Month: May 2013

Cakes in 2012 – Antarctic theme

My mother in law is a big kid. I don’t think she’ll ever really grow up. And that’s what we all love about her! She loves sailing, and penguins and whales. And has been to Antarctica twice (how lucky is she!). So I decided to combine all of those things in a cake for her birthday last year. And I got to muck around with fondant again, yay!

I covered the cake in white fondant to look like an iceberg. Then wrapped some blue pieces around the base as water (maybe squint a little when you look at the photo!). M-I-L has three kids, so I made three funny looking penguins. And of course a whale squirting out some water to top it all off!

cake_collage2

Advertisement

Harry Potter cake

Still working my way through last years cakes, and we’ve made it to DLT1. She was well into reading the Harry Potter series of books, and was a huge fan. So her choice of party theme was a no brainer! Once again, I looked all over the internet for inspiring photos, and once again I was amazed at the talent and imagination of people out there.

building

I wanted to try my hand at making little fondant people again – I definitely needed more practice after my incredible shrinking pirate! It was a pretty slow and painstaking process, but layer by layer, Harry, Hermione and Ron all started to take shape.

HHnR

I also had a crack at making Hedwig the owl, a sorting hat, a tiny flying snitch, and a book and wand. I got the colouring wrong for Hedwig’s eyes and beak, but I don’t think the kids noticed! And at the last moment I realised Harry wasn’t wearing glasses – couldn’t have that now could we!!

hedhat2

I decided on a two tier cake {aaah, that reminds me of a 2011 cake I made for Hubs’ 40th. I’ll have to share that later – very funny story there about my first ever attempt at a tiered cake. And four tiers no less!}. The upper tier I covered in fondant, though not my best effort. I didn’t let the cold cake come to room temperature before covering it, and it went all damp and sticky. Not a good look. But luckily I’d made it a marbled shade of grey to make it look a bit like stone. And I pressed little stone shapes into it, so I managed to disguise my mistake fairly well!

finishedcake2

The bottom tier was also supposed to be covered in fondant. I was going to do maroon and gold stripes like the Gryffindor school tie. But I was a bit over fondant by that stage, so just used chocolate frosting, and little golden fondant stars. Have you ever tried to mix a maroon colour? Holy cow, I had such a lot of trouble getting it right, I’m so glad I only ended up having to mix a little bit for the school uniforms!

Cakes in 2012 – Rainbow Party

Our second party of 2012 was for DLT2, and we decided on a rainbow theme. There’s no shortage of ideas on the internet for this theme, and I collected lots of great images on pinterest. {I’m in the process of moving the rainbow party pins from my Party board to my Rainbow board – does anyone know an easy way to do this? It’s so slooooow!!}

I’m afraid I wasn’t very imaginative, but I just couldn’t go past the rainbow layered cake, and I loved the idea of hiding the colours under plain icing so the kids got a surprise when it was cut! I cheated (as I often do for birthday cakes I’m going to spend time decorating!) and used two packets of cake mix, dividing each into three, then colouring. Or was it three packets divided in half? It was a while ago now!

rainbow collage2

I went to town on the decorations, favours and party food all matching the rainbow theme as well, but I’ll go into those in a separate post.

Cakes in 2012 – Pirate Party Fun

I hadn’t made a cake for a while, so I thought I’d share with you a few I made last year. I’ve come a long way since that first cake shaped like a number one that I made for DLT1, such a long time ago. But I’m still a loooong way off being really good at cake decorating. That doesn’t stop me from trying and having a bit of fun along the way though!

first birthday cake2

I usually get a humungous idea for each of the kids birthday cakes, only to have it not quite turn out as great as it looked in my head! Oh well, the kids love them, and as long as you can stick a candle in it, it’s all good!

Working our way through 2012, the first birthday cake was for DLT3, who had requested a pirate party. I checked out heaps of pictures on the internet for inspiration, and decided on a ship. I baked the cake, then wrapped and froze it. The day before the party I pulled it out and started to carve it to look like the hull of a ship. Then came the mucking around with fondant. Lots of fun, but very time consuming rolling it out. Hubs thought I had gone slightly mad when I started making a wood grain design in it, but once I had stared, I just couldn’t stop! I drew the line at making edible rigging though, so just stuck a couple of skewers into the cake and attached white paper for the sails. I covered part of the cake board with a sea of blue fondant, complete with little island and treasure chest full of gold. And I had my first ever attempt at making a fondant figure, a little pirate. But I think I needed to add something to stiffen the fondant, he kind of melted into himself, poor chap!

pirate collage2