Rose Garden Cake

I was asked to make a 60th birthday cake this week. The design we decided on was a rose garden cake and a vanilla sponge cake, jam filling. 

My first job was to make the cake, for this I used Mary Berry's recipe found here. It worked well and I was happy with the finished product. I filled the cake with some good quality raspberry jam and placed it on an iced cake board. 

Victoria Sponge

I covered the cake in a layer of butter icing in preparation for the decorations. 

Butter iced and ready to go. 

To make the rose bushes I first of all focused on making the flowers. Having never made these before I looked it up in a book to get a bit of an idea. It was made more difficult because the flowers were so tiny but I managed to make a range of flowers in varieties of pinks and purples. 

Little Roses

With these flowers I made some bushes by wrapping them in brown icing and then sticking leaves on top of this to create a bush effect. It might not be typically rose bush like but I think it's close enough to look effective. 

I made some paving slabs and a plaque out of icing and harden it with gum and then I set about designing the cake. I placed everything on the cake to get an idea of design. 

Placing on the cake to design

I wanted to make the borders out of biscuits and I was asked to make coconut grass so this was my next challenge. I used chocolate digestives and crushed these. Making sausages out of brown icing I marked out the borders and then carefully filled this in with the biscuits. 

Biscuit borders

I coloured some coconut green and carefully placed this in all the gaps and around the edge of the cake. It was difficult to get it to stick to the icing but I managed to get enough on the cake to get some coverage. 

Coconut Grass

I then stuck everything onto the cake. 

All stuck together

Unfortunately the pink plaque broke so I made another one out of white and carefully piped the lettering on to this. I then placed it on the cake and it was finished. 

Finished Cake Top

Side view

Top View

Unfortunately this plaque also broke in transit so I had to make another one. I wasn't as happy with the final one as the previous one but I hope it was ok.

New plaques!!

Overall I was really happy with the cake and I don't think, at this stage, I could have done any better. I've learnt a lot from creating this cake and I hope that the birthday lady and my "client" were also happy. 

If you have an event you'd like a cake for please get in touch. We can discuss a design to suit and at present (November 2013) I'm creating cakes for the cost of the ingredients. 

Mud Room and Garden Cake

For my dad's cake this year I decided to create something that has been talked about a fair bit recently.. a mud room/utility room which leads from the garden to the kitchen. My dad likes fruit cake so we decided to make a light fruit sponge, this is the recipe we used for our wedding cake. 

I doubled the recipe and used my new multisized tin. 

The hardest thing was choosing the size!!

I was really happy with the bake on this cake

Good bake on the cake

I left the cake to cool and then covered it in butter icing. Using all my new tools I created the smoothest finish I could on the cake. Left it to chill and then covered the cake in green sugar paste icing. 

Covered cake

It was a slightly rough finish because the butter icing was a little hard underneath. This smooth over once it reached room temperature. 

The next step was creating the design. Using sugar paste I broke it down and made it piece by piece. I made cupboards for the kitchen, a washing machine (or washer/dryer) for the utility room. I then made a little chair and boots for dad. Finally I wanted to make my cake more of an autumn theme so I placed a tree in the garden and created some leaves on the grass. I scattered a few around to show how they blow around. 

Kitchen and utility room up close

Tree and leaves

I wanted to show dad in the garden so I decided to create my first ever character, loosely based on my dad. I've never tried to make people before so this was a challenge. I was fairly pleased with my finished product, the eyes could have been better and I think the legs could have done with being longer as he's a little out of proportion. 

Finally I made up some royal icing and piped the words on the board.

Finished cake

Alternative view of the cake

I was pleased with the final product. Still not perfect but I'm getting much better. I'm sure my dad will like it and that's the most important thing. 

If you'd like to order a cake I'm currently doing them for the price of the ingredients (October 2013). Please get in touch with your ideas. 

Garden Cake

I wanted to make my Nanna a birthday cake and decided on the theme of a garden. She mentioned previously that she would like a chocolate cake so that is what I made. I used the following recipe for a 8" cake. The original recipe is for a 12" cake so I had to scale this down for the cake. Gary worked out the calculations, however, we this was still too much mixture for the tin so I baked a mini cake as well for him to take to work. 

Ingredients:

260g Butter

260g Plain Chocolate

40ml Coffee

2tsp Vanilla Essence

260g Plain Flour

1tsp Baking Powder

1tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

380g Light Soft Brown Sugar

4 Eggs

227ml Soured Cream

Method:

Melt together the chocolate and the butter, over a low heat, until fully melted.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate and sugar.

Whisk together the eggs and soured cream.

Add the chocolate mix and the egg mixture to the flour and stir until fully mixed. The mixture should be thick and chocolatey.

Pour into a lined 8" tin and place in the oven. Cook at 150oC for around 2 hours. You should leave the cake to cool in the tin, I made the mistake of taking it out hot, you need it to form a more solid structure. 

I made some chocolate buttercream to go on the cake. 250g Butter to 500g icing sugar and 1tbsp of cocoa mixed together until smooth. I also added a little milk to soften it up enough to be spreadable. I cut the cake in half and placed buttercream inside the cake and then around the outside of the cake. 

Cake covered in chocolate buttercream

I coloured some icing green, rolled it and covered the cake completely. 

Covered in green icing

Then I set about making the different bits for the top. I decided to make some cauliflowers, cabbages, leeks and carrots. I used my dummy cake to get an idea of sizes and to work out the layout before doing the real cake. 

Cabbages and cauliflowers

The cabbages and cauliflower are made in a simlar way using a pea sized piece of icing for the centre. This is then surrounded my leaves and stuck around, the tops are slightly bent over and it's all pushed together. 

I made the carrots and leeks by making sausages in the correct shapes. For the leeks I then cut out rectangles and stuck them around the edges folding over the tops. For the carrots I stuck a small amount of green on the top and then cut a cross on the top folding over the edges. 

To make the paving slabs I marbed some icing with black colouring and cut them into squares. The fencing was done in a similar way with white and I used a tooth pick to score lines in them. 

Practicing the layout

I then stuck it all on the actual cake. I made a rectangle for the front

Just the writing left

Painted on "Happy Birthday" using a paintbrush and some gel colour mixed with water. 

Then take some photos of the finished cake. 

One side

The other side

Close up of the cauliflower and leeks

Close up of carrots and cabbages

Front view

The verdict: I was pleased with how the cake looked and tasted. All the comments were very positive and my nanna seemed very pleased with her surprise. Most people could identify the vegetables, the carrots were more of a challenge but they were in the ground so not so obvious. Still improvements to be made but I was pleased. 

Don't forget I'm available to make cakes to order. At the moment (August 2013) I'm making cakes for just the cost of the ingredients, this cake would cost £15. Please get in touch if you have any event coming up and we can discuss your requirements.