Various Cakes

This is a good roundup of the cakes I've been making, either for an event, for a customer or just for fun.


My attempt at the well-known (around the internet) rainbow-cake. It was delightfully gay. =)


A friend at work wanted a chocolate layer cake (enough to feed around 50 people) so I made my usual chocolate cake with two layers and chocolate fudge buttercream.


Half a dozen chocolate-lovers cupcakes for a friend when she was in London.


This was the Halloween cake I made for my sister. The eyes are biscuit lollies and I think they're really effective.


Another commision - this time for a girlie birthday cake. It's a lemon syrup cake with vanilla buttercream and a lot of edible glitter.


A cake for one of my dear friends when she left our work. The cake is completely gluten-free and a rich, chocolate and liquor recipe.


Our family Christmas cake. The cake was made by my mum (using a family recipe) and it was decorated by me.


My mum bought this honeycomb cake tin from Lakelands and we had to test it out. Made with our bees' honey, of course.


For my own birthday, I was feeling very retro and wanted a cake like I used to have as a kid - from a shaped tin with the 'sploge-effect' decorating. This was my chocolate cake recipe with chocolate and vanilla buttercream.

Leaving Treats

I've left two jobs in the last six months, which seems odd but one was a redeployment to another office (yay civil service) and the other was when I got myself a whole new job. Hurrah!

And of course, I couldn't resist making things to say goodbye.


This was the leaving cake I made for the first job. It has a fruit-cake on the bottom tier and vanilla sponge on the top. It was my first attempt at a tiered cake so I'm really pleased with it.

I made a selection of nibbles when I left my other job, including...


Chocolate orange macaroons. Again, my first attempt and whilst they were a bit overcooked, they tasted great.


Open-heart savouries - tomato and cream cheese on puff pastry. I've stolen this recipe from my friend Rose who made me these for my birthday one year. I love making them.


Profiteroles. My first attempt at choux pastry and honestly, what's all the fuss about? (Kidding, kidding). These are as monstrous as they look and I think I've lose points on Masterchef for not being dainty enough. =)

Birthday Cakes!

My sister and mum have birthdays only 4 days apart, so making cakes for both of them is a bit of a challenge. That doesn't mean I don't have a go, however.

My sister is both terrified and fascinated by sharks. Seeing as she loves them despite never wanting to so much as paddle in the sea, I thought she'd enjoy this Jaws-inspired cake...


RARRRRR. Yes, those are dolls limbs floating in the ocean. It's the little touches.


I looked online for inspiration, but in the end just made up the process as I went along. I used a tiffin-shaped cake tin and used my chocolate cake recipe, sliced it a few times horizontally to fill it with grey-coloured buttercream and then covered the body in the same. The fin and teeth are fondant (I didn't want too much of it because nobody eats it).


I couldn't resist painting the teeth with food colouring. It's just not Bruce without bits of flesh between his teeth. =)

My mum got a much nicer cake, in comparison. Last year she got her own bee hive and we've already had our first crop. So, with her delicious honey I made a honey cake in the shape of a bee.


If I had had more time, the bee's wings would have stood up instead of flopped over like they do, but I liked it none the less.

Happy birthdays all round. =)

Red Nose Day

As it's Red Nose Day and our office is always happy to whip up some goodies for a worthy cause, I decided on making red-nose biscuit lollies and red nose cupcakes.





Needless to say, we raised a lot of money and it was so much fun making the biscuits.

Cake Round-Up

I haven't been keeping this blog up to date like I should, and I know that people look at it to see what sort of goodies I make, so here is a round-up of what I've been making:


This chocolate fudge cake baked in a beautiful mold was a big hit at Xmas.


I made 150 vanilla cupcakes with blue decorations for a wedding in January. It was the biggest project I'd done by far but it was a real success.


I've been working on my brownie recipe and these beauties were a massive hit. I added a few packs of Rolos to make them extra special.




I've also been working on my biscuit baking and I'm very proud of these button biscuits I made.


I was also working on my decorations, and these cute little bees were made for my mum's friend on her birthday. They sat rather nicely on the top of half a dozen cupcakes.


And finally, some of my classic cupcakes with sweeties nestled on top.

Christmas Treats

I loved making these. I wanted to make a collection of treats that were Christmas-themed. I decided on ginger cupcakes with brandy butter-icing and chocolate orange cupcakes, as they are both flavours I associate a lot with this season.


Ginger cupcakes with brandy-butter icing, topped with Christmas sprinkles and crushed ginger biscuits.


Orange cupcakes with chocolate truffle icing, topped with a chocolate orange segment.

I also made snowflake sugar cookies with edible glitter which were really cute and tasty. I just need to perfect the art of transferring difficult shapes onto a baking sheet without them stretching about.


Snowflake sugar cookies with white edible glitter.

Halloween Treats

I made two lots of Halloween treats for yesterday's Karaoke Circus show. This is a very popular event where guest comedians and members of the audience sing karaoke backed by a live band. The show is always immense amounts of fun and the crowd is very lively. At the interval my friend Rose and I handed out treats. She made delicious pumpkin and orange cupcakes whereas made these little beauties...



Witches Fingers

Shortbread fingers with a hint of whiskey and almond 'finger nails'. The idea was taken from Forkable and they worked out a treat. There was a danger of the dough being over-worked but I think they came out better than expected.



Zombie Peanut-Butter Eyeballs.

Another recipe from Forkable but with a few changes, these were really fun to make and tasted amazing. I didn't go with the paraffin wax coating because as good as theirs looked, I wasn't comfortable with using wax (and when I tested it out the texture it was less than appealing). The rice crispies was also omitted as I wanted smooth eyeballs, so I just mixed butter with a jar of peanut butter and added icing sugar until the consistency felt right. I wish I had had time to paint on some creepy-looking veins but I may make similar but less scary treats for Xmas so I can always improve on what I've made.