Penblwydd Hapus - Welsh cake

What kind of cake do you make a couple, whose birthdays are pretty close together and loves Wales - a lot?

Enter, the Welsh flag with additional decorations.

A delicious chocolate sponge, sandwiched together with scrumptious chocolate buttercream and a crumb coat to match.

Oh I love the smell of my house when making chocolate cake mmm :-)

I had to find the middle of the cake to divide it for the two colours of frosting. I measured it and used cocktail sticks as my guide.

It did the trick. Definatley a tip for next time.

I coloured the green half myself. I need to find out how to stop it from cracking. It was the same thickness as the white, the length of time to get the top and sides fixed was also the same, but, alas, there are a few blemishes on the green half.

The cake was a 10" square. I'd never made a square one before. The fondant was a bit of a nightmare, but it looks OK.

I decorated it in all things handcrafted ...

Y Ddraig Goch (The Red Dragon) I made from modelling fondant using a large Welsh dragon cookie cutter.

I also hand crafted the leaves, letters, stars, leeks and daffodils, click on the links to see how.

I had a tiny Welsh dragon food-grade silicone mould which I used to make two to decorate the back, either side of a daffodil that was totally different

I couldn't be a Crafty Welsh Grandma if I didn't make at least one Welsh themed cake!

All that's left for me to say is ...

Sean and Christine, happy birthdays and don't eat it all at once.

Sonic the Hedgehog - Emily - August 2016

 

This is the second Sonic cake in have had the pleasure of making. Yep, I think I'm warming to this blue chappie lol. Here's my first one

Again, you find me contradicting myself when it comes to my rule of "only family and friends" ... But my sister asked me, so that's kinda family.

A scrumptious 10" X 4 layers of chocolate sponge, sandwiched together with rich chocolate butter cream. (Recipe here). Apparently, young Emily loves chocolate so I did my best (",)

There was a bit of an issue in the kitchen, it was way too warm and the icing started slipping on the crumb coat, but I saved it!

I made countless red, white and blue stars from modelling fondant and even coloured the blue myself, I'm getting good this.  My sister had to help me glue them on, my eyes were going and I'd been on my feet for almost 14 hours making it. I guess I'm slow, but I did have the usual chores to do, oh, and the odd cup of coffee here and there.

In addition to the miriad of stars, I also made Emily's name in two different styles because I wasn't sure which one would look the best. I used the numbers and the top style of name as the one that would adorn the cake.

The picture on top of Sonic himself, was printed on an icing sheet. There was a bit of a scare as I couldn't get it off the backing. Unlike previous printed icing sheets, it was very, very thin and I had to "freeze" it off the backing!  No great drama in the grand scheme of things.

Just in case you were wondering about the pattern of the stars, there isn't meant to be one, except "random". As for any gaps you may see, most have a white star in them which doesn't show up well on the photograph.

All that's left to say about this Sonic is ...

Happy 12th birthday Emily

And thanks sis for helping ... I couldn't see for stars. I'm still seeing stars and probably will long after this cake has been enjoyed