27th March 2015 // No Comments

Harry Potter Themed 13th Birthday Cake!

For a wonderfully fun joint 13th birthday party we were asked to create a rather magical Harry Potter themed cake. Our brief was to design and make a large cake for 40 servings adorned with edible decorations including… a sorting hat, wand, name plaques, Harry Potter’s famous round glasses, the iconic Gryffindor scarf and a small Dobby character perched on the cake board!

Harry Potter birthday cake by Juniper Cakery

The cake itself was filled with a crowd pleasing Madagascan vanilla and strawberry preserve and crumb coated with silky vanilla buttercream before being double iced with Satin Ice fondant! We chilled the cake once smothered with its crumb coat to help keep the corners lovely and sharp before icing. Satin Ice has a wonderful elasticity to it which really helps cover square edges.

Edible Harry Potter wand with shooting stars by Juniper Cakery

To make Harry Potter’s wand we used modelling chocolate sculpted and moulded into shape before we added a wood texture with a sharp veining tool. It was then hand painted with different shades of brown food colouring before the fun shooting stars were added for a playful effect!

Harry Potter cake with edible Dobby by Juniper Cakery

Harry Potter Cake by Juniper Cakery

We created all of the decorative elements (except for the scarf as it needed to drape down the sides) a day before the cake was baked and assembled so they could set and dry appropriately. The names and birthday message were hand painted onto banners and a scroll ‘aged’ with edible brown petal dust before being attached to the front of the design. We thought that utilising the Harry Potter font and placing the messages on a weathered scroll and old fashioned banners would work much better with the overall design than just placing them on using letter cutters.

Edible gum paste Harry Potter sorting hat by Juniper Cakery

The 100% edible sorting hat was particularly fun for us to create. We began with a large ball of a 50/50 modelling chocolate and fondant mix before moulding a tall conical shape. With some extra fondant/modelling chocolate we rolled out and cut a large circle for the brim of the hat before thinning the edges with a large ball tool. The hat and brim were then intentionally scoured, ‘beaten’ and re-moulded to look aged and weathered. Then we sculpted in dents and the hollow facial features by hand, added the little patch at the side with some little stitching detail and hand painted sections roughly to add to the aged look of the piece.

This cake was a lot of fun for us to design and decorate. We even toyed with the idea of having a Harry Potter marathon for research purposes, but then we took one look at our bake and design sheets for the weeks running up to this cake’s due date and nearly fainted. There are such iconic and memorable styles and looks from the book and film series that we luckily had more than enough inspiration from memory, and pictures, alone to re-create the elements we needed.

For a future Harry Potter themed cake we’d love to create a giant carved and sculpted sorting hat cake nestled on a flurry of house scarves!

20th February 2015 // No Comments

Vintage Hat Box Cake with Hand-Painted Violets and Peonies!

Lovely hat box cakes are always popular requests for us around this time of year. They’re vintage styling and softer colours seem synonymous with the light-hearted spring season. Earlier this week we created this wonderful peony and violet themed hat box cake for a 40th birthday! It features dainty hand-painted florals and a sweet plum, peach, juniper green, ivory and blush pink palette.

Pretty hand-painted peony and violet hat box cake by Juniper Cakery

The cake itself was a classic Madagascan vanilla cake sandwiched with fresh Madagascan vanilla buttercream and home-made raspberry preserve which was then iced with fragrant marshmallow fondant tinted in a lovely blush pink colour.

We created the large voluminous bow and open peony flower a few days in advance so that each could set into fluid shapes and ruffles before being handled and placed on the finished design.

Each white stripe and plum coloured scallop edging was measured and spaced accordingly before we began hand painting small peony blooms, violets, leaves and tiny berries onto each. We planned out a pattern that alternates around the cake with one stripe featuring peonies centered and in each corner and another stripe with bundles of florals placed at the top and bottom.

Hand-painted floral hat box cake by Juniper Cakery

To balance out the peach of the sugar peony flower we decided to create an edible gift card and envelope out of white and peach gum paste which was then placed at the top opposite side of the flower. The message was completely hand-painted and left to dry before we carefully nestled it inside our little envelope!

Purple, peach and blush vintage hat box cake by Juniper Cakery

We hope this vintage delight was enjoyed by the lucky birthday girl! The very last thing we heard about this cake was that no one wanted to cut it at all.

Vintage hat box birthday cake by Juniper Cakery

31st October 2014 // 2 Comments

Batman Themed Minion Cake!

This super fun Batman themed Minion cake was a last minute request but we couldn’t resist! We think this mischievous little cake is perfect for a birthdays so close to the festivities of Halloween from it’s sleek black costume to the Batman symbol embossed cake board!

Batman Minion Cake by Juniper Cakery

Minion cakes are insanely popular and they’re always fun to make especially when people request an extra twist like crazy costumes or quirky flavours! They can be transformed into almost anything which makes them perfect for most occasions; imagine a minion cake disguised as a pumpkin for a Halloween party centre piece, or even as a Christmas tree? What about dressed up as the recipients favourite singer or movie character? Needless to say, we love making them!

The cake itself was a freshly whipped up classic Victoria sponge featuring Madagascan vanilla buttercream and home made strawberry preserve. We filled, stacked, carved and crumb coated the shape before chilling it and covering it with custom coloured yellow fondant. The super-minion really began to look the part when we’d finished the iconic mask, ears and all!

Batman themed Minion Cake by Juniper Cakery

One of our favourite features was the Batman embossed cake board which we covered with grey fondant / sugar paste, embossed with a small Batman cookie cutter and then dusted with edible silver lustre dust for a cool metallic sheen!

Minion in Batman Costume Cake by Juniper Cakery

For the fun name plaque we were inspired by the Batman light signal from the films and comics! We used tylo reinforced fondant to create the bright yellow and grey fondant circles to emboss and hand paint onto before attaching to the side of the cheeky Minion character!

1st July 2014 // 1 Comment

Tea, Macarons & Recipe Book Birthday Cake!

It was our head baker Carol’s birthday last Sunday and of course we created her a rather lovely cake to celebrate the occasion. After a few initial ideas we set our sights on a recipe book themed cake adorned with roses, sweet treats and a rather fancy teacup! We also had to add Carol’s favourite colour purple to the cake’s colour palette to help tie it in with Carol’s birthday decorations and gifts. We didn’t even make her bake the actual cake herself!

Tea, macarons and recipe book cake by Juniper Cakery

Pretty recipe book and tea cake by Juniper Cakery

Lovely recipe book cake by Juniper Cakery

We created a lovely little edible teacup with gum paste / modelling paste hand-painted with gold lustre dust edging and detail. Alongside this we also created a matching edible side plate for all of the delicious chocolate truffles to be piled upon!

We have an old tutorial up here to help you create a sweet edible teacup and saucer of your very own!

To add the gold detail with used some gold lustre dust mixed with a little vodka and carefully painted the edges with a fine paintbrush used only for food items. This takes quite a steady hand so practice makes perfect indeed!

Sugar gum paste roses and macarons by Juniper Cakery

Above are our Cherry Macarons, Passion Fruit Macarons and handmade sugar gum paste roses and leaves. We toppled the macarons onto each other and then adorned them with florals to add a nice little touch of whimsy!

For the macarons we created them in sorbet influenced flavours such as Raspberry, Passion Fruit and Cherry to help establish a lovely bright, Summer colour palette; perfect for a June birthday!

Cute recipe book cake by Juniper Cakery

We added one of our head baker’s favourite recipes for Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes to her recipe book cake by hand-painting in the illustration and ingredients list. The left side of the book cake displays baking instructions for our fruity Strawberry Cupcakes filled with home made strawberry preserve.

We created a sweet yet cluttered scene with the placement of hand-made sugar roses, hydrangeas, chocolate truffles and edible chinaware!

Gum paste edible teacup by Juniper Cakery

Making the edible teacup took two hours to cut, shape and paint; it then took some patience and a few days to harden and be ready to assemble and place onto of the cake. A top tip is to use melted white chocolate in a disposable piping bag to seal the joint of the teacup and affix the shaped handle to the side. White chocolate sets fast and keeps a good hold.

Recipe book cake with macarons and roses by Juniper Cakery

Here are some of our Raspberry Macarons filled with a raspberry preserve alongside a fruity Passion Fruit Macaron filled with a lemon curd whipped buttercream.

Sweet recipe book birthday cake by Juniper Cakery

Some of the extra features on this birthday cake are sugar hydrangeas, a gold painted braid bookmark, hand-painted wood stained board and a lightly ruffled napkin placed underneath the perched edible teacup.

We’re happy to say that we not only had the chance to actually devour a little bit of this cake, but that Carol seemed to be rather enthralled with her birthday cake!

1st May 2014 // 4 Comments

40th Birthday Star Wars Cake!

Here’s a super fun Star Wars themed birthday cake we created this week! We had such fun making this. Everything is edible from the rice krispy treat moulded Death Star to the modelling chocolate Chewbacca!

The cake itself consists of two layers of vanilla with a blue velvet layer in the middle. All layers are sandwich with Bailey’s irish cream infused buttercream… yum!

To make the Death Star we moulded the shape from rice krispy treats, iced it, added the details with modelling tools and silver dragées, then covered it with dark silver lustre dust.

Here’s our cartoon style Yoda figure which was created out of both modelling chocolate and reinforced fondant /gumpaste.

Chewbacca stands just over 4 1/2 inches tall and is made entirely out of a modelling chocolate and fondant / sugarpaste mix. To finish we hand painted Chewy’s fur with a darker brown food colour to add a little depth.

Finally, the text was (painstakingly) cut out by hand. We created a stencil of the required phrase printed out in the Star Wars font before cutting each piece out of reinforced fondant / gumpaste.

11th March 2014 // 1 Comment

Fairy Tale Recipe & Tutorial: Shooting Star Cupcakes!

This week we’ve put together a wonderfully adorable fondant / sugarpaste tutorial on how to create some bright shooting stars. These are perfect for baby showers, kids’ parties, birthdays or themed events. We’ve also included a recipe for deliciously sweet and tangy lemonade cupcakes which are sure to be a hit with all ages!

Fondant Shooting Star Decor

You will need…

Yellow fondant
Black fondant (optional)
Sprinkles (optional)
Ball tool
Scallop tool
Icing sugar to dust
Fondant rolling pin
Star cutter
Cling film
Water
Paintbrush
Edible or non-toxic cake decorating glitter (optional)
Melted white chocolate

Step one: Roll out some yellow fondant to a thickness of approx. 7mm and sandwich this between two pieces of cling film before cutting out your star shape. The cling film on top helps create clean, rounded edges whilst the cling film under the fondant prevents the shape sticking to the surface.

Step two: Carefully shape the star into a chunkier shape by rounded the tips with your fingers.

Step three: Add cute facial details with a ball tool and scallop tool. At this stage you can add eyes with springs, sugar pearls, balls of fondant etc.

Step four: Create the shooting star’s tail by rolling out ‘ropes’ of fondant that taper off.

Step five: Create three ‘ropes’ to form the tail and arrange. Glue these together with either water or melted white chocolate. Once dry attach the tail to the back of the star with melted white chocolate. Then you can add edible glitter, lustre dust, sprinkles etc!

To assemble your Shooting Star Cupcakes pipe your lemon cupcakes with the freshly made lemonade buttercream (we used a disposable piping bag fitted with an 828 piping tip) then carefully nestle a shooting star atop each once set. Place on a tiered cupcake stand amidst star shaped confetti for a playful and tempting display!

3rd March 2014 // No Comments

Roses, Cosmetics and Jewels Birthday Cake!

Here’s a lovely and bright cosmetics bag cake with a vintage twist that we created for a friend’s daughter! We were asked to design and make a polka dot make-up bag cake fit for an 18th birthday with a slight vintage feel, a tassel and a fresh colour palette. We were, otherwise, given creative license so with the previous requests we settled upon a cream, turquoise, gold and coral pink colour scheme paired with hand made roses, pearl jewellery, a quilted and sugar pearl studded board and vintage inspired cosmetic pieces.