cupcakes; Zombie Cupcakes and Pumpkin Cupcakes

Happy Halloween Cake Friends!

This year I made 2 lots of cupcakes for a charity cake sale at my office.

The first are Zombie Cupcakes!


These are a chocolate cupcake with a soft caramel filling, topped with chocolate icing, sugar zombies and a cookies and cream fudge tombstone!

I was looking for a way to make edible tombstones and I found the recipe for the Cookies and Cream fudge here: http://www.hungryhappenings.com/2012/08/add-clever-epitaphs-to-cookies-n-cream.html

The Hungry Happenings blog is my new favourite page! So many awesome ideas there!


The next ones are my Pumpkin Cupcakes!


These are plain sponge with choc chips added, then a cookie dough frosting on top, with cookies and cream fudge pieces added, and then a sugarpaste topper!

I loved making these!

For more pictures of both sets of cupcakes please visit my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CustomCakeStudio

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Tottenham Hotspur and Tennis Anniversary Cake!

Hi Cake Friends!

The last cake I am going to post today was an anniversary cake. The person who ordered it said that they loved Tottenham Hotspur and Tennis, so we came up with this design together!


Here is a close up of the Tottenham Crest, which I'm proud to say I did freehand!


For more pictures please visit my facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/CustomCakeStudio


Wonky Cake - my first one!

Hi Cake Friends!

The next cake that I have to share with you is from Module 1 of my level 2 in sugarcraft. We made wonky cakes, which I had never attempted before! Here is my cake:


I loved making this cake! I wish I'd had more time to decorate it, but I needed to finish the next cake....

Graduation Hat Cake!

Hello Cake Friends!

I have been a busy bee lately, and I have some cakes to share! The first one is a graduation hat cake, which I made for a lovely young lady who has just completed a degree in Spanish and Maths!


I used a 3D sports ball cake pan to make the actual hat part. And I covered a small square cake board in black sugarpatse for the top of the hat.

I was worried that it might slip off! But I pushed it down quite hard, to make the ball a bit flatter on the top, and then used icing to stick it on and I am glad to report that it did not fall off!

I did make sure I did this at the place the party was being held, I did not dare to travel with it!

There are a few more pictures on my facebook page, so don't forget to check it out: https://www.facebook.com/CustomCakeStudio

Monday, September 9, 2013

30th Birthday Monkey Cake!

Hi Cake Friends!

My latest cake was for a friend's 30th birthday! There was only one requirement from his fiancée, which was to put a monkey on the cake as that is his nickname!


I had never made a 2 tiered cake before, so I am pretty happy with how this turned out!

Here is a close up of the monkey;

The monkey was made of chocolate sugarpaste which I mixed with CMC powder to make it into modelling paste. 



Friday, July 26, 2013

Bubbleworks water ride cake!

Hello Cake Friends!

This week I made a cake which was themed on the Bubbleworks ride at Chessington World of Adventures, as the young boy the cake was for loves the ride (as did I when I was a child!)

It was a lot of fun to make, although the heat this week did cause me a few problems!

I did not know where to start when I first got the request, so I looked on the internet for pictures inside the ride and one that stood out for me was this one.




So that I what I based my design on, and I came up with this.



For more pictures please check out my facebook page! www.facebook.com/CustomCakeStudio



Monday, July 1, 2013

Nightmare Before Christmas cake - Jack Skellington step by step tutorial!

Hi cake friends!

This week I made a Nightmare Before Christmas themed birthday cake! It was so much fun to make all the different parts and put it together.


I have also put together a step by step guide on how I made Jack Skellington. If you would like to see it then please visit my facebook page. Here is the link to the album; https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.212962892190753.1073741834.153594251460951&type=3

There are also more pictures of the cake on my facebook page! 

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Super Mario Cake

Hi Cake Friends!

I made a Super Mario cake last month for a 4 year old boy's birthday party! I really enjoyed making this, although I did end up with the Super Mario theme in my head all day long!

The figures are made of plastic, I couldn't make them out of sugarpaste! Not yet anyway!



For more pictures of the finished cake please see my facebook page: www.facebook.com/CustomCakeStudio Give my page a like so you can keep up to date with everything I make!













Despicable Me Minion Cake!

Hi Cake Friends!

Here is a Despicable Me minion cake!



I had such fun making this cake, which I actually made for a good friends 30th birthday. I'm afraid I don't have loads of 'making of' pictures, but I can show you how I built it up.

Firstly I baked 3, 6" round cakes. And I have a ball pan (ball cake tin) so I baked 1 half of this to give me a dome for his head. Here is a picture of the cakes stacked up, although at this stage I had not stuck any of it together with buttercream, I was just checking it was going to be the right size! I had printed off a picture of a minion and wanted the cake to be roughly the same size as my picture, because then I would have a 'blueprint' to work from.


I put this on my cake board and then used buttercream to stick all the layers together. Before I put the round dome on top I pushed 3 dowels into the cake to give it support. I then put the done on top and covered the whole thing in a crumb coat of buttercream.

The next stage was putting one layer of yellow sugarpaste over the whole thing, which did give me a bit of a heart attack as I had to roll out such a large amount and I was so scared it was going to rip!

But it was OK! Here is a picture with the first layer, and a small part of the detail started.


Then I just slowly built up all the details of the cake using my picture as guide. My friends sister (who had requested the cake) had asked for the minion to be holding a banana which is why I added in that detail.

For more pictures of the finished cake please see my facebook page: www.facebook.com/CustomCakeStudio Give my page a like so you can keep up to date with everything I make!

Friday, April 19, 2013

Cake International London 2013

Hi Cake Friends!

So last weekend I went to Cake International in London, and it was absolutely amazing to see so many stunning cakes! I was truly inspired and really hope that one day I will enter a cake into one of the competition categories!

I have created an album of all the pictures I took on my facebook page, here is the link.

If you have not been then make sure you get yourself there next year! There are so many stalls selling amazing cake products, and you can go to different sessions on various aspects of cake making and decorating! It's really good fun and I totally recommend it!

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

I have finally started my own business!

Hello everyone!

I know I have not been here for a while, again, but I do have an excuse! I have moved house, and have finally started my own business!

I have my own page now on facebook, so please pop over and give it a like:

https://www.facebook.com/CustomCakeStudio

Hope to see you all there! :-)

Carrie