Sharky Birthday Cake

This birthday cake is for a friend at work who has a thing for sharks! I used white and blue butter icing to create a marble, ocean effect. The fish and reeds around the edge are cut out using cutters. Its a good idea to dust them with corn flour each time you cut, so the royal icing falls out. The shark fins are cut using a home made stencil. I've also dusted the fish with edible glitter so they glimmer as if under water. 

Rose Water Cake

This three tiered rose water cake was a great fun to make! Rose water butter icing separates each layer. I then coloured the remaining butter cream with three different colours. 

Using the 1M piping nozzle, you can create these beautiful roses, start in the middle and pipe around in a circle. I brought disspsable piping bags from Amazon, they work out more expensive, but  I think its worth it, I find you can never wash a piping bag enough that it doesn't smell!

strawberry cheesecake cupcakes

classic vanilla

lemon meringue cupcakes

I love these lemon meringue cupcakes with lemon curd in the centre! I used the Hummingbird Bakery Recipe which explains it well although its quite vague around the meringue part. Its important you have a digital sugar thermometer so you can ensure the sugar doesn't get too hot, and make sure you don't over whisk the egg whites, I'm still perfecting this technique! 

the day of the daffodils

It seemed like a good idea at the time…300 cupcakes for a charity fundraiser at work! I don’t think I appreciated how many cupcakes that was! So they weren’t all the same, I made 180 plain vanilla cupcakes, and 120 lemon cupcakes filled with lemon curd, and topped with lemon icing. As daunting as this task was, it really was a lot of fun! The decorating took the most time, icing each cake, cutting out the individual flowers, painting the sunflowers, and making the daffodils, and of course adding the glitter! Luckily I had friends who came round to help out, although maybe it was to be quality control!

And all this goes into making 300 cupcakes!

the kitchenaid wins

Cooking hasn't been the same since I brought my new cream Kitchen aid! Whether you're making cupcakes, pastry, meringues or bread, it makes baking a lot easier...and a lot more fun! I thought for a long time whether to get this or a Kenwood, but they have the same specifications and are both SO heavy so it the end it came down to which one was going look better out on the worktop- and of course the Kitchen aid won!