Miscellaneous!

Here are a few small things I've made recently but haven't had chance to put on...

Honeycomb: My first attempt at honeycomb was a slight disaster, it tasted great but wasn't bubbly enough and was really thin (I also nearly ruined my new pan in the process but we won't talk about that!)

Boiling the sugar was a bit scary!!

The end result :-( what went wrong?

The recipes for the honeycomb and some marshmallows (that turned out far to sticky) came from this book (the summer berry vodka recipe I also attempted turned out well though)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gifts-Kitchen-Irresistible-Homemade-Presents/dp/1856269388/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

Some little cupcakes I made with some left over mixture from another cake:

I just added some simple decoration with some sugar paste I had in the cupboard...

Sugar roses

In class for the last few weeks we have been working on a sugar rose display. I have been incredibly excited by this task as I think being able to make roses is going to be a useful skill to have as a lot of people request this type of flower on cakes.
The leaves were easy enough to make as usual. The roses themselves were not so easy, shall we say class was very quiet that week (lots of concentrating going on!!)
To make large roses from individual petals you first need to start with a polystyrene cone on a wire. These can be made with flower paste in advance but the new use of the cone makes the roses lighter in weight. You then wrap the first petal aroung the cone tightly to cover the top of it, when you look into the centre of the rose you shouldn't be able to see the cone. Then add another two petals at this stage to start of the centre. Building the petals in layers add 3 petals, another layer of 3, and then two layers of 5. The rose can then be manipulated to look more realistic. It sounds simple writing it down this way but trust me it's not! Once the roses and leaves are dried you can dust them to your liking and join them in an arrangement of your choice.

Well Done Bradley!!

This year my brother auditioned to take part in the London Children's Ballet production of Rumpelstiltskin (http://www.londonchildrensballet.com/) and got a part!! We were all incredibly proud and excited. Having seen the show (which was amazing in my eyes) I decided to bake my brother a "well done" cake. However I was at my mum's house with none of my baking equipment with me, so it's a simple yet I think fairly effective cake to say a great big WELL DONE BRADS!!!

Strawberry Whoopie Pies

With a little helper named Charlie-Leigh (my little sister) we created these yummy strawberry whoopie pies from a great recipe in the Whoopie Pie book I've mentioned before.
We had a little problem with lumpy sugar but other than that the whoopies turned out great. Nicely risen with small chunks of strawberry in the cake and lovely strawberry pink buttercream filling.

(sorry the picture is a bit rubbish, I took it on my phone and didn't realise it was blurry!)

Easter bonnet cake the 2nd!

Oh dear... so I am a little late in posting up these photos, Easter seems a long time ago now!

Having created the first bonnet cake in class I was asked by a friend to make them one for their nephews... I kept the design of the cake pretty much the same and added some extra ribbon decoration and lettering which you can see in the images below...

I was much happier with the finished result of this cake than the previous one as it had more detail. I also made these chick and pig eggs (another fab idea from my cake dec teacher Linda) They are mars eggs or you can use creme eggs stuck to a chocolate coin and decorated with sugar paste. They seem super sickly to me but I have been assured the kids love them!

(apologies for this photo, the pig was difficult to photograph and get in all the detail!)

Happy Easter!!