90th Birthday Cake

I was asked to make a birthday cake for a 90th birthday lady. My brief was nothing too fancy so I kept it simple with this design. 

To give the cake a little design I crimped around the edge of the cake and board. 

The sugar flowers are carnations, sweet peas, and roses. This is just a simple little bunch to give the cake something a little special. Sugar flowers always lift a cake. 

Sugar Flowers

To finish off the cake I piped a message and used ribbon to create a bow on the front. 

I hope the family liked the cake and enjoyed it. 

Finished Cake

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. 

Naked Wedding Cake

For my first wedding cake of the year I was asked to create a "naked" cake. This is a cake that isn't covered in sugarpaste so you can see the sponge layers underneath. It's typically decorated with fresh fruit and flowers. This style of cake produces a perfect rustic cake and in this case it was just perfect for the beautiful barn location. 

After the usual cake tasting the couple decided to go with vanilla, chocolate, lemon and red velvet, from the bottom up. As the cake isn't covered it's essential to have the sponge as fresh as possible to prevent them being dry. Usually the sugar paste will seal the cake in and you have a week, in this case I baked the sponge the day before. In some ways this is nice as the cake is done over a short time, however, I describe it as high stress over 2 days rather than medium stress over a week!! 

The day before I went out and purchased all the red fruit I could find, this was strawberries, raspberries, cherries, red grapes and blueberries. My first task was to wash all the fruit and leave it to dry. I didn't have much!! 

All my fruit drying

Once my sponge was made and cooled I sliced and filled each layer with butter icing. I also cut a small dip out the top so that each layer sat flush on each other, otherwise you'd see a silver board between each layer which I didn't want. I also dowelled each layer making sure that it would support the cake above.

Vanilla cake, sliced and filled with butter icing and jam. 

Remaining 3 cakes ready to go. 

Once I got to the venue my task was to assemble it all. I was relieved that the cakes all slotted on to each other beautifully and flat. I then set about putting all the fruit around the cake. I used cocktail sticks to support the larger fruits and balanced the smaller ones around. I had also previously made some sugar roses to put on the cake. So I slotted these around as well. 

Finished Cake at the venue

View of the top of the cake

I was really pleased with this cake and it turned out the best I could imagine. I drove away from the venue feeling great pride. I also got a lovely thank you card from the couple and some really lovely comments. I couldn't have asked for any more. 

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

Flower Topper

I was asked to make a flower topper for someone to use on a cake they were making themselves. She wanted it really colourful and asked for mainly roses with a few filler flowers. 

Cream Rose

To fit this brief I made roses in blue, pink, purple and cream. I also made some white jasmine and some rose leaves. I felt that any more flower varieties would overwhelm the bunch and make it look too fussy. 

I arranged these in a line bunch in order to decorate the middle of the cake and create a nice centre piece. 

Finished Flowers

Along with these flowers I also made a few extra so they could use some on the edge of the cake and balance out the cake. 

Smaller bunch for the edge

What do you think? 

Finished Bunch

Top View

Don't forget that I can make just the topper if you'd like to make the cake yourself or have a cake that you want to add something else to. I make the flowers to your specification and size. 

Pink Rose

Flower topped cake

For one of my display wedding cakes I decided to have a go at something I'd been wanting to do for ages, a cake topped with large flowers. 

Finished Cake

For this cake I made a large peony, some English roses, Heritage roses, Freesias and filler flowers. These were all wired flowers and taped together through a posy in the centre. I decided to stick with mainly purples and pinks for the cake so it created a neutral look with hints of colour. 

Flowers on Top

At the bottom of the cake I put a little Heritage flower to balance out the bunch at the top.

Flowers on Top

I was pleased with how this cake looked and it's one of my favourites to date. I would still like to experiment with the flower arrangement at the top of the cake but I think this works very well.

Flowers on Top

For this cake I also decided to try using a different backdrop. I found some wallpaper and placed this behind the cake. I think the balance works really well and suits the cake very well. What do you think? 

If you like this or any other cakes in my collection and require a cake, for any occasion, please get in touch.  

W E Clark Jeweller's Display Cake

In order to advertise I decided to contact some local business and see whether they'd be willing to have a partnership. W E Clark Jeweller's in Lewes were kind enough to respond very quickly and agreed to have a display cake amongst their bridal jewellery in order to advertise for me. I wanted to create a 3 tiered cake that would show off my skills and looked impressive amongst their jewellery, so I decided to do a cascading cake with flower and butterflies. It eventually turned into a cake that matched the colour schemes that I had for my own wedding and I designed it along with my tastes, and my husbands. 

For the flowers I made some small liles, orchids and plenty of sweet peas. I did also make some roses but I decided not to use these on the cake as they didn't really fit in with the scheme. I also made some butterlies on wires and allowed these all to dry so they could be stuck on the cake. 

Flowers drying

I covered 3 tiers of dummies and a board, trimmed them with a plain white ribbon, I didn't want the cake to stand out at all as really it's just a back drop for the flowers in this case. I originally planned to pearl coat the cake but it kept raining (I spray the cake outside) and so I decided to just leave it plain in the end. 

I wired the flowers together using the lilies to make centre piece to start with. The sweet peas trimmed the edge of each cake and introduce the intense colours and finally the orchids fill in the gaps on the side of the cake. If I wanted to do this design on an actual cake I'd need to rethink the flowers a little as for this cake I just placed the wires straight into the cake. I obviously can't do this on the real cake. I also stuck some butterlies on the cake, down the side and amongst the flowers. 

Finished cake

Lilies on the top

Close up of Sweet peas and orchids

Once all the flowers were placed on the cake I allowed it to really dry and settle into place and then I dropped it off at the jewellers. I was really happy with where they said it was going to be placed and I look forward to seeing it in place soon. I hope that it'll look beautiful in their shop, it's certainly a lovely shop, I'd recommend a look. I'm very grateful to them for agreeing to display the cake and I hope that I'll get some interest from it. They certainly took enough business cards from me!! 

http://www.weclarkandson.co.uk/ 

Simple White Roses

For my final display cake I went back to the flowers theme but decided to make it much simpler. I wanted to introduce a little colour, but subtly, so I covered the 3 tiers in a pale blue icing. I used 3 dummies, 10", 8" and 6", on a 14" drum. I covered the drum in pale blue icing as well and trimmed everything with cream ribbon. 

I made some cream and white roses for the top and side of the cake. On top I created a topper with rose leaves as the base and then 3 large roses on top of this. 

Roses on the top

Part way down the cake, on each tier, I added a small rose bud and then on the board at the bottom I placed another full rose. 

Roses on each tier

Finally I placed some rose petals scattered over the cake, these were cream with a hint of pink at the tips. 

Petals scattered on the cake

Overall the effect of this cake is very simple but effective. I like making cakes like this and I hope that it'll inspire some brides in the coming weeks. 

Finished Cake

Cascade Wedding Cake

I needed to make 4 display cakes for the upcoming wedding fairs I'm attending and I decided I needed to try and choose a few different styles. This cake was to showcase my flowers and to be quite luxurious. 

I used 3 tiers of polystrene dummies, 6", 8" and 10",  and covered them in white sugar paste. I trimmed each layer with some purple ribbon to cover the edges and bring a little colour on to the cake. 

I then set about making the flowers, these took me 3 days of work as I made several. I wanted to make a variety so I made Ivy Leaves, Rose Leaves, Roses, Carnations, Freesia and Jasmine. 

Lots of flowers in the making

I then started to make the topper of the cake, so I taped together some of the flowers and placed these in a flower pick on the top. 

Cake topper completed

Next job was the cascade down the side. I started by lining these up on the table in roughly the right arrangement. 

Trail of flowers

And then the biggest challenge was taping this together. I started with the Ivy as the bottom layer and held this against the cake to check it was ok. 

Checking out the Ivy

And then I fitted everything else into this. I built it up flower by flower trying to make sure everything was solid and a strong structure. I did place a couple of flower picks to support the roses as these were really heavy and toppling slightly. Once it was all taped I then attached it to the top and placed it on the cake. 

Cascade attached

I then needed to cover the board at the bottom, place ribbon on the bottom layer and put some flowers on the bottom. These were attached to the board so could only be done last. The final job was to place a few unwired ivy leaves on the cake to cover up the plastic flower picks and finish the cake off nicely. 

Cake all finished. 

PME Sugar Flower Diploma

I decided to improve my skills by doing a PME Sugar Flower Diploma. These courses are run at select locations across the country and are tightly monitored by PME. I chose a shop in Maidstone to do my course, Confection Perfection, and I'm really glad I did as I've now found a great shop, great set of courses and a great bunch of people. 

I did the course over 10 weeks, 2.5 hours a week and we worked really hard over that period of time. I wanted to reinforce everything so I spent lots of time each week practicing the flowers and making many more. 

Over the course of the 10 weeks we've progressed from basic unwired flower plaques to creating individually wired petals put together as a flower. I've made some sprays and posies putting the flowers together. For our final assessment we had to create 4 seasonal plaques with the unwired flowers and then a display board for all the wired flowers. I'm going to show pictures of each of the flowers I've made by taking photos of that section of the board. 

Summer Plaque:

Summer

On this plaque we learnt how to make Gerbera and unwired Ivy leaves. 

Spring Plaque:

Sping

Primrose flowers and Leaves

Autumn:

Autumn

Acorns and Oak leaves with Autumn leaves. 

Winter:

Winter

Holly leaves and berries. Christmas rose and a Poinsettia. 

Wired Flowers, these are all pictures of my display board which can be seen at the end. 

Rose spray

Rose bud, half rose, full rose and full blown rose. Also rose leaves and rose petals. 

Carnation Posy

Posy of Carnations with wired ivy. 

Orchid bunch

Yellow Freesias with white Cattleya Orchids and yellow and red Cymbidium Orchids. 

Calla lily bunch

White Calla Lilies, White Jasmine, Lilly of the Valley and Berries. 

Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle and leaves.

Lily

Easter Lily, I put 3 lilies on the board, this Easter lily along with star gazer and a tiger lily. I also put some orange buds. 

Lilies

Blackberries

Blackberry stem, unripe, almost ripe and ripe berries along with various stages of the leaves (Summer through to Autumn). 

Complete Board

And this is the finished board. In the corners there is blossoms and also some daisies on the dummy cake. 

Through all this hard work I passed and achieved my first diploma certificate. 

Certificate

I'm very pleased and feel like I earned it. I have another diploma, plus a load of other courses, this month and hopefully I can get on to the last diploma. Once the 3rd is completed I'll have the set and will have obtained my masters certificate. I hope you'll agree that my flowers have certainly improved through the duration of the course. I feel like I've learnt so much and can't wait for other aspects of my decorating to improve when I attend the next courses. 

Vanilla Sponge for a BBQ

I was asked to make a large vanilla sponge for a BBQ party with a text on the top and flowers around the side. Since I'm currently doing my PME Sugar Flower Diploma I decided to use these skills to decorate the cake. My first idea was to use a lily to edge the cake, so I made some Easter Lilies. 

Vanilla Sponge

However, once I'd made the cake I wasn't happy with how this looked so I decided to change my plan. I had a couple of Calla Lilies that I had made and some pink Carnations so I decided to see how these looked around the cake. 

Test Design

I thought they looked good so I decided to edge the whole cake with Calla Lilies and Carnations. This then resulted in me needing a lot of both so I was very busy. I also decided to edge the cake with Hydrangea flowers as I'd been practicing these too. 

Lots of Calla Lilies

Even more Carnations

Once the cake was baked and covered in white sugar paste I wrote the requested Bible verse on the top of the cake. To try and lay this out I write it on the computer and then copy it accross by eye. I wasn't very happy with the results as it wasn't central, or straight, but it was clear enough to read. I hope that I can improve my piping skills drastically over the coming year so that I can be much happier with this aspect of my cakes. 

Piped Verse

Finally I edged the whole cake with the wired flowers and stuck them down with royal icing. 

Flowers Bordering the Cake

Top View