Birthday Surprise!

It was my 27th birthday last week.  And I was so excited when I unwrapped this:

It's a circular saw!! I can't wait to give it a go.  There are so many times when I've battled with a hand saw, I'm hoping this makes things a heck of a lot easier.

Stay tuned to see how I get on with it!

Triathlon 30th Birthday Cake

I haven't been baking that much recently as I have been up to my eyeballs in radiators! It was the hubby's bithday while we were doing all the radiator replacements, but I did manage to knock him up a good old victoria sponge, with fresh cream, strawberries, and jam - yum!

A few weeks ago though, I was commissioned by one of his triathlon friends to make a surprise 30th birthday cake with a theme of triathlon.  So here was my plan of action:

The plan

I started with the figures as these would take the longest.  I used a fairly thick gauge wire, although in hindsight it was probably a bit too thick as it was soooo hard to bend.  Here is how I got on:

I used flower paste for the body of the runner but it was horrible to work with.  The rest of the models I just used regular sugarpaste and it worked just fine.

The cyclist taking shape

This was taken before his arms fell off!  I also needed to support the legs and feet with a wire ledge as they kept dropping off - but when the final cake was put together the glue had dried firm enough that I didn't need the extra support after all. Phew!

The runner needed extra support in the form of kebab sticks in his legs as the wire just wasn't cutting it.  I had also hoped he would look like he was actually still running, but I just couldn't get it to work.  Instead he is in his victory stance, standing with his arms up, having crossed the line!

The workspace

 I didn't have much time in the run up to when the cake needed to be done, so I bought in ready made cakes from Sweet Success in Nottingham.  Their cakes are lovely and so moist.  It's not the same as saying they are homemade, but when in a time crunch they are a great solution - and if I'm honest, they taste nicer than my bakes too!

This was the swimming cake and was a victoria sponge with jam and buttercream in the middle.  I wanted to emulate sand on the cake so I left an area without sugarpaste, but some soft buttercream on it, and then applied some crushed shortbread biscuits.  I actually had a piece of this cake at the party and the texture of the biscuit in the cake was just fab.

The swimmers in action.  I got fully briefed by my husband on where the arms should be, and was forced to watch lots of youtube videos about swimming technique.  And I still got it wrong apparently....

This was the runner, running along a trail path and over the finish line.  The candles were supposed to represent the banners along the finishing straight.

The runner from the back.  Note the number on his vest :) 

This was the cyclist on a smooth asphalt road - tri spoke on the front, disc on the rear.  My husband criticized me for the "relaxed geometry"of this one. But given how bloomin hard it is to model sugarpaste, I was jolly chuffed with this one!

Front view

The finished cake

With the birthday boy!

The swimmers were definitely most fun to do, and were actually pretty quick and easy to do.  The shortbread was fab too.

The runner and cyclist got a bit frustrating at times as they kept falling apart, but I was really really happy with the finished product.

To give an idea of costs, for 3 x 6" cakes, this cake cost approximately £55 in materials.  It's a lot more expensive to make cakes than most people think!

Minion Cake

Back to a bit of baking!

Back in April it was my husband’s birthday and whilst he was away on a cycling training weekend, I knocked him up a birthday cake – and not just any cake, a Minion cake :)

He is a massive kid at heart and absolutely adores Despicable Me.  He also loves dinosaurs so he thought he was getting a dinosaur cake – what a surprise he had in store!

I didn't have a recipe as such, I had just pinned a lot of pictures of minions and minion cakes on Pinterest, and hey off I went!

I wasn’t really sure of proportions so I kind of winged it as I went along, but I’m really really pleased with how it turned out.

In the end I made three 6” cakes.  One chocolate with chocolate buttercream, one lemon with lemon buttercream, and one vanilla sponge with jam and buttercream filling.

I cut the chocolate and vanilla cakes off level and rounded the top of the lemon one to make the top of the minions head.  I have no experience in sculpting cakes so I think this was a great gentle introduction.

I dowelled the bottom two tiers and put a cake card between the layers – the dowels probably weren’t necessary but no harm done.

I then stacked them up and covered the whole thing in buttercream.  The hardest part was getting the yellow layer on.  I admit I didn’t do it perfectly but it turned out ok.

For the rest of the minion I just kept going back to the pictures and building it up bit by bit.  Here was the step by step pictures:

I’ll admit, the cupcake I actually bought from Tesco. Shock horror!  I went to Tesco to get some ingredients for the cupcakes and saw it right there in the bakery aisle.  (This also was the weekend I did the Totoro wedding cake, and a lot of DIY, so please forgive my sins).

And the hubby loved it!

This was definitely my most favorite cake I have made to date.  I think because there was no pressure.  I hadn't had a brief so I could do what I wanted, and at the end of the day, no matter what it looked like, I knew he would have been chuffed just because it was home baked cake.