Adventure Time cake

Well this wasn't without it's mishaps. Maybe I shouldn't be spending my time pointing out what went wrong... but here goes.

I had issues covering the top tier, the fondant ripped in a few places and I had to do a bit of patch job. Lady Rainicorn broke slightly on getting moved (and was hastily glued back together), the boy broke the plaque with his name on it while attempting to play with it as it was drying (and I didn't have time to redo it), and poor Marceline the Vampire Queen didn't survive being transferred from the spot where she was drying onto the cake. She was beyond rescue, RIP Marceline.

All in all though I am very pleased, but most importantly the boy is thrilled with his birthday cake, and that is the most important thing. I really hope when he's older he bugs his wife by saying "my mammy made the best birthday cakes" (just as my husband did with me).

Happy birthday Ethan!

What time is it?

My baby boy turns five next week. Five! Where is the time going? It doesn't seem like that long ago since he made his debut appearance on my living room floor, or even that long since he kicked off my baking habit when I decided to try and make a Lego cake for him for his third birthday. He has very specific instructions about what he wants for his birthday cake this year (really shouldn't have let him take a poke around Pinterest for ideas).

This year he is all about Adventure Time (and so I am, I love Lumpy Space Princess). I've got six days to go until his party so I've started making cake toppers. This is my first attempt to do a standing fondant figure. I managed to find an excellent tutorial last night on making Woody from Toy Story, Woody of the spindly legs so I could apply that to Finn. Unfortunately the tutorial was in Spanish, but it had step by step photographs so I was able to work it out. It has involved the use of skewers and florist wire, so sadly Finn and his friends cannot be eaten, but the mammoth cake they will be plonked on should hopefully make up for that. So here's a sneak peek at a few of the characters I made last night.

Gunter, Flame Princess and Finn the human

I love Gunter. He is so cute, even if he is cold hearted and evil. 

Marceline the Vampire Queen & Jake the dog

Lady Rainicorn

Lumpy Space Princess

I'm doing a bit of guess work here with how to put this together, namely by pre-making Lady Rainicorn and allowing her to dry out on half a cake dummy the same size as my bottom tier. I hope when the time comes to actually put her on the cake that she doesn't break. My thinking behind doing it this way is that if she was freshly formed she'd be too soft to hold her shape when it came to placing her on the cake. I hope my logic isn't flawed...

Five days to go until the party and I still have a Princess Bubblegum, Beemo, Ice King and Peppermint Butler to make. I'm starting to run out of space to leave these things to dry.

UPDATE:

Well I am out of time and out of energy to do anything more so here are the final characters, Beemo and the Ice King. Guess this cake shall have to be Princess Bubblegum and Earl of Lemongrab-less (UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!)

I will post a picture of the completed cake on Saturday. 

Shoe Cake

So I recently had my first attempt at making a fondant shoe. I was attempting to recreate an Irregular Choice shoe (I love these shoes so much. I want a closet full of them!), well what with being a first attempt and all let's just say it was "inspired" by an Irregular Choice shoe.

There are a lot of tutorials available online to show you how to make a shoe out of gumpaste (or in my case a fondant tylo mix), and you can download templates that you cut out and use to get the shapes. I believe there is also a kit you can buy, but I wouldn't bother personally. I reckon you can do it with cardboard, clingfilm, a block of florists oasis (covered in tin foil or clingfilm), some skewers and a quilting tool. Also start well in advance of when you actually need it, as you need to give it all time to dry out so it doesn't fall apart on you.

I also attempted to do a quilting pattern on fondant for the first time. I'll admit I kind of messed that one up, the angle of my guide was too steep so I ended up with huge diamonds instead of the neat little ones I had been aiming for, but overall it doesn't ruin the look of the thing, it just didn't end up looking how I'd envisioned. But hey, you live and learn.

I covered in cake in Renshaws navy sugarpaste. I'm not sure if this is an issue specific to Renshaws but once the cake was covered the fondant got very wet and sticky. I did a bit of googling and it was suggested that it might be condensation because my cake had just come out of the fridge before it was covered. There are two ways to deal with this, one is to let the cake up to room temperature before covering (not a fan of this plan as I find them much easier to cover when the buttercream is cold and firm), I dealt with it the second way. I turned on a fan and sat it in front of the cake, I didn't touch it, but left it an hour or so until the condensation had evaporated and the fondant was dry enough to work with.

Well this is the result and I am quite happy with it for a first attempt. I'm certainly learning by doing!

Christening Cake

I really enjoyed making this cake, especially as I could do all the little fondant bits and pieces in advance so decorating the cake was the work of minutes (the time spent on making the fondant figures is another matter!). I have switched from tappits to clikstixs for lettering, but I'm still doing something wrong (fondant too thick or too thin?) I end up with some weird indenting on some letters. or maybe they are supposed to look that way?

Giant Chocolate Cupcake with Salted Caramel Buttercream & White Chocolate Ganache

This was another cake that I made just for the hell of it and to try. I got my dad to take some pictures for me, so it's much better than the ones I usually just snap with my phone.

See?

Ingredients:
4 Eggs (weigh them in shells)
Equal weight of sugar
Equal weight of butter
Equal weight of flour minus 40g
40g of cocoa powder
1 tsp of ground coffee powder

For Chocolate Shell:
200g of 74% cocoa plain chocolate

For the salted caramel buttercream:
3 tbsp of caramel sauce
125g of room temperature unsalted butter
300g of Icing Sugar
Pinch of maldon sea salt.

For the White Chocolate Ganache:
100ml of double cream
300g of good quality white chocolate

Pre-heat the oven to 170C. Grease a silicon giant cupcake mould.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix until combined. Sift in the flour, cocoa and coffee a little at a time and mix until just combined. Pour two thirds of the mixture in the cupcake base and the remaining third into the top. Place on a baking sheet and bake for around 25-35 minutes for the top, and 35-45 minutes for the base (it really depends on the size of your eggs and how much batter you have ended up with). It's done when an inserted skewer comes away cleanly. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for around 10 minutes in the cases before turning out.

Wash the base of the mould and dry thoroughly. Melt 100g of the dark chocolate in a bowl over simmering water (do not allow the water to touch the bowl). Paint the inside of the mould with the chocolate using a silicon pastry brush. Hold it up to the light to see any bits you have missed. Put in the fridge until it sets. Then repeat the process again with the other 100g.

Chop the white chocolate very finely and add to a pan with the double cream. Put it over a low heat and allow to melt. Mix with a rubber spatula until smooth. Decant into a bowl, cover and leave for a few hours to thicken.

To make the buttercream, beat the butter, sugar, and caramel sauce together. Add salt to taste.

When the case is set, very carefully peel back to release it from the mould. Place it back into the mould to assemble.

Level the cakes, and trim around 2cm from the sides of the bottom piece of the giant cupcake. Torte the bottom of the cupcake into two layers. Use a rubber spatula to coat the inside of the chocolate case with buttercream. Fill the bottom of the cupcake with buttercream and sandwich together, then pop inside the case. Then put another layer of buttercream on and place the top piece. Give that a light crumb coat of buttercream and then carefully peel back the silicon mould again to release the cake inside the case. Carefully move it a turntable.

When the ganache has reached the consistency of butter it's ready to use. Put in a piping bag and decorate the top of the cupcake however you like. Add any sweets or fondant decorations that you fancy. I made fondant flowers and painted the centres of them with metallic gold food paint.

Star burst birthday cake.

I really enjoyed making the stars on this cake, it was probably the only thing that was very straight forward. I had some issues with the top tier, not least the fact that my daughter stuck her thumb in the buttercream and didn't tell me until it had crusted. I tried adding more buttercream but when it came to putting the fondant on the buttercream was too thick and everything went horribly wrong.

I think I'm a little hormonal at the moment. I did a HULK SMASH! on the cake and hurled it across the table in frustration.

I decided then that I would make a white chocolate ganache for the top tier instead of using buttercream. I sent the husband to get some chocolate and he came back with cooking chocolate. You cannot make ganache with cooking chocolate, I suspect as much but I thought I would try. It was a hideous oily mess. I sent the husband to the shop again this time with the instruction to buy white CHOCOLATE. 

So onto the stars... very simple. I added a little tylose powder to the fondant and let it rest for a few minutes (wrapped in cling film). Then I rolled it out, cut out twice as many star shapes as I needed and let them dry for a few minutes before moving them. I lay one star down on the mat, brushed it with a little edible glue and placed a piece of florist's wire on top. I then covered that with another star and gently pressed them together. and hung them to dry. They looked very effective on the top of the cake. A word about inserting wire into cake - don't do it. I pushed a straw into the centre of the cake, covered the hole with a blob of fondant and then pressed the wires down into that so that they didn't actually touch the cake. 

Cookie Monster Giant Cupcake

I have accidentally dyed my hands the colour of a smurf's arse. I decided tonight to bake something just for fun. I haven't done that in a while. For ages I've been dying to have a go at making a Cookie Monster cake. I found myself at a bit of a loose end this evening so I threw one together, my fatal error of course was not letting the dyed desiccated coconut dry out enough before I started to apply it to the cake, thus the blue fingers. Shoulda worn gloves.

So here it is. I baked a giant cupcake, covered it in blue buttercream, stuck chocolate fingers around the base, and applied dyed coconut to the top for the fur look. The eyes were made out of fondant and I made a slit in the top and stuffed a cookie in there. Easy peasy and about two hours (including cooling time) all in.

Now I have to find someone to eat it, because I am failing at this whole diet thing.