Somewhere once said that the internet loves cats and cake. It’s pretty true. We ourselves are suckers for a funny picture of Li’l Bub or Grumpy Cat and the lucky recipient of this fabulously fun cake that we created is definitely a fan of a certain sardonic feline. For a lively 62nd birthday we were asked to whip up this Grumpy Cat themed birthday cake and of course we were more than happy to get started!
The cake itself was a delicious chocolate fudge cake filled with a ganache and chocolate buttercream hybrid filling. We crumb coated the stacked cake with a dark chocolate ganache before icing the full deep cake with fondant.
The board is freehand etched with a wood grain effect and hand painted. We then hand made edible gum paste/modelling paste pieces such as a tiny mouse, golden pet bowl filled with cat food and a lavender ball of yarn ready to be played with!
The cake was given a bit of regal theme as one of our requests was that the edible Grumpy Cat figure is perched on a gum paste velvet cushion trimmed with golden rope and tassels! We balanced out the bold purples and gold with a modelling paste crown studded with purple sugar pearls.
Making the realistic fondant cat food was pretty fun! We chopped up brown fondant before painting with edible confectioner’s glaze a few times and then adding on an extra ‘jelly’ layer of tinted piping gel. This created quite a realistic look to the faux pet food which we loved.
We were sad to see this cake leave us. It was so much fun to design and make. We have to admit that we were often found chuckling to ourselves over Grumpy’s sarcastic disposition!
Frozen is always a popular theme we get asked to re-create in cake form. We’ve whipped up shimmering snowflake encrusted cake pops, mini cakes glistening with sugar ice, and beautiful isomalt icicles perched on top of frosty looking cupcakes… even in the middle of July! One of our first cakes of 2015 was even a delightfully fun and subtle Frozen-inspired birthday cake for a huge Olaf fan.
As usual with cake orders we have a list of requests. This sweet cake needed to be white with a few snowflakes and edible snowballs, feature the lucky recipient’s age, have a large bow situated somewhere on the finish design and most importantly a fun-loving edible Olaf character jumping for joy on top!
Flavour wise the cake was a drool-inducing marshmallow and chocolate cake! We baked Belgian chocolate layers of cake before filling them with our own marshmallow cream and crumb coating with a chocolate fudge buttercream. We even covered the cake with marshmallow fondant!
Our little Olaf model is 100% edible from his modelling chocolate arms to his marshmallow fondant tummy. We began our figure by researching and gathering together lots of images of Olaf from the movie. We sketch and take note of little details such as the positioning of facial features. This process can take a little time, but really helps to get characters looking perfect!
Our happy Olaf cake left us along with a large batch of Frozen themed vanilla marshmallow cake pops too ready for a fantastic Frozen themed birthday party!
Add a little subtle heat to your Valentine’s Day treats with our fabulous Raspberry, White Chocolate & Pink Peppercorn Cake recipe! This cake is a delight to whip up, but it’s even better to eat! We love the luxurious silky taste of the white chocolate buttercream featuring fruity warm hits of pink peppercorns dotted throughout. Follow our super tasty recipe below for a fantastic treat…
Raspberry, White Chocolate and Pink Peppercorn Cake
(makes approx. 3 x 1″ layers 6″ in diameter)
Ingredients for the vanilla cake
453g self-raising flour
453g caster sugar
453g butter or baking margarine (diced and left at room temperature to soften)
7 medium sized eggs
Vanilla extract
Ingredients for the white chocolate and pink peppercorn buttercream
500g butter
400g icing sugar (approx.)
300g white chocolate good quality callets, buttons or chips
2 tablespoons pink peppercorns
Ingredients for the raspberry preserve
300g fresh raspberries
300g pectin sugar
1 tablespoons lemon juice
To decorate
Fresh raspberries (not frozen)
To bake, fill, cover and decorate your cake
Step 1: Preheat your oven to 170 degrees C / 325 degrees F / Gas mark 3 and grease or line your cake pans.
Step 2: Prep your pink peppercorns by adding them to a pestle and mortar to grind down. It’s OK if you have pink husks in your mix as these don’t hinder the taste and texture of your buttercream too much! At this stage you’re simply preparing your peppercorns for your buttercream as this can be a lengthy process. Set aside once crushed and ground.
Step 3: Add diced room temperature butter to a stand up mixer and mix until creamy.
Step 4: Add in the sugar and vanilla extract. Mix well before adding in the eggs.
Step 5: Gradually add in the flour whilst mixing. We add half and mix well before we include the last half of the flour once the first half has been incorporated.
Step 6: Separate your batter evenly between 3 x 6″ circle baking pans (you can use 8″, however, be aware that your layers may be a little thinner once baked)
Step 7: Place in the oven and bake for around 30-40 minutes or until a cake tester is inserted and comes out clean! Once baked remove and leave to cool on a wire rack.
Step 8: To make the buttercream add softened diced butter to a stand up mixer and cream.
Step 9: Sift icing / confectioner’s sugar into the bowl of creamed butter until a consistency and taste you like. When you can taste equal amounts of butter and sugar it’s ready!
Step 10: Add melted white chocolate and mix on medium speed before adding in ground pink peppercorns you prepared in step 2! Don’t over mix or you’ll be left with lots of annoying air bubbles. Set aside.
Step 11: To create your raspberry jam add your fresh raspberries, lemon juice and water to a saucepan.
Step 12: Cook the preserve ingredients on medium to high heat and stir until the raspberries break down and the mix is a good thick consistency.
Step 13: Remove and transfer to a clean bowl or jar to leave to cool.
Step 14: To assemble cut your cake layers so that each is level and flat. Then fill with your raspberry preserve placing the next layer on top until complete. Once fully stacked remember not to add your jam to the very top/outside layer of cake.
Step 15: With a large angled palette knife smother your white chocolate and pink peppercorn buttercream onto the top and sides of the cake. Use cake scrapers to smooth out your buttercream.
Step 16: Topple fresh raspberries on top to finish!
Pink peppercorns make a truly unique and surprising twist to this recipe. They’re sweet and fruity yet exude a subtle hit of pepper heat. To turn it up a notch why not add ground pink peppercorns to your cake batter before baking? Or grind some into your home made raspberry preserve? They pair well with other fruity tastes so if you’re not a fan of raspberries why not try morello cherries, strawberries, tangy lemon curd or even healthy blueberries?
Sometimes the most fun cakes are the most straight forward to design and construct. Here’s a bright and simple birthday party cake that we created featuring a hand-made and edible Hello Kitty perched on top! We loved creating this sweet design plus the fairly plain cake left us with a great canvas to work on an adorable gum paste / modelling paste Hello Kitty character happily clutching a fondant / sugar paste balloon; perfect for a lively get-together!
Our design requests for this treat included an edible Hello Kitty figure, a white iced vanilla and strawberry cake with a white chocolate ganache, the colours pink and yellow and generally a need for an un-fussy but fun look.
We added the cute little balloon to add a sweet playful look and feel to the cake. This was definitely one of our favourite things about the whole design, but we do love that the edible confectioner’s glaze painted onto the surface created a realistic shine!
Our little Hello Kitty was created using custom coloured gum paste / modelling paste and by carefully studying lots of images from official merchandise. It’s important when re-creating well known characters to pay close attention to the positioning of eyes, noses etc (an art school essential is being told that the ’empty’ space is an equally important part of the work). If it helps sketch out a character on grid paper while studying the subject and mapping out the distances between facial features.
To re-create this cake with a different spin some fabulous ideas would be to add white on white swiss dots around the sides with royal icing, make tiny fondant gifts to sit around the character’s feet or to create a large bundle of bright balloons to nestle into Hello Kitty’s paw!
We’re so excited and honoured to kick-start the new year with our afternoon tea bunny rabbit cake gracing the Spring 2015 cover of Cake Decoration Heaven - by far one of our very favourite cake decorating and baking related magazines! We created this cake back in November of 2014 amidst a rather hectic work schedule full of festive designs from Christmas tree cookies to Frozen themed birthday cakes. A pretty spring inspired birthday cake was a little break for us despite our extreme love of everything winter-related.
Cake Decoration Heaven is a fantastic magazine to pick up if your any level of cake designer. It’s full of ideas, projects and tutorials, industry news and it’s one of the most on-trend cake design magazines we’ve had the fortune to read. To purchase an e-copy or e-subscription make your way to Apple’s AppStore or GooglePlay and search ‘Cake Decoration Heaven’.
Our tea themed design took a lot of inspiration from the frivolities of spring and Easter. For us this meant lovely pastel macarons toppled and scattered around, delicately piped clusters of royal icing swiss dots, a light and airy colour palette, afternoon tea paraphernalia and of course… a playful little rabbit!
Creating gum paste edible teacups is, of course, one of our favourite decorations to make. It involves a little bit of waiting about and a very steady hand, but the end result is always nice to see. In the initial designs (which involves a teacup perched on a pink cake strewn with sugar blossoms, berries and macarons) we felt that it needed something that would make the cake appeal to both adults and kids so a little edible character seemed the most logical solution.
Happy New Year, everyone ! We hope a fabulous year is ahead for all our customers and readers! 2014 was quite possibly our busiest year yet! During the past twelve months we managed to pack quite a bit into our work schedules including…
Having some of our cakes featured in the latest Step-by-Step Kids’ Birthday Cakes (edited by Karen Sullivan and published by DK Books). We sketched and designed a number of vibrant kids’ cakes before creating them and seeing them driven off to a studio in London to be photographed on a January morning. All that hard work meant it was rather hard to see them go, but in August 2014 we saw them in print! For the book we created a cheeky dinosaur popping out of it’s egg, a candy train, a fun soccer ball cake with fondant scarf and a cute circus tent themed cake!
Cake Decoration Heaven is definitely one of our favourite cake, cupcake and cookie related magazines. With fabulous project, stylish yet simple layouts and some great news and product round ups too! In 2014 we were lucky enough to be featured in every single one of their quarterly issues from Spring to Winter!
We also created some of our most favourite and popular designs in 2014 including gold edible sequin encrusted tiers to sugar cherry blossom adorned cakes! It’s hard for us to choose a favourite as we love each and every one. Locally our bright and vibrant naked cake garnered the most attention at wedding shows and consultations with lots of clients preferring their cakes icing-free and perfect for late spring and summer weddings.
In terms of social media and kids’ cakes people have flipped for our adorable afternoon tea themed bunny cake! It was fantastic to make - from the 100% edible teacup to the cheeky little rabbit peering out over the top with a sea of fondant macarons perched everywhere.
Finally, our most popular cupcake post (gathering the most likes, shares, re-tweets, views and e-mails) were our delightfully fun 3 bunnies of Easter. This mini collection of playful little rabbits each encompassing the typical stages of Easter festivities in the UK also won us 2nd place in the Pink Whisk Easter Competition!
With such a super busy year behind us we’re happy to begin afresh with a fabulous new year full of even better recipes, designs, tips and tutorials so be sure to keep checking back for more! We hope all our customers and readers are planning and getting ready to kick-start 2015 with a flurry or wonderful projects and ideas too! Happy 2015!
