Wedding Anniversary Cake

For a couple's wedding anniversary I was asked to recreate the top tier of their wedding cake. I made a square rich fruit cake and covered it with marzipan and then several layers of royal icing. This process takes a while as each layer needs to dry before another is spread onto the cake. 

I next made the sugar flowers for the top of the cake. I made these to match the original bouquet so they were carnations, freesias and lily of the valley, all in white. 

Flowers on the top of the cake

My next task was to create the swags on the side of the cake. I first marked these along the edge of the cake making sure everything is even and neat. I then piped on top of these with royal icing. Each swag is 4 layers thick, so piped along it once, left it to dry and then piped again until each had 4 layers. This builds it up and brings it out from the side of the cake. 

I then piped shells along each of the edges of the cake and down the corners. 

Finished Cake

I hope the couple and their family liked the cake. I was pleased with how it turned out and considering it was royal icing I'm even more pleased. 

If you like a cake for any occasion please don't hesitate to get in touch. 

PME Royal Icing and Piping Diploma

This week I have been back in Maidstone completing the final PME diploma, Royal Icing and Piping. With the completion of this diploma I achieved my masters in Sugarcraft. For me this was the hardest diploma and it was the one that filled me with the most dread. I have only done a little piping before and I usually have some issue with it. Making royal icing was a bit of a mission too as I was never sure I was doing it right and all these skills were things I looked at but scared me. 

I decided to do it as a 4 day intensive course as I got on so well with this last time. It's helpful for me to have all the equipment provided and so I just have to bring myself each day. I also find that it takes the pressure off practicing a little. I will of course practice but I don't need to do this in a time scale and can do a little each week rather than needing to get to standard by a set point. 

On this course we learnt a huge range of techniques. We learnt the basics so covering a cake in royal icing, getting a nice smooth and sharp finish

Sides Covered

Royal icing is rarely used these days and is considered quite old fashioned, however, it really is beautiful and the detailing you can create with it is so impressive, as I hope you'll see from my photos. We also learnt how to put patterns along the edge of the cake. 

Patterns along the edge of the cake

Throughout the 4 days we learnt how to use lots of different nozzles and piping techniques. We used these around the edges of the cakes but also created a display board to show all the variations. 

Finished display board

We learn how to make runout collars and designs. We used this to decorate the top of the cake and to create some swans. 

Run out collar for cake

Collar on cake with swans

We also learnt how to make string work, this didn't survive the journey home but fortunately I got a picture before I left. 

String work

We learn extension work for the edge for the cake and we topped this with lace work. 

Extension work

Finally we used basket weave to cover the top of the cake. 

Basket weave on the cake

Over the course of 4 days we used tubs and tubs of royal icing to create all these designs. We spent hours huddled over tables learning about piping but looking at these photos I feel like it was all worth it. There is lots more practicing required to perfect these skills but they look really beautiful and delicate. 

If anyone would like a royal iced cake I'd love to make another one. and practice these skills. Beautiful cakes,

My Birthday Cake

For my birthday cake this year, yes I made my own birthday cake, I decided to make my first royal iced cake. This was a whole new challenge to me as I've only recently been introduced to royal icing to be piped let alone to cover the whole cake. However, I had a marzipaned fruit cake and decided to give it a shot. 

I made up a batch of royal icing, breaking my mixer in the process, using meriwhite, icing sugar and water. The first batch of icing was too stiff and not whisked enough, I learnt this in later attempts, so it didn't stick or smooth particularly well. I used this as the first layer and smoothed it all down. After putting on several layers and managing to get better layers of icing, I decided the cake was as smooth as it was going to get. I've learn a lot just from this one cake so I would hope that my next cake will be loads better. I've learnt more about the consistency of the icing, what it should be and I've also learnt that royal iced cakes can not be rushed and require lots of drying time. It took 3 days to cover this cake. 

This type of cake will be a good blank canvas for my future sugar flowers, I can't wait to start my PME diploma in April, but for now I had to make do with my small skills. I made a couple of roses, using different size cutters so that I had different rose sizes. I was mostly happy with my roses but I really want these to improve and expect to get many more hints and tips after my course. Watch this space!! 

Rose Cake

I also used a cutter and imprinter to produce some smaller flowers to create some contrast and colour for the cake. 

Flowers down the side of the cake.

Overall I was reasonable happy with the cake. As I said I've learnt a lot from this cake and would love the opportunity to make another one in a few months. The layers of icing were quite even and the cake tasted really good, even my sister ate it (she doesn't like cake!). 

Sliced Cake. 

Sugarcraft Course Week 3 (I missed week 2)

Before I start the blog post for this week I want to apologise for my absence. I've been really busy lately with splitting my time between London and here and I just haven't had the chance to get everything done. I can't say much more than that but I hope that in the months to come you'll all see why I've been so busy and why this is really exciting for us both personally and also with my new business venture. 

As you know, I've been doing a sugarcraft course at Greenwich community college. This week we learnt how to pipe a basket of flowers on a covered cake board. 

Finished basket

We did this in stages, first step was to cover the board. Very straightforward. Colour your sugarpaste, roll it out and place it on the board. Cut around the edge and smooth it all over. To ensure the paste sticks to the board you can use a touch of water. 

Second step was the challenging part. Piping the basket and flowers. We did this using techniques we'd learnt in the first week. First pipe a large swirl in the centre of the board and a smaller one at the bottom. This forms the top and the bottom of the basket.Draw 2 vertical lines joining the swirls forming the edges of the basket. Between these draw so vertical lines, 3, one in the centre and one either side. Then pipe horizontal lines these need to give the effect of a weave so top line pipe to the second line, stop and then pipe from the other side of that line to the edge. Next row down pipe between the 3 central lines. Then back to piping across the 2 edge lines. Do this all the way down and then fill in the edges. 

Weave on basket

For the handle you want to pipe a large curved line from the edge of each swirl and then lots of little diagonal lines across it. 

Now we're on to the flowers. Start off with drawing some vertical green lines randomly from the basket. These will form the stems of the flowers. Using whatever colour you like pipe 6 spots in a flower formation leaving space in the middle for a yellow dot. These are your flowers, place them randomly over the green stems. Do a variety of colours. Finally for the leaves pipe lots of green spots off the stems and pull slightly as you lift, this gives a leaf shape. 

Flowers and stems

As always there's lots of improvement required but this can only be achieved with practice, which I intend on doing. I forgot to take a picture of the one I created in class so this was a quick replica so I had some photos. Next time I do it I'll try and take step by step photos. 

Next week we're doing modelling, this I will certainly need step by step photos in order to write a blog post. For now though, get practising your piping!!