Fun Wedding Cupcake Tower with Bride and Groom!

Cupcake towers grew to be quite the up and coming trend a few years ago and they’re still pretty popular choices right now. It’s a pretty stress-free solution to have lots of tempting individual portions of cupcakes or even mini cakes ready to be handed out! Plus we love how they instantly make any dessert table look like a taste bud tingling bakery counter! Last weekend we created this sweet and definitely fun wedding cupcake tower for a gold themed reception.

Wedding cupcake tower by Juniper Cakery in Kingston-upon-Hull

Every chocolate cupcake was drizzled with dark Belgian chocolate before being nestled with gold dusted edible fondant hearts which helped tie in the luxuriously elegant yet simple golden colour palette. For the Sicilian lemon cupcakes we drizzled each with Belgian couverture white chocolate and a sprinkling of tangy lemon sherbet crystals!

The cake itself was a crowd-pleasing strawberry and Madagascan vanilla flavour; soft vanilla cake filled with our own homemade strawberry preserve and whipped Madagascan vanilla buttercream and iced with fragrant marshmallow fondant. 

Chocolate and lemon cupcake tower by Juniper Cakery in Kingston-upon-Hull

This wedding reception featured 100 of our delicious and fresh baked cupcakes all created using quality ingredients such as Sicilian lemon oil, couverture chocolates and Belgian cocoa powder, premium fondant and free range eggs. Each cupcake was baked within 24 hours of the event to ensure the best quality and taste!

Gold heart themed cupcake tower by Juniper Cakery in Kingston-upon-Hull

Bride and groom cupcake tower by Juniper Cakery in Kingston-upon-Hull

One of the best features of this playful cupcake tower was of the sweet (and edible) bride and groom figures perched on top! We used custom tinted gum paste / modelling paste to create both characters which we hand-coloured ourselves. We took down details such as hair colour, suit and cravat colour and even the style of bouquet and boutonnière and then set to work.

The bride was created first as we had to consider the drape of the dress and the positioning of her arms due to her bouquet and the fact that we planned for the bridge and groom to hold hands. Afterwards she was set aside for us to concentrate on creating the groom and his voluminous gold cravat and dark suit. To create the cravat we began by testing the size and shape out with a few measurements (we even created actual miniature cravat shapes from real-life patterns) and some parchment paper to get the proportions and form correct. We also added a tiny fondant cravat pin to finish off the look!

To add a little extra pun and character to this cake we concentrated on the edible couple each having their own personality and reaction to their big day and their wedding cupcake tower! The bride is happily surveying the guests, venue and activities whilst the groom is sat feeling excited and proud!

After a busy couple of days whipping up gold royal icing, piping 100 cupcakes and assembling the edible figures we had to see the 4 large cupcake boxes and cake box leave us to be enjoyed. It was rewarding work and with so many different elements (from different cupcake flavours to decorations and then a cake and fondant toppers) it’s wonderful to see a wedding cupcake tower like this make its way to its new home (lots of stomachs).

 

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!

 

Our Bakery Cakes!

Bakery style cakes are fabulous. They’re fun, bright, and come in a variety of mouth-watering flavours. That’s why we’ve whipped up a small collection of bakery-style cakes perfect for the Easter festivities available for order and pick-up in the Kingston-upon-Hull area!

Our prices begin at just £10 for a small bakery style cake and can be customised further with different colour palettes and added messages too! If you’d love to order one, but had your heart set on a different flavour just get in contact with us and we’ll do our best to help. Email us or inbox us via Facebook to enquire.

Our bakery cakes in Kington-upon-Hull area…

Lemon ombré bakery style cake by Juniper Cakery

White chocolate and lemon cake by Juniper Cakery

Lemon ombré with white chocolate and Easter egg inspired ‘bark’

Wonderfully fresh tasting lemon cakes are always a crowd pleaser at a party or around a dinner table. Our lemon and white chocolate bakery cake is created using the finest Sicilian lemon oil along with Belgian white chocolate. We decorated ours with rainbow nonpareil sprinkles, but you can customise your cake with stars, hearts, edible pearls or even a personalised message! Why not email us or inbox us via Facebook for more info!

Soft vanilla cake filled with fresh lemon curd and Sicilian lemon oil infused buttercream, smoothed with chic ombré lemon buttercream, drizzled with white chocolate, sprinkled with rainbow nonpareils, piped with lemon buttercream and finished with white chocolate, lemon drizzle and sprinkle ‘bark’

Decorate cakes and cupcakes with this easy tutorial for Easter chocolate bark by Juniper Cakery

How to make simple Easter chocolate bark to decorate cakes and cupcakes with

Strawberry milkshake ombré with white chocolate and mini egg ‘bark’

Our Strawberry milkshake flavour was inspired by both a fabulous 1950s style diner we visited in Dublin and Felicity’s childhood spent in the Californian sun (where weekends involved drives around San Francisco with carousels, Arby’s Roast Beef sandwiches and malted strawberry shakes and rainbow sherbet ice cream). It’s an incredibly fragrant cake too and is the perfect mix of fun and fancy! For Easter we’ve adorned the Strawberry Milkshake cake with crumbled mini egg chocolate shards, but of course you could add fresh strawberries on top of each buttercream swirl or even a sweet hand-painted message! Email us or inbox us via Facebook for to enquire!

Soft vanilla cake filled with strawberry preserve and strawberry milkshake (strawberry with Madagascan vanilla and Belgian white chocolate) buttercream, smoothed with an ombré effect, drizzled with white chocolate, sprinkled with bright sugar pearls, piped with strawberry milkshake buttercream and finished with white chocolate and mini egg ‘bark’

Peppermint Oreo Cake by Juniper Cakery

Peppermint and Cookies n Cream Cake by Juniper Cakery 

Peppermint cookies ‘n’ cream ombré with a dark chocolate drizzle and crushed Oreo ‘bark’

Inspired by both our love for anything Cookies ‘n’ Cream flavoured and fresh Mint Choc Chip ice cream this lovely cake is perfect for any chocoholic who also loves a little twist. We automatically adorn our bakery cakes with our made to order chocolate ‘bark’ or shards, however, you can opt for Oreo cookie on each swirl of buttercream and perhaps include a short message or name on a hand-painted custom plaque too!

Soft chocolate cake filled with peppermint and Oreo cookie buttercream, decorated with an ombré stripe effect, drizzled with dark and white chocolate, piped with more fragrant peppermint Oreo buttercream and finished with  a cookie crumb ‘bark’

Our bakery style cakes are perfect for anyone who needs a cake in a few days, who doesn’t like fondant or sugar paste icing or who simply just wants something fun and delicious!

 

‘Converse’ High-Tops Baby Shower Cake!

We had been wanting to create some cute little edible ‘Converse’ high-tops for a while now. We’d almost forgotten about this before we received a request for a lovely baby shower cake! For this cake there’s a definite concentration on various baby paraphernalia and pink and blue colours combined with crisp clean white.

Converse baby cake by Juniper Cakery

When the customer contacted us they weren’t too sure what design they’d like so we sent through a few ideas including one idea that held the possibility of tiny gum paste high-top shoes. After choosing which style and asking for a few custom changes (like the fun pink, white and blue bibs, bottles, prams and rocking horses dotted around the cake) we then quickly sketched out the cake and refined the design. We decided on a pale pink and blue colour palette and added in the tiny pink and blue royal icing pearl border, polka dot plaque and the adorable idea of trimming the plaque with a fondant shoe lace design!

The cake itself is Madagascan vanilla with strawberry seedless preserve, silky Madagascan vanilla buttercream and wonderfully fragrant Satin Ice fondant! 

Baby shower cake detail by Juniper Cakery

To create the fun message we used this fun silicone mould that we stock in our e-store by Katy Sue Designs. It’s perfect for playful cakes especially kids’ birthday cakes, baby shower creations or themed treats. We love the bold rounded corners of the letters and numbers.

Cake with gum paste Converse shoes by Juniper Cakery

To create the tiny ‘Converse’ shoes we first sketched out a rough template on greaseproof paper before taping the pieces together to check measurements and trimming off or re-sizing any off sizes. We then rolled out some gum paste and began using our template to cut each piece. For a single shoe we used a sole, a tongue and toe section, a heel and sides piece than then wrapped around to the front, a strip to fashion into the loop at the back, a white half circle for the toe cover and small strips for the laces and thin panels around the base of the shoe. Detail was added with a quilting tool to add a stitch effect, small rounded piping tip for the shoelace holes and a large round piping tip and heart cutter for the ‘logo’.

Baby shower cake by Juniper Cakery

Converse themed baby shower cake by Juniper Cakery

Assembling and adding all of the pre-made decorations  to a cake is always fun and it’s incredible feeling to see all that hard work finally coming together in front of your eyes. Even though we prepare pieces a day or two in advance we bake and stack all our cakes as close to the collection date as possible to ensure freshness so we don’t get to spend to long admiring our work! A few hours later any finished creation gets picked up and taken away to be devoured and enjoyed!

 

Adorably Sweet Kitten Themed Cake!

One of our more quirky requests for a Mother’s Day cake this year called for a “vintage looking single tier with lots of cartoon-like kittens”. This sweet kitten themed cake ended up being one of the most fun designs we created recently. We loved making the little chorus (or kindle) of white, grey and ginger kittens ready to perch on top of a lovely pale green cake.

Kitten themed cake by Juniper Cakery

The cake itself was double Belgian chocolate; one of our most requested cake flavours. It’s a lovely soft Belgian chocolate cake filled and crumb coated with silky Belgian chocolate buttercream! The wonderfully tempting smell sure did fill the kitchen and studio a treat! It was then iced with hand-tinted pale shade of juniper green before we added the sweet vintage-inspired royal icing swiss dots around the sides.

Edible fondant kittens by Juniper Cakery

Adorably sweet kitten themed cake by Juniper Cakery

As for the edible kittens, we created each one with a large ball of gum paste for the head and a smaller more tapered shape for the body before details like the indented floral wire whiskers and blossom dust blushed cheeks were added. These feline friends were prepared a day in advance to allow them to set before we got to arrange them on the cake and decorated board!

Kitten and cat inspired cake by Juniper Cakery

Cake with gum paste kittens by Juniper Cakery

A monogram feature was requested at a later stage  which we thought was a fabulous idea. It’s a great way to personalise a cake whilst being elegant. We proposed hand painting the ‘A’ in gold and nestling the fondant ‘cabochon’ inside a ornate gilded fondant frame. We thought that including a touch of gold would help bring the monogram feature a little focus of its own!

Cute kitten themed cake with monogram by Juniper Cakery

Whilst this was a fairly simple cake it’s made that little bit more chic with the vintage styling and adorably cute kitten theme. The little figures add height and dimension to a single tier; plus including quite a few of the characters is a little less static than just one lonely figure placed in the centre. 

Creating and assembling the kittens did give a fair few ideas of costumed cat cakes… Walking Dead kittens with Daryl’s somewhat emo hair or Michonne and her sword perhaps? Possibly even a crazy Twin Peaks cat themed design; que the red check lumberjack shirts, Nadine’s eye patch and of course…log lady too! It may be good that we’re too busy to re-create these ideas for ourselves.

 

Peony Ruffle Wedding Cake with Gold Sequins!

We get excited about all of the cakes we get asked to create, but every so often there’s a cake that comes along that we just can’t get enough off. This wonderfully decadent peony ruffle wedding cake is one of those cakes. It incorporates nature (and lots of lovely green sugar leaves), glistening gold painted edible sequins, textured ruffles and a bit of a carefree feel too!

Gold sequin and pink ruffle peony wedding cake by Juniper Cakery

For this cake the couple weren’t too sure of what they wanted. They knew they’d like a bright and glamorous look with gold sequins to match their venue’s golden table runners and had spotted the trend of gold painted sequin cakes bursting out of the pages of Pinterest. In terms of wedding theme they had opted for a minimal white and gold look with pale floral centerpieces filled with water and gold confetti to tie everything together.

At the consultation we took note of their colour palette and made a few quick sketches and suggestions before a few final details were settled upon fairly quickly. They decided upon a four tiered circle cake with gold sequins and a pale blush pink and white sugar floral bouquet on top. With these ideas in mind we sketched more ideas afterwards and sent them to the couple who quickly picked out the peony ruffled cake with toppled gold sequins and simple yet large open peony arrangement!

Pretty peony wedding cake by Juniper Cakery

To make the wired open peonies we began with gum paste pistils with a full arrangement of dusted medium sized stamens before creating a total of 60 ruffled sugar petals (20 petals per flower) that would surround the centres. For peony leaves we like to create several long slender pieces that get grouped into threes and taped together before they then are attached to the base of the flower so that the natural greens poke out from underneath each bloom.

Peony Ruffle Wedding Cake florals by Juniper Cakery

Our design for the floral cake topper focused on a lovely crescent formation. It helps that there is two of us as this part involves a lot of holding bundles of sugar flowers in position and standing back a good few metres to judge if it’ll work or not. One of our favourite things to do when arranging sugar flowers on a cake is to extend the bouquet out a little further using leaves, blossoms or berries. This helps create a sense of drama and also makes the end design look a little gravity defying!

Luxurious pink and gold peony wedding cake by Juniper Cakery

Simple white frosted berries with moss green and terracotta dusted sugar blackberry leaves were added to incorporate a little interest as well as to extend the arrangement and fill in some gaps.

Creating and utilising gum paste or modelling paste berries is one of our most favourite design elements to include on our cakes. We absolutely love nature; so much so that we named our bakery after our favourite berry. Krystle, in fact, was considering studying Forestry at university before heading off into the wilderness of Canada to live in a log cabin surrounded by herbs, mushrooms and moose.

Gilded sequin wedding cake with sugar peonies by Juniper Cakery

Lovely sweet peony wedding cake by Juniper Cakery

To balance out the bottom half of the cake with the voluminous florals we created a wonderfully carefree toppled gold sequin effect that revealed a traditional white wedding cake tier before the tier below bursts into pretty blush pink fondant ruffles! Adding edible frills to a cake not only incorporates wonderful texture, but helps make the design look fuller and grander. It’s perfect for small and large cakes too.

Pretty peony wedding cake by Juniper Cakery

What a delight this wedding cake was for us to design and create! We do admit that we wish it was still in our studio so we could still admire it.  

 

Vintage Prom Dress Bridal Shower Cookies!

Here are some vintage prom dress bridal shower cookies we created recently. We were asked to create some spring and early 1960s-inspired sugar cookies perfect for a vintage prom themed bridal shower and these lovely treats were the result. 

Bridal Shower Cookies by Juniper Cakery

The client wanted bright pastels and some fashion details included on each cookie along with three different designs to represent the two bridesmaids and the one bride. One of the first decisions was to make each cookie a different colour instead of creating the same base colour but with different detailing. Looking at the customer’s inspiration board on Pinterest we selected a fresh scheme of pale pinks, white, lilac and a faded Tiffany blue - perfect for spring and the early 1960s!

Vintage prom dress bridal shower cookies by Juniper Cakery

Quick sketches were made of each dress with ideas and notes on textures, colours, materials and design elements. For the bridal dress we added simple royal icing swiss dots, a pearl border to trim the bust and a lovely pink grosgrain ribbon bow. Each of the bridesmaids dresses featuring a pale base colour in flooded royal icing. We added tiny blossoms to the pink that were delicately thinned given a little dimension before being finished with a small sugar pearl inside each. The pale Tiffany blue cookie had simple brush embroidery style teardrops trimming the bust and hem of the dress before being finished with a grosgrain lilac ribbon bow!

 

Baby Shower Carousel Cupcakes!

Sometimes a fabulous idea comes from something relatively simple and everyday… like retro style paper straws! We were recently asked to create some pink, white and gold carousel themed cupcakes for a sweet baby shower. Originally, the customer wanted some flat decorated cupcakes, but after testing out some ideas using pink and white striped party straws we proposed a rather cute carousel-inspired idea!

Baby shower cupcakes with carousel horses by Juniper Cakery

Each cupcake for the baby shower was our delightfully fragrant Strawberry Milkshake flavour - soft Madagascan vanilla cake topped with a soft pink swirl of Strawberry and vanilla infused buttercream! We sprinkled each with tiny sugar pearls before each treat was then transformed with pretty carousel horses!

Strawberry Milkshake Cupcake by Juniper Cakery

As the horses and their pink and white striped poles were the main focus we decided to keep the actual cupcakes simple and relatively unfussy. We swapped our usual plain round piping tip for a closed star tip to create the pretty ruffled effect. This added a lovely element of texture and softness to each.

Strawberry carousel cupcake by Juniper Cakery

Carousel Cupcake by Juniper Cakery in Anlaby, Hull

Each carousel cupcake featured a galloping merry-go-round horse attached to a striped pole tipped with a golden ball. We created the horses using modelling paste and once set they were attached to strong pink and white retro-style paper straws with white chocolate before being painted with edible gold and finished with a gold painted balls on top.

Once finished these carousel cupcakes were then boxed up in an extended cake box before making their way to be enjoyed at a wonderfully vintage themed baby shower in Anlaby!

 

Hand-Painted Rifle Paper co. Inspired Wedding Cake!

We love small cakes just as much as towering designs. If there’s one thing we’ve always said it’s that single tier cakes can be just as eye-catching as multi-tier creations. Last weekend we created this hand-painted cake for a wonderfully intimate wedding reception. 

Rifle Paper Co. inspired cake by Juniper Cakery

The cake itself was our delightfully refreshing and fun lemonade cake with Sicilian lemon oil infused cake filled with Sicilian lemon and lemon sherbet buttercream - one of our most popular flavours for wedding cakes! It’s them crumb coated and iced with marshmallow fondant.

Pretty hand-painted birthday cake by Juniper Cakery

The couple requested bold illustrative florals incorporating striking blush and black anemone flowers, but also wanted a more pretty and rustic inspired colour palette. As their wedding them was generally white on white with hints of blush pink and gold we had a little room to play with! We created different colour palettes first to look at how other colours would work with white, pale pink and gold before sourcing some floral illustrations and paintings to see which the couple preferred. 

For the floral style the couple choose some of the Rifle Paper Co. designs we showed them which incorporates, simplified colour schemes, bold strokes and shapes, and illustrative details. We then sat and sketched out a few pattern and motif ideas with the chosen colour palette before the cake was even baked!

Rifle Paper co. themed cake by juniper Cakery

Monograms are very on-trend at the moment in the cake world - not just for beautiful wedding cakes. We created an ornate gold-painted frame for the front of the cake before adding a blank fondant insert on which to carefully hand-painted the required letter.

Hand painted floral wedding cake by Juniper Cakery

Small hand-painted anemone wedding cake by Juniper Cakery

Finally a lovely large organza bow was tied around the cake’s base which adding a little dimension and drama. So that the cake wasn’t over powered by the ribbon we selected a crisp white sheer ribbon and positioned it to the side for a more carefree look.

Painted anemone floral wedding cake by Juniper Cakery

Hand-painted cakes are a wonderful way to incorporate a certain motif or colour palette to a cake. It also helps tie in a themed party or wedding really well.  

 

Vintage Teapot Cookies with Polka Dots and Gold Accents!

Vintage is always a wonderfully popular theme for weddings, parties and afternoon tea get-togethers. We created these gorgeously sweet and fun vintage teapot cookies inspired by retro designs for an afternoon tea wedding reception recently. They were such a pleasure for us to make and just because we’re generous you can even head over to the Craftsy.com blog for our full tutorial on how to re-create these pretty treats yourself!

Vintage teapot cookies

Vintage teapot cookies by Juniper Cakery

These sugar cookies were a lovely and fragrant Sicilian lemon oil infused batch which, of course, made the kitchen small incredible! We added a hint of natural lemon extract to the royal icing also just to accentuate the citrus scent and flavour.

Sweet vintage teapot cookies by Juniper Cakery

For these lovely cookies we were asked to create wedding favours that reflected the couple’s fun afternoon tea themed reception which included toasted scones, light colours, polka dots, pots of tea, fresh flowers, finger sandwiches and vintage teapot centre pieces.

We were a little inspired by our favourite Wedgwood teapot that features in the photographs alongside our cookies. It was perfect - a clean and simple yet retro-style design, gold accents and spring-like colours.

Vintage teapot wedding cookies by Juniper Cakery

 

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