Red Roses Cake

I was asked to make a vanilla sponge this week decorated in Roses, preferably with a red theme. So I decided to do just that.

I made a 10" Vanilla Madeira sponge and filled this with vanilla butter icing. I crumb coated the cake, covered it in a thin layer of icing to coat it, and then I covered the cake in white sugar paste. I wasn't happy with the way the cake was covered, this is primarily because I didn't cover the board first and tried to do it in one go. I ended up marking the board and making a bit of a mess of the cake but hopefully it wasn't too obvious by the time I'd finished. 

I made a selection of roses in dark red, lighter red and cream. I made 1 full blown rose with wired outer petals and the rest were then unwired petals but wired roses. I also made a selection of rose leaves. These were arranged in a posy design with the full blown in the centre, the others around it and then the leaves along the bottom. 

Rose Posy

To trim the edge of the cake I decided to follow on the theme and I made some more rose leaves, these were placed all the way around the cake and I made some Christmas Roses to stick on top and break this up slightly. 

The board was trimmed with red ribbon. Gary told me that the cake looked too plain so I decided to make some red petals to scatter over the cake and break up the white a little. 

Finished Cake

Finished Cake

Overall I was fairly happy with the cake. I still have a lot of practice to do on covering cakes but I was pleased with the decoration and was quite proud of the cake. I hope the birthday girl and her family enjoyed the cake and I look forward to make more. 

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

Vanilla Baptism Cake

I was asked to make a large cake for a baptism on Saturday. The design was simple, as was the cake, but sometimes simple is more difficult.

I made 2 large vanilla sponges and then joined them together. For the each half I used:

400g Butter
400g Self Raising Flour
400g Caster Sugar
2tsp Baking Powder
8 Eggs
1tsp Vanilla Essence

I then filled each cake with raspberry jam and vanilla butter icing. I also coated the cake in butter icing and then sugar paste.

I was asked to pipe a verse on to the cake so I copied this into word, got it sized up and then piped it onto the cake, by eye, using purple royal icing. I then used the remaining icing to border the cake and have a little frame on the top.

Finished cake

Overall I thought that my piping was pretty good, this has certainly improved in the last year. I still have some practice to do but I'll get there. The cake got slightly damaged in transit so I'm not as pleased with the end product as I would have liked but hopefully it tastes good and people will enjoy eating it. Maybe I'll get some more cake orders from the Ashford direction (very welcome!).