Thursday 22 August 2013

Pretty Lilac-Pink Wedding Cake




Today I drove down to the beautiful Arley Hall & Gardens in Cheshire to deliver a wedding cake for Sarah & Jay who I met in the spring at a Brides Up North Wedding Fayre at the Bowden Rooms.
 

They chose a four tier cake for their guests with four different flavours;
 
Luscious Lemon with Lemon Curd Buttercream
Chocolate Truffle with Chocolate Ganache Buttercream
Butterscotch with Toffee Sauce Buttercream
Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Buttercream







Sarah & Jay wanted something quite simple in design but with really deep tiers with clean cut edges to them. Because of this, they ended up with tiers around 13cms deep each rather than my usual 9cms (M&S cakes are only about 5cms deep!!).

I also coated the cakes in chocolate ganache rather than buttercream before putting the sugarpaste on so that I could achieve a much sharper edge than you would normally get with buttercream.












When it came to decoration, Sarah had made her own invites using a really pretty ivory lace and a beautiful lilacy-pink ribbon so we used this as the basis of the design along with a large hand-made sugar rose in lilacy-pink.

Unlike cakes with lots of detail on which can take a lot of hours to decorate, this cake came together relatively quickly. However, due to the deep nature of the tiers and the lack of decoration on them, the sugarpaste had to be perfect, no room for errors here!











A lot of time and attention went into ganaching and covering these cakes to get the simple clean lines that Sarah & Jay wanted, sometimes the more simple designs are more difficult to get right!!

Sarah & Jay were both so excited about this cake, not only for how it was going to look but also about the delicious flavours they had chosen.

I love it when both the Bride & Groom get excited about the wedding cake and really hope they've had an amazing day today, I can't wait to see the photos!!

Rachel x
 

Monday 12 August 2013

Pretty Rabbit Christening Cake!

 
This weekend I made a beautiful Christening cake for a gorgeous little girl called Elizabeth Kitty, or Betty as her parents call her which I think is adorable!!
 
Michelle, Betty's Mum told me to make it pink & white with initialled building blocks and a bunny rabbit figure as bunnies are Betty's favourite, so cute!!
 
The cake was four (yes four!) layers of chocolate sponge cake sandwiched with chocolate buttercream before being covered in white sugarpaste.
 
 
As well as the building blocks and the rabbit, I piped Betty's full name and date of birth on the top of cake and put three pink hearts on the front of the cake, two of which were stamped with "Betty". The hearts all had tiny hand piped pearls all the way around.
 
A selection of small pink and white flowers were dotted around the cake to complete to pretty girly look.
 
I love this cake, it was so pretty and girly with some lovely attention to detail!!

Thursday 8 August 2013

Delicious Cupcake Flavours!!



This week I've made two cupcake flavours, Maple & Pecan topped with Maple Buttercream and finished with a shard of pecan toffee, and Chocolate Cherry with a Syrup-soaked cherry inside, topped with Vanilla Cherry Buttercream!
 
The Maple & Pecan are my new favourite cupcake flavour and I have to be careful not to eat the spare few I have left!!

 

They were made for two lovely ladies who in the last couple of weeks have given birth to two lovely little ladies! I'm still in the process of testing cupcakes by post, it worked well in normal temperatures in spring but I was a bit worried about these warmer temperatures so wanted to see how they fare.
 
They've been boxed up and posted and will arrive with their lovely recipients tomorrow so fingers crossed!!

Tuesday 6 August 2013

Small yet perfectly formed cakes.....

Recently I've made several small but very beautiful cakes and thought I'd share them with you as I've become a fan of small but stunning cakes!!
 
 
These cakes are 4" in diameter which may seem small but there's four layers of cake in each making them around 4" tall, double what you'd get in a supermarket cake!!
 
 
I think you'll agree that no matter the small size, these cakes look gorgeous and I'd be more than happy to receive one for a special occasion! 
 
Serving approximately ten portions, they can be made in any flavour and can be decorated in any way, the choice is yours!!
 
I also made these lemon cupcakes topped with lemon buttercream and white sugarpaste before being topped with handmade sugar flowers in deep purple and pale lilac blossom with pearl centres and I think they're so pretty!
 
 
Our cupcakes range from £1.75 to £3.00 each depending upon quantity and the degree of decoration required.
 
From a box of six to a cupcake tower for a wedding or party, these cupcakes are perfect for giving your guests their own individual treat!
 

Thursday 1 August 2013

Cute Graduation Cake!!




Seen as it's that time of year where lots of clever people have just graduated from University I thought I'd share this cute cake I made recently!















This cake was ordered by Becky's very proud Mum who was delighted that she had graduated with a fab Teaching degree, hence the blackboard, books and apples!!











Becky will be starting her primary school teaching career in September so her family decided to throw her a fab party to say a huge congratulations on her achievements!










Congratulations Becky and Good Luck in your new job!!!!