Crazy cakes!

Ok so I have been scouring the web the past few days looking for inspiration for novelty cakes I could make in the future.  I am currently putting my (somewhat limited) talents on offer to friends and family to make cakes for special occasions to help me build up experience in making FUN YUM cakes! This will also mean I have a bit more to share on here in my blog.

I am particularly interested in novelty cakes for brithdays etc.  As a first port of call I of course hit the internet to find inspiration, however, I soon came across some wonderous amazing cakes and some.....er.....well lets just say not so wonderous cakes :)  So I thought I would run a quick post on cakes currently inspiring me and cakes which made me smile for various reasons (I am sure you will know why when you see them).  I may run more posts like this in the future as and when I come acros cakes that interest me.

So first of all I will show you some cakes which have inspired me in the past few days, many of which I doubt I could ever aspire to make but which I look at in awe, some I can't even believe are actually made of cake!

Scratt from Ice Age, I LOVE this cake so much!

I love that on this cake the cat is already impressive and thn the cushion just takes the wow factor up a whole notch. How could anyone ever eat this little kitty, it is too cute :(

This wedding cake made to look like a pile of cushions definatley made me 'wow' out loud. Impresive both in scale and the balancing of cake, a feat in itself.

Octopus cake: there are no words for this one!

So after those amazing cakes here is another little gem I found, amore light hearted cake which, I came across with my office mate (who is squireel mad) which made us both smile and laugh:

This 'squirrels attacking a wedding cake' made me smile so much, the little squirrel peaking his nose out of the middle layer I found particularly cute.....more photos of this cake (which is well worth a look) can be found at the following web address:

http://urbansweets.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/squirrels-attack-wedding-cake/

I even later found a real life example of a squirrel eating someones wedding cake which made me smile even more :)

I hope you enjoyed this post, I have found quite a few more cakes in my internet trawls which I will save to share another day, in the meantime, the lesson of this post is to make sure there are no squirrels nearby if you are ever making a wedding cake or it may not survive in one piece  :)

Peppa Pig Brithday Cake

So it is my god daughters 2nd birthday tomorrow, and her mum (my best friend) is being induced with her second baby that same day, hectic! So as a wonderful and thoughtful godmother (modest, who me? yes always!) I decided I would offer to make a birthday cake for my god daughter to enjoy on her birthday morning before her mummy went to hospital. Knowing how much Peppe Pig was loved by my god daughter (any maybe me secretly, but shh) I decided to make this the themd of the cake.  After a quick internet search I found a picture of Peppa and drew a plan for the cake.

I then baked a large square victoria sponge cake and after this had cooled I added buttercream and jam in the middle before beginning to shape the cake into something resembling Peppa.

I used my drawing a template to cut the Peppa shape and then added an outer layer of buttercream to help the icing stick and smooth any irregularities in the cake surface.  Next step was to add the icing.  I used ready to roll fondant and added pink for the face and red for Peppa's dress.  Then I added a few extra bits for ears, mouth....etc.

Once this was done I used a dark pink icing to pipe the outline of all Peppas features, to make it more like the actual cartoon, I also added a large '2' onto Peppa's dress.

Once this was all done I decide to ice the cake board with a sky and grass to make the cake 'pop' off the board more and compelte the look.  This was the first time I have ever iced a cake board and it was quite trikcy with the shape of the cake to manouver around! But I used the trick of wrapping the rolled icing around the rolling pin to help with smooth placement.  Once the sky and grass were added I put on the finishing touches of the arms and (slightly stumpy, due to the cake board being a bit small) legs and tail to the cake, and here is the finished product:

I was really pleased with how the cake turned out and have delivered it for the party just this morning.  I cannot wait to hear what my god daughter makes of her cake, I hope it prooves a success!

Cupcake Party

I had a cupcake themed party for my birthday last summer, which involved me making copious numbers of cupcakes and inviting all my friends round to eat them! It was great fun, but not very well thought out as I then ended up spending my whole birthday baking frantically, which was quite stressful.

My other half did, however, manage to whisk me off at lunch time for Afternoon tea at a nearby hotel in Belfast, called 'The Merchant' (http://www.themerchanthotel.com/). It is one of the best hotels in Belfast and is based in an old bank building which is beatiful inside and out. Afternoon tea is served in the great Hall, which is absolutely stunning inside. The whole afternoon was fantastic and along with some sandwiches and speciality teas we also indulged in pastries, jellies and scones with clotted cream and jam....It was immense!

The Great Hall, where Afternoon tea is served.

Our triple tiered tray of treats, Yum!

The whole thing ended up being our lunch and then we just had cupcakes for dinner....not the healthiest of days but lots of sugar rush fun was had!

I have included a few pictures of some of the cupcakes I made for the party that evening. I made lemon flavoured cakes, rasberry and chocolate and even banoffee. I also made some Sesame street themed cakes for friends, with the cookie monster for my other half (who loves cookie monster) and Oscar the grouch for his best friend who had dressed as the charachter for a party a few months prior. Kermit also got thrown into the mix for a bit of fun.

Banoffee cupcakes (I will include this recipe in a seperate post at a later date)

Chocolate cupcakes, topped with whipped cream and rasberries

My Sesame Street cupcakes: I used a vanilla cupcake as the base and then iced them adding white chocolate Maltesers for eyes, with pupils drawn on with a black food colouring pen.  I then added a section of cookie to the cookie monsters mouth to make them extra realistic.  I was very pleased with how they turned out and have made the cookie monsters again since.