My first wedding cakes

 This weekend was a big weekend for me! A friend of mine got married and gave me the huge responsibility of producing their wedding cakes! I was more than happy to do this but also slightly apprehensive about the whole thing. I had never done anything like this before, and as it was going to be the biggest day of their lives, everything HAD to be perfect!

A couple of months before, the then "Bride to be" popped over for a consultation about what she wanted the cakes to be like. The colour scheme was purple and lime green, and we discussed having the Groom's children on the cake, a
silver bow and flower petals. At the time, I was worried how I was going to pull it all off. Thankfully, I had my friend Fiona from Cakeadelic to help me out with any ideas/concerns/problems I had along the way. She was able to point me in the right direction and offered me her thoughts and advice on what she thought would work best. And I am so grateful for all her help!

Originally the bride and I had discussed creating a silver bow out of fondant. Whilst this was a nice idea, I wasn't sure it was entirely practical as I didn't know how well it would hold it's shape. Fiona helped me out here, suggesting I took a trip to a market in Bracknell where there is a stall that sells all the ribbon you could want! For this particular cake I bought wired ribbon, which holds it's shape. I also found a lovely ivory and silver ribbon that said 'Congratulations' on it with little silver hearts. I used this for the edge of the cake board.

The next hurdle was creating the groom's children. They sent me photos of them and also what outfits they would be wearing on the day. I knew I wouldn't be able to create exact replicas of them, so instead I went for a more 'cartoony' look. I used a face mould for the basic face shape, then used fondant and food colouring to add detail to the eyes. The hair is made up of royal icing. I had so much fun making the children and the cat. It was so satisfying to see the models coming together bit by bit.

I had 80 cupcakes to decorate, which isn't as many as some weddings, but this was my biggest order to date! We decided to really incorporate the colour theme in this, creating 'Mr & Mrs' cupcakes. I piped big swirls of vanilla buttercream on the cupcakes. The lime green one were 'Mr' and the purple ones were 'Mrs'. Simple yet effective!

I had so much fun creating these cakes and everyone seemed very pleased with the end results! And what a great wedding :-)

Congratulations to Stephanie and Mathew Cooke! 

Monkey cake pops

I made these little guys for my Dad's birthday this year. I got the inspiration from Bakerella, but as I couldn't get hold of some of the American "candies" she says to use I had to improvise. The centre was crumbled chocolate cake. I was running low on milk chocolate Candy Melts so I mixed some Galaxy Chocolate Counters in with them, and as I love Galaxy chocolate it worked out well in the end! The mouth is made from a Butterscotch flavour candy melt, and I used an edible pen to draw the mouth on. The nose is just a chocolate chip, and the eyes I made using little balls of fondant (Regal Ice 'Teddy Bear Brown') and used the edible marker again to draw on the dots. Finally, the ears are the left over Galaxy Counters (cut in half)! Some of them did turn out having lopsided eyes or a wonky nose but that's all part of the fun, and I think it makes them even more endearing :-)

Happy Baking!

Love Becca