The Happy Egg Co. Cake - Valentine Sweetheart

2014 is officially here which means our partnership with The Happy Egg Co. is coming to an end. We’ve made a selection of delicious cakes for them over the past year and experimented with lots of flavours, palettes and designs; our last cake certainly won’t be any different! Though the new year brings with it the beginning of winter, Valentine’s Day offers the opportunity to use otherwise ‘summery’ ingredients; strawberries and champagne! With this in mind we’re very excited to announce that our very last cake with The Happy Egg Co. incorporates some of life’s little luxuries; strawberries, white chocolates, and roses all tied together with a generous helping of champagne!

Champagne, Chocolate and Strawberries Cake Development

Champagne, Chocolate and Strawberries Cake Development

Champagne, Chocolate and Strawberries Cake Development

For this cake our colour palette is inspired by gorgeous bouquets of roses that traditionally find themselves delivered to loved ones on Valentine’s Day. The vibrant and soft pinks of roses combined with fresh greens and delicate creams lend themselves wonderfully to cakes and other sweet treats of the season!

Champagne, Chocolate and Strawberries Cake Development

 

Pink Rose Cake!

Even though spring and summer are now distant memories we still get asked to do some light floral cakes out of season. These kinds of cakes are always lovely to work on and marvel at once finished. This definitely is one of them. It’s a gorgeous rose crowned buttercream smothered cake filled with home made strawberry preserve. 

Pink Rose Cake by Juniper Cakery

We used a crescent shape as a basic placement for the leaves and roses on top of the cake. Using a leaf piping tip we piped out some buttercream leaves that jutted out of a ‘c’ shape atop the cake (crescent and scroll shapes are staples in design).

Pink Rose Cake by Juniper Cakery

To create the delicate buttercream roses we used our tutorial on how to pipe roses using a flower nail and a petal piping tip. We lined them up on a plate and left them to chill quite a bit in a freezer for around 20 minutes. Then working quickly (so they didn’t melt) we lifted them off of the parchment/baking paper squares and set them atop of the cake and piped leaves.

Pink Rose Cake by Juniper Cakery

This was a pretty and uplifting cake to bake and decorate. Whilst we adore the cosy and chilly autumn and winter months a different colour palette always adds a bit of interest amidst a season of rustic browns, coppers and sage greens.

 

Cherry Blossom Entwined Birdcage Cake with The Happy Egg Co.

It’s time for our fifth cake, recipe & cake decorating tutorial in partnership with The Happy Egg Co.! This month we took inspiration from the soft and beautiful cherry blossoms that flourished not too long ago. Unfortunately, those flowers never last for long but at least you can enjoy edible blossoms in cake form! As well as picking out cherry blossoms for the design we also looked at fun and summery cherry laced flavours! We soon scaled our recipe ideas down to a simple cherry cola and pistachio cake. Why not have a look at our design and development blog post to see our ideas and research.

Cherry Blossom Birdcage Cake

As well as this month’s flavour we thought we’d show you how to create an elegant and simple birdcage cake. These are definitely on trend at the moment due to the summer months, but also with wedding season upon us they’re popping up everywhere! The romantic colour scheme is perfect for afternoon teas, spring and summer birthdays, engagement parties and weddings.

Cherry Blossom Birdcage Cake

We added further detail by creating a quilted cake board studded with edible sugar pearls that also found themselves nestled into the cage-work of the cake.

Cherry Blossom Birdcage Cake

Cherry Blossom Birdcage Cake

Cake recipe

To create this cake (including the dome layer and 4 circle layers) you will need the following…

7-8 free range eggs by The Happy Egg Co. depending on egg size
453g self raising flour
453g caster sugar
453g butter
6 inch circle cake pan
6 inch ball pan

Cream your butter in a mixer then add the caster sugar. Add in the flour along with half of the happy eggs for around one minute. Once half of the happy eggs are combined add the remaining and mix for about 5 minutes.

Pour into a greased circle cake pan until 2/3 full and place on the top shelf of a pre-heated oven at Gas Mark 3/325F/170C. Bake for around 30 minutes. Repeat this step four times for each circle layer.

For the dome layer pour the remaining batter into one half of your ball pan and bake for 35-45 minutes in an over pre-heated to Gas Mark 3/325F/170C.

Cherry, cola & pistachio buttercream recipe

For the buttercream you will need…

500g butter (don’t use margarine as the water content is higher and not suitable for buttercream)
500g - 600g icing sugar (choose your own consistency and taste)
Cherry essence
Cola flavouring
Pistachio essence
Pink gel paste food colouring
Brown gel paste food colouring
Green gel paste food colouring

Add half of the of butter diced into pieces. Cream the butter in a mixer. Then gradually add icing sugar and the remaining butter (cut into cubes). Once the buttercream is of a smooth consistency separate into three and flavour / colour to taste.

How to assemble your cakes into a birdcage shape!

Cherry Blossom Birdcage Cake

To create a birdcage shape you need to put together a bullet shaped cake using from four to six layers of circle cake (around 3-4cm in height). You then simply create the dome section by using a ball cake pan. For a cake like this which consists of a fair few layers of cake we’d recommend the use of a a good plastic dowling / dowel rod through the centre for stability.

How to make fondant cherry blossoms!

Now let’s show you how to make your own edible cherry blossom flowers from a ball of modelling paste. This is a fun way to create these blossoms without specific petal cutters and it means that you can make them any size you like; from tiny blossoms to extra large flowers!

How to make fondant cherry blossoms

You will need…

Coloured flower / modelling paste
Lustre Dust
Scissors
Cone modelling tool
Tapered star modelling tool (with five points)
Paintbrush
Non-edible flower stamens

Cherry Blossom Birdcage Cake

Step one: Form your modelling paste into a cone shape with a ball shape at one end.

Step two: Using the tapered star tool press a star into the rounded end of your modelling paste cone. This marks where your petals need to be shaped from.

Cherry Blossom Birdcage Cake

Step three: Using some scissors cut into your paste using the points of the ‘star’ as markers.

Step four: Flatten and press the petals out using your fingers. Now you should begin to see your blossom form!

How to make fondant cherry blossoms

Step five: Using the cone tool press lightly into the petals to ruffle them.

Step six: Now pinch the ends of your blossom’s petals to add shape.

How to make fondant cherry blossoms

Step seven: Cut some stamens to around 1.5cm in length and push them into the centre of your flower.

Step eight: Now add some shimmer and extra colour to your blossom by dusting on some lustre dust with your paintbrush.

Now you should have a gorgeous cherry blossom perfect for sitting on top of your own homemade birdcage cake! Try creating them in white, ivory or different tones of pink to suit your colour scheme. To secure them in place upon your finished birdcage melt down some white chocolate and hold for a few seconds. Chocolate dries quickly and is a great way for holding heavier objects in place on a cake.

Cherry Blossom Birdcage Cake

We hope you’ve enjoyed this recipe and tutorial on how to create an elegant birdcage cake combined with some fun summer inspired flavours.

 

‘Tutorial Tuesday': How to pipe buttercream roses!

What you will need:

A cupcake
A piping bag full of buttercream
A large closed star piping tip (Ateco 855)
Sugarpaste leaves or butterflies to decorate
Edible glitter (optional) 

Step one: Begin to pipe from the middle of the cupcake making a ruffled centre of buttercream.

Step two: Work your way around the middle you have created.

Step three: Continue piping around the cupcake until your rose is the desired size.

Step four: Now cease piping to end your rose. This will create unfinished look, however, the leaves or butterflies will cover this up.

Step five: On the unfinished section of your rose place a sugarpaste leaf or butterfly. Now your buttercream rose is complete!

We used the rose piping technique to create a small batch of raspberry cupcakes for an cupcake selection box order of thirty (boxes only go up to 24 hence the odd cookies and cream cupcake nestled within the raspberry rose cakes).

The flavours in this order include: (from left to right) After Eight peppermint and chocolate, Pink Velvet with gourmet vanilla buttercream, Peanut Butter Fudge, Lemon, Cookies 'n' Cream and Raspberry Rose.