Handpainted Flower and Butterfly Cupcakes...

Ducati Cupcakes

Ducati Cupcakes for a 'maaate'...

Lego Batman

ahhhh... Lego, my old friend :)

Hands up, who doesn't know what Lego is....?!

[no hands raised]

Exactly!!  It's an international play thing, past time and even an art form.

I got massively diverted whilst perusing the web for Lego facts... here are a few of my favourite diversions...

Royal Wedding... in Lego

Honey I Shrunk the Kids...in Lego

Stay Puft... in Lego

Bond, James Bond... in Lego

Indiana Jones... in Lego

Psycho... in Lego

American Beauty... in Lego

The Matrix... in Lego

Afghan girl... in Lego

New York... in Lego

The Beatles... in Lego

Twilight... in Lego

The Shining... in Lego

And lastly but by noooo means leastly... 

(apologies for the rude bits, but the clean version just doesn't have the same hilarity!)

Basically in my humble opinion, if you haven't played with, had the misfortune of standing on with bare feet or even ever heard of Lego then you simply haven't lived!!

Originally invented in 1949 by Ole Kirk Christiansen, and with it's 'modern brick' design patented in 1958 it has taken the world by storm, and with 6 Legoland Amusement Parks and 8 Legoland Discovery Centres it has successfully infiltrated every corner of the globe; which is pretty impressive when you consider that it's just a kid's interlocking brick!

And, just in case anyone was wondering... 
Did you know that...

...the name Lego comes from the Danish phrase 'leg godt' which translates to 'play well'?
and

...original Lego bricks made in 1958 are compatible with Lego bricks made today?

Fascinating stuff!

And then there's Batman... he's even older than Lego!!!

Originally created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, 'The Batman' was first published in May 1939 for DC Comics... here he is, throttling a baddie whilst swinging from a wire (all in a days work)...

According to Wiki, soon after his introduction, he became so popular he was given his own comic book title; Batman in 1940 and has been keeping the streets of Gotham City safe, with a multitude of famous partnerships and archenemies ever since.

(personally, I prefer Lego)

Anyhoo, that's enough trivia, I should really be telling you about the cake...

Carved from chocolate and Nutella cake into separate sections, covered in fondant and sprayed silver (obviously not the head part), it was a bit of a fiddly cake but well worth it in the end to keep the iconic Lego Man shape...

And here he is, in all his moody glory... 

 

I'd just like to add that while struggling to put this blog post together a friend sent me the following text message...

"Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now.

So we'll hunt him.  Because he can take it.  Because he's not our hero.

He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector.

A dark knight."

Make of that what you will, needless to say Batman is still loved by many, but as I said earlier, I prefer Lego :)

Jenny & John's 50th Wedding Anniversary Cake

To celebrate the 50th Wedding Anniversary of his parents, Matt got in touch to order a classic cake to mark the occasion and feed the guests their pud at the party.

Matt decided on a bottom tier of chocolate sponge filled with my favourite, the spoon lickingly yummy chocolate ganache and a top tier of lemon drizzle, with a classic design of cream quilting and golden details.

Really quite simple but stunning all the same...

My Big Brothers 40th

This is a Winchcombe Pottery Casserole Dish...

During most of his 20's, after completing a degree in ceramics, my big brother Ed could mainly be found covered in clay dust at a wheel in Winchcombe Pottery.  

In fact, while reading through the history of the pottery on their website for this blog I came across Ed's name and I swelled with pride!! :)

Ceramics is his passion so there really was no other option than to re-create some Winchcombe Pottery for his 40th Birthday cake.

It was a massively rushed job as the Alice in Wonderland Tea Party Cake was due for the same weekend, so in all honestly I literally threw Ed's cake together, airbrushed it and drove it to the surprise lunch at his favourite, The Snowshill Arms (in Snowshill!).

It was a basic vanilla and jam sponge, carved (in record time) to the shape of the aforementioned (love that word) casserole dish, covered in fondant and sprayed using my faithful airbrush, The Badger...

 

My casserole dish isn't quite as 'pert' as the original but Ed was impressed and as a little sister that was all my Christmas's at once! :)

Please excuse the bald board... as I said, it was a rush job!!

Here are a couple of snaps from the family gathering, featuring my big brother Ed, Dad and his Sally and a small person's arm, possibly Ed's youngest, darling (cheeky monkey) Maeve who swiped the knob off the top while no one was looking!!

 

If you want to take a closer look at Winchcombe Pottery check out their website here.

Alice In Wonderland

Sometimes, when writing these blog posts I feel the need to delve a little deeper into the history of the cake's subject, one example is the post: The Red Dalek and depending on how accurate you believe Wiki to be, I have learnt loads!

So when writing this blog post I thought it only fair to check out some facts about famous Alice and her Wonderland.

This year, Lewis Carrol's novel 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' is 148 years old!!!  Who knew?!

Written in 1865 by the Reverend (no less) Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym 'Lewis Carroll', (apologies if I'm going over old ground, but most of this is news to me) it is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre.

According to Wiki, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was not only a writer but a mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer!! 

To quote Eddie Izzard if I may... 'he must get up very early in the morning!'.

The novel originated from a story told to 3 young girls (one of which was called Alice) during a boat trip in Oxfordshire.  The children loved it so much that they asked that it be written down for them, and the book was born.  It was published 3 years later and has proven hugely popular ever since.  In fact, (again, according to Wiki), there have been 18 films created, the very first being a silent film made in 1903 and of course most recently in 2010, directed by Tim Burton, released by Disney, and, as if anyone really needs reminding... starring the universally gorgeous Johnny Depp... swoooooooon!

 

With all of the above in mind, it is no wonder that there are hundreds of absolutely fabulous Alice in Wonderland cakes out there ranging from brightly coloured fun for kids to classier numbers for the more discerning among us, so when my customer asked me to make this cake and cupcakes for her mother's 60th birthday tea party I was just a little bit excited!

With slightly muted colours and touches of gold the customer wanted a more adult rendition of the classic tale...

 

I feel I should add that the teapot tier somehow turned out to be slightly bigger than originally anticipated and with the heat of the day the spout was scaring the bejesus out of me on the journey to it's final destination!

The cupcakes were a selection of the fun elements of the story, including the pocket watch and Tweedledee and Tweedledum...

They looked fabulous set amongst the vintage crockery laden party tables...

Pug Cupcakes

For all you Pug lovers out there... I mean, who doesn't love a Pug!!??

Vintage Wedding Cake

Being in the wedding industry with her company Unique Wedding Hire, Kerry has wedding design research down to a fine art so when choosing a cake design for her own big day she knew where to start.

Unique Wedding Hire specialise in vintage wedding props, cake stands and table decorations, amongst a plethora of other items (check out her website here) so it stands to reason that Kerry's day would incorporate the vintage theme and her cake choice was perfect to match her special day.

The final cake design was a 3 tiered cake made up of a chocolate cake and carrot cakes with the bottom tier decorated with graduated sage green garrett frills fading to cream, and the top tiers simply decorated with lace and flowers.  Kerry decided to use fresh flowers which she arranged herself leaving me to concentrate on the main decoration... the Garrett Frills! 

This was the first time I'd used garrett frills on a cake, mainly as my cakes are generally far from traditional so it was great to be learning a new skill.  YouTube, as ever was my first point of call, and after a few little video tutorials I set to work with my newly purchased Garrett Frill Cutter!

I used fondant mixed with a little CMC to allow the frills to set harder than fondant alone and as suggested in the tutorials, a cocktail stick to create the frilly edge.  A really simple technique which is extremely effective on a large scale, although I have to admit, I thought I might have callouses by the end from the constant, seemingly never ending rolling of the cocktail stick... my poor poor fingers!

Without the flowers the cake definitely looks unfinished, or should I say, lacking that 'je ne sais quoi'...?!

But with the flowers and in situ amongst cakes and puds made by guests it looks perfect...

And here's the happy couple completing the traditional task of

taking a sharp knife to it... ;)

 

The Frog & The Bunny Wedding Cake

May 2013 saw the wedding of old friends, Gemma & Richard and I had the pleasure of making their cake for the big day.
 

As Gemma is an illustrator, and a darn fine one to boot, she had designed her own wedding invitations.  She used cute bunny and frog characters for the bride and groom, with the frog looking anxiously at his pocket watch and I fell in love with it on first sight.

I've taken a couple of quick snap shots of them to show you below, you'll have to ignore my circles and arrows ('office use only' type of thing!)

the front design of the invitation

the inside of the invitation

Gemma wanted a 3 tiered wedding cake incorporating the main elements of the invitation, the minty green of the grass, the little flowers and snails, with the Frog and the Bunny on the top.

She sketched me out the cut of her dress (behind the back of Rich of course!) and let me peek at the wedding shoes she'd chosen so I was able to re-create her as the bunny as accurately as possible.

Made from yummy chocolate cake and filled with even yummier chocolate ganache... if you're a Facebook follower you'll know of my fondness for making & testing/tasting chocolate ganache already... in tiers of 14, 10 and 6 inches it weighed a ton!!!

Here it is, set up and ready for Gemma, Rich and their guests at the incredibly beautiful Stanway Tithe Barn...

The Frog & The Bunny...

here's a close up of the frogs little pocket watch telling the time of the wedding...

and I especially like the cute little snails...