Minnie & Mickey Birthday Cakes

It's been a few months since I properly decorated a cake but I've been getting back into the swing of things this week with these cute Minnie and Mickey Mouse cakes. They were for a joint third birthday party for a boy and a girl.

I've described the method previously for similar stacked cakes so I'll just give a brief overview of how they were made. I started with two slabs of cake and cut around the cake board to give three circles of cake for each of the individual cakes. These three layers were then stacked on each of the cake boards and sandwiched with buttercream and raspberry jam before crumb coating the outside and placing in the fridge, for half an hour or so, to firm up ready for the sugarpaste covering.

 

Each cake is made up of a 7 inch cake on top of a 9 inch and the board at the bottom is 12 inches. In order to support the top cake and stop it sinking into the cake below, there are three dowels in each of the bottom cakes. The board was covered in icing separately to the 9 inch cake sitting on it, the cake went on first and then the board was iced around it.

 

The little Minnies and Mickeys around the bottom tier of the cake were cut out using a sugarpaste cutter that I found on amazon. They are cut  out of black flower paste which is stronger than sugarpaste and can therefore be rolled more thinly. Mickey was then finished with a bow tie and Minnie with the bow in her hair, these were again made out of white flower paste that I coloured up. They're stuck on with royal icing and then Minnie's bow was finished with small piped dots of royal icing.

Normally for a birthday cake I might personalise it with a name around the cake board at the bottom  with the letters being cut out with tappits but I thought that with everything else going on this might look a bit crowded. So I opted for a simple initial on the top of each cake which I was very pleased with as when I added them it just finished off the cakes! 

Finally, for the bows and ears on top I used flower paste again. I cut out the ears using a circle cutter and made the bow out of three separate pieces of paste. Two to make the side loops and one to wrap around the middle. The bow is stuck together using edible glue. All these pieces were left to harden overnight before being attached with royal icing. Here is a bow tutorial from the food network using only two separate pieces of paste which is good for smaller bows. The demo uses sugarpaste which is useful if you just want your bow to sit flat on top of a cupcake for example, but for all other bows where you want it to sit up with a bit of shape or you want to stick it on the side of a cake, you'd have to use flowerpaste. To keep the shape of the bow whilst it's drying you can also roll up some kitchen paper and pop it through each loop until it's set.

I was pleased with the finish cakes but had to brave the elements this weekend to deliver them which is never ideal!

 

The inspiration for the design came from Byrdie Girl Custom Cakes, although there seems to be many similarly designed cakes online.

Johnnie Walker Whiskey Bottle Cake

It's been a quiet few weeks on the blogging front but I've finally made it to my holidays and as if by magic the sun has even started shining. Now I've got a bit more time on my hands I've got a little list of recipes to work through!!!

This Johnnie Walker whiskey bottle cake was first on the list. Made for a 36th birthday with the recipient obviously being a fan of this type of whiskey.

The production of the cake went fairly well. I started by cutting out a card template of a bottle, there are three layers of cake and the shape was cut out of a large cake slab. It's a lemon cake with lemon sugar syrup, lemon buttercream and lemon curd...it was nice and zingy!

The cake was covered in teddy bear brown sugarpaste and to give it a glassy finish, it is painted with confectioners glaze which gives it the shiny effect. The biggest problem with this cake was the pesky black board covering. If anyone has ever used black sugarpaste you'll know what I mean...you end up with black everywhere. Normally when I make cakes I cover the board around the cake once it's in place but I ended up getting black on my whiskey bottle and it wasn't behaving, so I had to resort to covering the board completely before placing the bottle on top. The only problem with this, was rough edges around the bottle, so unfortunately I had to add a ribbon around the bottle which normally wouldn't be there but it doesn't look too bad.

The bottle labels are great, they're printed with edible ink onto rice paper. They can easily be attached by brushing a little water on the back. Edible images are not cheap, about £10 per A4 sheet but they give a great finish and the effect is a lot easier than attempting to pipe the labels!! You can just make out that the label has a little bit of personalisation, the black label whiskey is normally 12 years aged but this special bottle was 36 years aged! The finishing touch was the message on the board which was made with Tappits which were then stuck on with a little edible glue.

Upon completion the cake was appreciated and the sun even shined on the birthday BBQ!

How about Painting on your Cakes...

Fed up of fiddling with flowerpaste or wrestling with piping bags? The solution...painting your designs directly onto your iced cake!

I recently attended my first class at Pretty Witty Cakes in East Sussex, it was a cake painting class taught by Natasha Collins. You may well have visited her blog Amelie's House and seen her amazing work. She's very talented and paints the most amazing cakes. She also runs Nevie-Pie Cakes where you can buy one of her works of art.

It was a really interesting day as I haven't really painted on cakes much, although I did give it a go a few weeks ago with my Russian Doll Cakes. However, the Russian dolls were more a case of filling in blocks of colour and didn't really require much artistic talent.

On the day of the class Natasha took us through step by step, showing us how to create our flowery cakes. We mainly concentrated on painting dog roses and daisies. To make up the 'paint' is quite simple, it's just boiled water and paste colouring, we used sugarflair colours which are really the best available. Previously when I've mixed up colours I've used alcohol dipping solution which also works well.

The secret to creating effective designs is to add depth by using lighter and darker shades. The good news is, you can also erase mistakes by adding water to the area with your brush.

We started the day by painting some cupcake toppers, which were little circles of paste dried overnight leaving them ready to paint on the next day. These were for practise before we moved onto our big dummy cake. The first thing was to mark out the rough area where our flowers would go in order to make sure they were properly spaced.

To start with painting can be a little frustrating and we were all rather critical of our work but when you step back and look at the finished article as a whole it really does look effective. I didn't quite master the depth of colour but it wasn't a bad start.

Natasha uses a variety of sources for her inspiration, however one of which was a book called The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady which you can on amazon for £2.49 or you can buy it used for 1p plus postage! I may well order a copy so I can get practising my painting skills.

As I mentioned this was my first time at Pretty Witty Cakes, the classes are run by Suzi and they're hosted in her home in the 'Pretty Witty Workshop'. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming and there's even a little shop...I can never resist a few sneaky purchases! I think in the future I'd definitely consider another of the Pretty Witty courses...there are plenty to choose from.

I learnt a lot on the day and will find an opportunity in the future to use my new found skills. I would say that it obviously does help if you're artistic, which I'm not particularly, but either way you'll come away with a cake to be proud of!

Regal Jubilee Crown Cake

Well it's only two weeks until the Queen's Jubilee and I for one can't wait for a right royal knees up! Even if you're not a Royalist, it's a good opportunity for a get together. So to celebrate Her Majesty's 60 years on the throne I thought it would be appropriate to celebrate with a Jubilee themed cake.

The cake design is by Fiona Cairns, who made the Royal wedding cake no less. I just happened to see it online a couple of weeks ago and decided that I'd like to give it a go...possibly a bit gungho at that point!

So how is was it made? Well firstly the cake inside is made up of four 8" Victoria sponge layers, sandwiched together with buttercream and raspberry jam. The stack was then chilled to make it a bit firmer for carving. The top edges were carved to give a smooth curve and then the cake was tapered down to a 6" cake drum.

I love the colour of the sugarpaste for this cake,  Renshaw's amethyst paste...and it's the perfect colour to add a regal touch to the crown. To create the gold strips, it is just sugarpaste painted with a mixture of edible gold dust and dipping solution (alcohol). However, to make the ball and cross, I mixed the sugarpaste with some CMC the night before to make it really firm, otherwise the cross wouldn't stay up there on it's own.

To add the finishing touches, a 'fur' trim was created around the base...this is made out of priceless Fox's glacier mints, which were given an almight bash with a rolling pin...it's actually harder than you think to break a Fox's glacier mint! Then the little pearls were stuck on with royal icing, as were the jelly diamonds...I may have been a little cross-eyed after all that sticking! But the result...a crown fit for the Queen!

This month Homemade by Fleur is hosting a Blogging Jubilee Baking Competition so I think this is the perfect entry, what says Jubilee better than a Coronation crown. The competition is sponsored by Appliances Online.

Today is also World Baking Day and I couldn't resist joining in with a little 'Caking'. Check out the World Baking Day website if you want to find out more but it involved me taking my cake for a little walk and taking a picture of it in an unusual place! Here is the result, it drew more than a couple of strange looks from passersbys but the Royal Mail postbox goes perfectly with the Royal cake!

I hope you enjoy your Jubilee celebrations...God Save the Queen!

Three Tier Multi-Colour Macaroon Cake

If you have a friend or family member who likes cake but who also likes macaroons and you can't decide which to make them...why not give them both in this three tier multi-colour macaroon cake. You can choose any colour of macaroon you like, I quite fancy making another one with a rainbow of macaroons and it looks quite impressive without being too difficult!

This cake is based on a design by the cake decorator Zoe Clark, she made hers with 4 tiers and with a slightly different shade of yellowy/peach on the extra tier.

To make the macaroons I used the Italian meringue method, which I have been reliably informed is the best method. The first batch I made were the pink ones, I think the egg whites may have been slightly overbeaten in this batch as the mixture was very stiff and I couldn't get rid of the peaks. However, with a bit of practice the peach and yellow macaroons came out a lot better. You can find recipes for macaroons on the internet and in many recipe books but here are my top tips for macaroon making.

Top tips for making macaroons:

1. When heating your sugar and water make sure you use a heavy based saucepan and have a thermometre on hand as the temperatures need to be very precise.
2. Mark out circles on your greaseproof paper using a circular cutter as a guide to give your macaroons a uniform size. Don't forget to turn your paper over to use it, otherwise the pencil will come off on the macaroons!
3. To pipe, don't try to go round in a circle. Just hold the nozzle still and pipe, the shape will form on it's own. When you reach the edges of your circle template, stop putting pressure on the piping bag and quickly swirl the nozzle to avoid a peak. This can be achieved with a flick of the wrist.
4. When you have finished piping your macaroons, tap the tray on the counter top to get rid of any ridges or peaks.
5. Once piped, leave your macaroons for around 30 minutes before putting them in the oven. They should form a skin over the top.
6. Finally, whilst cooking your macaroon should grow in size and a little foot should develop around the base of each macaroon as you can see above.

Rhubarb & Custard Cake: Simple & in Season Blog Event

I've had my eye on this recipe for a while and then I happened to see the Simple and in Season monthly challenge hosted by Fabulicious Food. As it says on the blog 'all you have to do is come up with a dish using any seasonal produce you like (savoury or sweet)'.

Fortunately, this challenge coincides with the start of the forced rhubarb season. So I purchased my British rhubarb fresh from the Rhubarb Triangle in Yorkshire and proceeded to make my rhubarb and custard cake.

So, how did it taste? Well it tasted pretty good but I think if I were to make it again I'd want to make a few modifications. Firstly, it was a little dry and the cake mix was fairly dry to start so maybe next time I might loosen it a bit before putting it in the tin. It also seemed to be cooked in about an hour, so I might take it out earlier.

My final modification would be to add more of the star ingredient, rhubarb. In the cookbook the finished product had rhubarb that seemed to meet in the middle of the cake but I'm not really sure how it all fitted in there, when I tried there was no room in the pan so I had to cut the stalks shorter. I didn't use nearly as much as the recipe suggested! I might also try experimenting with putting an extra rhubarb layer on top of the custard...not sure if this would work or not! Anyone any thoughts on any of these modifications or any other suggestions?

Overall though, the rhubarb itself was amazingly tasty, in season and homegrown... why not join in with next month's simple and seasonal!

Ingredients

• 200g butter, softened
• 110g caster sugar
• 185g self-raising flour
• 40g custard powder
• 4 stalks of rhubarb, sliced lengthways and cut into 10cm lengths
• 20g butter, melted
• 2 tsp caster sugar

Custard

• 2 tbsp custard powder
• 55g caster sugar
• 250ml milk
• 20g butter
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Firstly, start off by making the custard by placing the custard powder and sugar in a small saucepan. Gradually add in the milk and blend in to avoid lumps. Then put on the heat and stir until the mixture boils and thickens. Take it off the heat, it is important to put clingfilm over it at this point to avoid a skin forming. Leave to cool.

Preheat the oven at 180c/160c fan and then grease a 20cm cake tin and line the base with baking paper. Combine the softened butter and sugar in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs in one at a time before sifting the flour and custard powder over the top and stirring in.

Put half of the mixture into the cake tin and spread evenly. On top of this spread the custard mixture before dolloping the remaining cake mixture on top and spreading carefully with a spatula. Finally, place the rhubard in a circle on the top and brush with melted butter and sprinkle with the 2 teaspoons of caster sugar. Cook for 1 1/4 hours and then cool in the tin.

Bonfire Night Cake...

I made this Spiced Toffee Apple Cake for Bonfire night...and it was the perfect combination...fireworks and a lovely spicy, toffee covered cake. The recipe is below, the original was in the BBC Goodfood magazine last month. I followed the recipe with no problems but it seemed to cook a little quicker than anticipated and the apples started to catch on top so I covered it in foil for the last 10 minutes. I also added rather more toffee sauce than suggested...you can never have too much!! A slice of this would be perfect with a cup of tea of an afternoon.

200g dates, chopped

200ml milk

250g butter, softened

280g self-raising flour

200g light soft brown sugar

½ tsp baking powder

4 large eggs

1 tbsp mixed spice

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 small red apples

Lemon juice

Toffees

Icing sugar

Line a 20x30cm tin with greaseproof paper and heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.

Put the dates and milk in a saucepan and bring to a simmer and then set aside for 15 minutes to cool. Once cool put the mixture in a food processor and whizz until smooth. Then put the mixture in a bowl and add the butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, mixed spice and vanilla extract.

Then thinly slice the apples and toss in apple juice.  Beat the cake mixture together with an electric whisk and then pour into the prepared tin, before arranging the apples in three rows. The cake should then be cooked for 45-50 minutes. Once cooked, put to one side and cool in the tray. Finally, melt the toffees in a small saucepan with a splash of milk until they melt down to a smooth sauce. Then to finish off, dust the cake with the icing sugar and then drizzle over the toffee sauce. Then enjoy!