Blue Daisy Cake

 Another perfect example of how one of our most popular cakes can be changed completely with something as simple as a change of ribbon colours and some very sparkly crystal encrusted cake toppers.

When I was delivering this cake this morning, the groom dressed in all his wedding finery spotted our van and came running over to introduce himself but more importantly to see the cake! The colour of his (and the other groomsmen's!) cravat(s) perfectly matched the royal blue ribbons which the cake is trimmed with.

When I arrived at the always gorgeous Thornton Manor, the cake table was dressed with photos and a guest book for people to sign. We finished the decoration off by sprinkling the crystals that Elizabeth had left for us around the cake.

 

 

Vanilla Champagne cake, Chocolate Baileys, Lemon and Boozy Fruit cake were the flavours of the day.

Spicy advert from a friend

I was looking for an advert that stood out and something that was is as unique to us as the cakes that we make. So I immediately thought of my lovely friend Mrs B from Chilliefish.co.uk. She creates all manner of special things from Birthday invitations to branding makeovers with new logos and since she designed our Brochures- see a previous post, I knew she'd do an amazing job. And I think she just about pulled it out of the bag... Only joking, she totally pulled it out of the bag!!

So here is our new ad which can be seen in County Brides magazine, Your Merseyside wedding magazine along with others to be confirmed soon.

 

 

We're so very happy with our new ad Lisa! Thank you again x

Ivory and Blackberry flowers

We have a cake in the showroom which is stark white with black flowers made by making individual petals by cutting out the shapes below and then working them into petals and then placing them into a flower formation.

 

 

The cake as nice as we think it is didn't receive much admiration from many people. Until we put it in pride of place right by the front door. Since then we have taken more orders for cakes like it than we ever did! And this little beauty is one of them. It is iced in a warming ivory colour instead of white and the flowers are also made in ivory. I love the way the flowers stand out even though they are made in the same colour as the background and that little bit of sparkle helps with that too.

 

Sometimes just a few little bits of sparkle is enough.

 

And what an absolutely beautiful day for a wedding! Helping to pick out the sparkle just right through the windows of the grand and beautiful Thornton Manor. 

The on the day wedding stationery from Dragonfly couture stationery which included an absolutely huge and truly beautiful table plan complimented this cake perfectly. 

What a perfect day for a wedding and what a wedding.

 

Delicate '50s monochrome

I love going back to see the cakes that I've made in the past and this is an old favourite of mine and a few years old now! I love the way this cake, even though it has the harsh colours of black and white is so delicate and is so completely softened by the scalloped edges along the top and bottom and the large sugar bow. Square cakes to me are more contemporary and this one certainly is although the dress that it was based on was a '50s style strapless dress (very similar to the dress below) with beautiful underskirt which is mimicked by the flowers underneath the scalloped edge.
 

I am planning to make this cake again in a different colour to see if it has the same affect that I am in love with. Possibly even replacing the bow with a large flower.  I will post pictures after it's completed to give a step by step guide.
In the meantime though, look out for our bow tutorial where we'll show step by step guide on how to make bows and ideas of cakes that can be made with these bows. Ideas are forming in my mind already!!

 

Lamb cake in six easy steps!

Sometimes having the perfect cake tin for baking your vision is not possible. And most of the time the best thing to do is bake two or more round cakes and carve them out by hand. That's also how we made the chainsaw, landrover and artic generic red Christmas truck (which can be seen on our Facebook page) and actually everything shaped was carved by hand and using no moulds.

So we started this cake with 4 x 8" round cakes. And took a knife to them.

The body is starting to take shape, we kept on building with strawberry preserve and buttercream adding legs and then more body and head.

The whole cake was then covered with buttercream.

Next was the task of icing the cake. We decided to cover the legs separately which we've actually never done before but since the back of the cake was going to be covered completely with white fluffy royal icing and the legs needed to be less so, it didn't matter that the whole cake wasn't covered first.

The ears were made a few days before with SFP so that they could set hard and stick up at the sides of the lambs head. We think it looks quite cute sitting in it's grass full of daisies and holding the girls age and name in it's mouth. 

 

 

Thank you for our thank yous!

We really do appreciate every single thank you card and email that we have ever received. I felt like I had to share a small sample of some of them and if you look closely, you can even see some cakes. I love the way the rose cake had photographs of family weddings surrounding it. Absolutely perfect touch.

Step by step Pansy making

 This last month all we have been thinking about is pansies. And pansy making and a pansy cake. So while making the pansies I took pictures at different stages to show the path from a rolled out piece of icing to a full wedding cake. So I looked through many of the books that we have here in the showroom to find a good pansy instruction and failed to find what I needed. Most called for wiring the icing which I didn't want.  I wanted these flowers to be stuck on the cake with no protruding pansies or petals. A lot of the instructions also called for a cutter which I didn't have. So, instead of looking at icing pansies, I searched pinterest and found some beautiful images of pansies and realised that the shape is a rather easy one to mimic. So using a petal cutter I got to work.

Icing is a very forgiving medium to work with and stretches a treat when worked properly. Believe it or not the five petals on the pansies are made using the exact same cutter.
We left the pansies to dry overnight and then got to work on painting them.

 

The last job was to add the black lines and the tiny dots in the centres of each pansy. The result is this pretty four tier cake. The vibrancy of the colours means that there doesn't need to be pansies on every inch of the cake. 

Pansy cake. Perfect for a Summer garden wedding.