Minnie Mouse Cake

A friend from work asked me to make a birthday cake for her 2 year old daughter. I was worried I didn’t have time to make the cake while I had to spend time with my own daughter. After I looked at the picture of the cake she found on the internet I happily accept the order. It is a simple but eye-catching design. Especially I love the contrast of the colour!

I bought the black fondant from the shop because I know it is very hard to achieve the deep dark colour. I tried to save money so I decided to colour the white fondant in red myself (white fondant is cheaper than the coloured fondant). I underestimated the difficulty of achieving the rich red colour. I have almost used half bottle of red food colouring plus plenty of pink food colouring. I am happy I have got the colour right at the end, however timewise it wasn’t a smart move – lesson learnt!

In the end I was excited about the cake – simplily cute! By the way it was a chocolate cake with butter cream icing inside. My colleague told me the cake was exactly what she imagined!

Rainbow birthday cake

I have been looking forward to making the first birthday cake for my daughter for a year! We are here not just to celebrate Ellie’s birthday but also to celebrate we as a family have survived for a year – the toughest year ever! Watching her growing and blossoming, my heart is filled with unspeakable joy. I hope she is healthy and happy throughout the year, her life is as colorful as the rainbow! 🙂

I made a 6 inch vanilla chiffon cake, covered with buttercream and sprinkles. It was done in a rush, the decoration could have been done better (tried to get the cake ready and light the candle before she went to bed). Anyway there was no complaint from her, haha. I believe she had a good time on her birthday, that is all that matters. 🙂

Frozen birthday cake

Since the movie Frozen was released, Elsa became the most popular princess character in the world. I wasn’t surprised when I was asked to make a pink Frozen birthday cake.

I haven’t done cake decorating for almost two years, so I was worried I would forget how to do it. It turned out ok and I didn’t forget everything. However it is my first time to make a human figurine and I am not happy about it. This Elsa looks a bit odd – out of proportion! 😦 I didn’t have time to make it again  because I only had time after my daughter went to bed at night). Luckily the 4 year old birthday girl wasn’t picky. She loved the cake! 🙂

I am glad this cake gave me a chance to start my hobby again. Hopefully I can do more as my daughter is older. I am looking forward to making her 1st birthday cake! 🙂 🙂

Pink booties baby shower cake

I have never had a chance to make a girly cake before. When I was asked to make a girl themed baby shower cake I was excited. I decided to make it girly yet elegant, simple yet sophisticated. Nothing will be more girly than using bows and lace on the cake, so here it is! I had lots of trouble of making the edible lace. It took me a few days to finish as it required a long drying time.

Hope the mother-to-be like this pretty cake! 🙂

Airplane cupcakes

Yesterday was my colleague’s last day at work. Cass is going to the flight school to pursue her dream as a pilot. Good on her! It needs a lot of encouragement to change your career path and follow your own dream. I really appreciate what she is doing so I made some airplane themed cupcakes for her farewell.

These were chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream. Cupcake toppers were made of fondant. They disappeared so fast that I didn’t even get a chance to have one! I took it as a compliment 🙂

Birds baby shower cake

My last baby shower cake left a big impression on the ladies at work. A few people have asked me to make cakes for them. Here is my 2nd baby shower cake. A lady at work ordered it for her best friend’s baby shower. This time it is for twins whose genders are unknown yet – exciting!

This cake was inspired by Scrumptious. I incorporated the traditional pink and blue and some neutral color – yellow and red. I loved the flowers and butterflies. They were easy to make and look pretty!

I hope the mother-to-be like the cake!

Birds baby shower cake

Butterflies and flowers

 

Baby shower cake

It was my first time to go to a baby shower and my first time to make a baby shower cake, how exciting! The cake was for my lovely colleague, she is having a baby boy so the theme color was blue.

It was a four-layer lemon & poppy seeds cake, covered with buttercream and fondant. I was inspired by the baby shower invitation, so I made the baby cloth lines on the side of the cake. The bear was made of fondant. Perhaps I am bias it was the cutest thing I have ever made. 🙂

It was a wonderful baby shower, lots of presents, fun and love. The-mother-to-be really loved my cake (maybe the baby too 😛 ). All the best to her and the baby!!!

Baby shower cake

Baby cloth lines

Game of Thrones cake

This weekend was a friend’s wedding. I made him a groom’s cake as a gift. Nick and his wife Helen both are fans of the TV series – Game of Thrones, so am I. The idea was from the bride and I thought it would be fun to make, so here it came out like this. This cake took me about 15 hours to complete. It was the most difficult cake I have made so far, also it was my first two tiers cake!

Honestly there were lot of things could be better. The fondant work wasn’t great. I think it was because I rolled the fondant out too thin, it cracked and tore off. I had to change the design a little bit to cover the holes. Overall it had wow factor and I was happy with the result. The groom was truly amazed! 🙂

If you have watched the TV series, I hope you like it too. If you haven’t watched it, then go to get it (I can’t recommend more)!

Game of Throne cake

Sword cake topper

Weird wood and house shield

Cake pops

If you read my previous blog you know I made some cake pops for Felix and Pixel (my nephew-in-law and niece-in-law) on Christmas. We were invited to Felix’s three-year-old birthday party last week. My brother-in-law emailed us and said “by the way your cake pops are Felix’s favorite food now. I’m not hinting that you should make more but we use them as toilet training”. Haha, I totally got his ‘subtle’ hint therefore I made more for his birthday!

Cake pops were first introduced to me by Bakerella. Her cake pops looked perfect! Also I found this step by step tutorial quite useful. The hardest part for me is to make a perfect round ball, which I still haven’t achieved yet! Melting the candy melt in a right consistency is very important too. If it is too thick it can’t coat the cake balls evenly. A helpful tip is to add some vegetable shortening into the candy melt.

I am not telling you how to make cake pops here but I want to share an idea of presenting the cake pops. I have seen Miss Melicious using a flower pot to present cupcakes before. The cupcakes were decorated like flowers coming out from the pot. I stole her idea for my cake pops – are they lovely? 🙂

You need:

1 polystyrene ball (can find in a craft store)
1 flower pot that can fit the polystyrene ball in
Wrapping tissue
Green confetti

1. Wrap the polystyrene ball with wrapping tissue.
2.  1/3 to 1/2 of the polystyrene ball should be sticking out of the flower pot but I couldn’t find a perfect matching one, so I put some confetti at the bottom of the flower pot to raise the polystyrene ball up.
3. Use glue or double-sided tapes to stick the confetti on top of the polystyrene ball, so they look like leave or grass.
4. Last but not least, push the cake pop sticks into the polystyrene ball.

Cake pops on a flower pot

Cake pops close up

Richard’s soccer cake

I have made a soccer theme cake again! But this time it was in a larger scale. The story was Richard at my work is retiring, so the office manage approached me to see if I was interested in making a cake for his farewell party. Surely I was up for the challenge. Richard’s favorite soccer team is Manchester United. Therefore they wanted me to make a soccer field cake with a soccer ball and a soccer team on top. The soccer team was stored bought – non eatable.

I have spent a lot of time on this cake, especially the painted MU logo. I was relieved when I finally put everything together. It was a three-layer chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache, covered with fondant. The logo, soccer ball and T-shirt were made of fondant. The soccer field was piped by royal icing. His name was made of chocolate. This cake was many firsts for me: my first big scale cake (350mm x 240mm); my first cake was eaten by 50 people, my first cake was created on demand.

In the farewell party I received many thanks from the manager and Richard’s wife, what an honour! It was the best reward to see the joy on their faces. 🙂

Richard’s soccer cake

Manchester United logo

T-shirt and soccer ball