Polar Bear on Ice

Using about 1/3 of the mixture for the recipe for a rich fruit cake, this little four inch cake was made for someone without the passion for fondant as some.

I used a basic buttercream to cover this one in peaks to represent snow or ice, and, to ensure it 'keeps' it will be kept chilled until needed.

I think the little polar bear looks so cute just sitting there on his icing-berg.

Santa Hat Cupcakes

These simple little cupcakes can be made to look very festive with the addition of some creative frosting!

Using my basic cake mix, you can add some festive flavours if you wish, the same too for the basic buttercream frosting.

Once baked and cooled, pipe some red frosting swirls. Pipe them so the are just short of touching the sides of the cupcake case.

Leave them to form a 'crispy' coat, then soften the peak on the top and pipe some white frosting. 

Next, using a smaller piping nozzle, pipe a white ring around where there's the gap between the cupcake case and the red frosting.

Add some decorations, and you're done!

Simple 

Battered 'Nuka-Cola' Bottle Top Cake

This year, as is always the case, my Grandson changes his likes from video game to video game or this like to that like and so on. This year, it's Fallout!

In the past we've seen cakes for him that have been:

• Minecraft, for his 10th birthday
• A Red Football Team, for his 9th birthday
• Sonic the Hedgehog, for his 8th birthday
• Plus loads before I started this blog.

The cake, a delicious, rich red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting is hidden under this beaten up look bottle top cake.

I cut half rings out using a circle cutter before crumb coating, frosting and covering in thick, red fondant.

My daughter printed out the Nuka-Cola logo and set about hand cutting the letters before she hand cut the logo from modeling fondant.

It had that very flat, "too new", look. We allowed the red fondant to dry and the water, used as the 'glue' to stick the logo on. 

Once dry, she set about using brown, antique gold and silver petal dust to give it that rusty, beaten up look.

I'm giving my daughter far more freedom with my cakes these days, she finds it fun and I enjoy watching her work. Not only that, my eyes are getting old (well, that's my excuse lol).

I hope he enjoys it, but then, what kid doesn't like chocolate cake?

Drumstick & Refreshers Cupcakes

Cupcakes can become a little 'samey' after a while, which is why you haven't heard from me for while, my work has been mainly cupcakes.

These ones, however, are a little different.

As you know, I make all my cakes, frosting etc from scratch, with very few exceptions, and this is one of them.

At my local supermarket, I found Drumstick Duo frosting ...

As well as Refreshers frosting ...

And, unashamedly, I faked the frosting on top of these classic vanilla flavoured cupcakes for my Grandson's birthday party tomorrow.

If there is anything new you're fancying for your cupcakes, then you have to try this stuff. It's yummy. You may need to add a spoonful of water to get it to some sort of piping consistency first.

Outdoors Themed Cupcakes

These wonderful batch of birthday cupcakes were made with a brilliant idea for a theme. I'm going to be honest and tell you, this was not my idea, it was the gifter's idea as the lucky recipient works outdoors.

There's not much I can say about these apart from, the chocolate sponge mix was prepared, in a masterclass, with a student and the toppers were handmade on the day.

The toppers include (from top centre and clockwise):

• A map
• A tent with a campfire out front
• A kayak/canoe 
• A personalised paddle
• Absolutely a 'Keep Out' sign
• And a pair of green walking boots

I hope they'll be enjoyed!

Birthday Carrot Cake

The day will come when I shall run out of ideas for carrot themed carrot cake lol. But it's not this year!  

My son loves my carrot cake and, when the chance comes for him to have a birthday cake, he 'needs' it to be ... carrot cake! 

His previous carrot 'manifestations' have included this brilliant little Kawaii Carrot Cake and this rather interesting Carrot Cake Plant Pot. He's also received a 24 Carrot Gold Cake. All made from my utterly simple Carrot Cake recipe.

I made three six-inch cakes and two four-inch cakes from two mixes of the recipe but added about 25% more to each mix. 

Once I have de-humped them, I turned them on their sides and trimmed down one side so they were no longer round cakes. I'd say I trimmed off about 25%, but this never goes to waste in my house. 

Once firmly chilled, as this is quite a moist cake if done correctly, I sandwiched each layer together using my basic buttercream recipe. The reason I have not used the conventional carrot cake frosting is that I find it does not travel well. As this one needs to travel a few hundred miles this weekend, I wanted stability.

After another chill in the refrigerator, I carved it to a basic carrot shape. It's ok if it's not perfect, after all, wonky veg need love too! Gave it a crumb coat, chilled again, then final coated it and, yes, you guessed it, chilled again, then covered it in orange coloured fondant.

Sitting at the side of the carrot cake is a sweet little snoozing bunny, who has just eaten a load of carrots and is still covered in the carrots he has not eaten. 

Regrettably, I did not take step-by-step images of this bunny in progress, but if you check out this teddy bear tutorial I did some time back and add big ears and massive bunny feet, I don't think you'll go far wrong.

The conventional carrot leaves will not travel well, so I used a simple leaf cutter and added some details for these ones.

As you can see, I've also added the lines that carrots have and, to emphasise some of them I dry brushed them with a mix of dark green, antique gold and white petal dust. I could have used other colours, but these were all I had at the time, it worked well I thought.

You will also note some errors and dents, some intentional and some are genuine errors. I used a new brand of fondant which, in all honesty, I shall never use again. It was terrible to work with so I'm going to stick with good old faithful Renshaws!

Add the name, up in 'lights' with some pearled candy balls, spray with a little pearl lustre and some silver lustre dust and voila! done. 

This little wonder will be traveling in its box with tissue paper stuffed under the bunny's ears, just to make sure they get there still attached.

All That Glitters Is Not Gold ...

... Quite correct, as this is allllll chocolate!  

This wonderful little six-layer, six-inch chocolate cake has been made from my classic chocolate sponge cake recipe. 

Each layer has been lavishly sandwiched together with my delicious chocolate ganache and then absolutely covered in even more indulgent chocolate ganache! Just how much more chocolate can you get?

Oh! Of course, Maltesers! I used those on the join between the cake and the board. And why not lol.

This person's previous cakes have included:

• Chocolate, Chocolate and more Chocolate Birthday Cake
• Chocolate Birthday Cake

As you can see, there's a bit of a chocolate theme going on for this lucky recipient. However, this year he asked for 'chocolate, but not so much chocolate.'

Previously he's received eight-inch cakes and the only way I could possibly have done 'chocolate, but not so much chocolate' was to make a smaller cake. He loved it anyway, he received it today, even though his birthday is not until tomorrow.

He, quite happily, took it home and shared it with his housemates, but kept some back for himself, and stated that they all thoroughly enjoyed it.