Cake Pops (the first ever attempt!)

I have been wanting to try making cake pops for a while after seeing lots of books and blogs dedicated to them. I decided to keep it simple for my first attempt and opted for the classic round ball shape. I chose chocolate sponge and chocolate frosting to go with my red candy melts. I had a variety of sprinkles to hand ranging from hundreds and thousands to silver sugar sprinkles.
This is what some of them looked like:

Admittedly they are not the best as I found it difficult to work with the candy melts, however I have since watched a few videos on YouTube regarding the dipping technique and hopefully next time will be more successful!!

WKD Blue Cake

A simple vanilla sponge cake with a strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream filling decorated using sugarpaste and royal icing piping.



Crafted Cakes bakes for Charlie-Leigh's 9th Birthday Party

The brief:
Guests: 50 approx
Birthday girl likes: The colour red and playing football

My Idea:
48 cupcakes displayed on a tower
1 giant cupcake to put candles in and cut

Decoration Ideas:
Red and white giant cupcake with star decoration
Football themed cupcakes

A simple sponge cake with a jam filling covered with sugarpaste decorations. The white stars and the base of the giant cupcake have pearlescent dust on them to make the cake sparkle. The letters are made using alphabet cutters and the cake is topped with a wooden "9" decoration.

The cupcakes are a simple chocolate sponge (to look like the ground under the grass) and the grass is coloured and piped vanilla buttercream. The cupcakes are in football themed wrappers and are decorated with a foil wrapped chocolate football and flag on a cocktail stick. The cupcakes were then placed on a cardboard tower.

Crafted Cakes

Hand crafted cakes made using high quality ingredients; fair trade sugar, free range eggs and organic flour, in the Leicestershire area.

• Cupcakes (small or large quantities)
• Special occasion cakes (birthdays, anniversaries, christenings, weddings, Christmas etc)
• Novelty Cakes (great for any age but especially children)

For any enquiries or orders please do not hesitate to contact me via email and in the message please state your name and number so I can call you back for a chat.
abbieparsons@hotmail.co.uk

BA (hons) Textile Crafts Degree Show

I graduated from university last year but a number of my friends were still studying so when it came to visiting their degree show I made my friend Claire a cake to say well done for working so hard.I wanted to make something that reflected her degree work and as she specialises in knit I created a simple sponge cake covered in mint green sugarpaste and topped with a ball of yarn and knitting needles. The needles were the labelled with the size of the needles she had been using and the ball of yarn was as near to the same colour as her final pieces.
I covered the cake as usual and then created the additional decorations for the top. The needles have flower wires running through to keep them upright, they were then covered with grey sugarpaste and topped with yellow. On the yellow part I used food colouring gel to paint the needle size.
The ball of yarn was created using a ball of scrunched up foil and then extruding sugarpaste mixed with Trex through a device much like a Playdough barber shop toy to form the spaghetti like strands.
I also used the spaghetti strands to spell "Sample 11" on the cake which is the name of the 2011 Textile Crafts Catalogue.

Parma Violet Cupcakes

I wanted to experiment with using parma violets in buttercream and then piping the buttercream onto cupcakes. I used 4 packets of giant parma violets, crushed up and then substituted part of the amount of icing sugar needed to make the buttercream. I also used Wilton violet colouring to give it a lovely colour. I was pleased with the way the cakes turned out but for me the taste of parma violets could have been stronger so possibly next time I will get some violet essence and add that in.
The cupcakes were fairly well recieved by my work colleagues but it turns out not everyone shares my love for parma violets!!

I'm thinking about trying refresher sweets next time....

50th Birthday Cake

My latest commission was for a birthday cake for a lady who is a nurse and her family requested that the cake would be her in her uniform. They also asked for the cake to be a madeira cake. Firstly I was worried because I knew the cake would be complicated being in the shape of a person and then because I hadn't baked a madeira cake before.
I started by doing a test cake, taste tested by my work colleagues, it seemed to go down well with them so I was pleased by that.
For the actual cake I baked three rectangular cakes. The first two were layered to form the body/dress which was carved into shape. The other rectangle formed the head, legs and shoes.
I had trouble with the sugar paste on this cake as it was a really warm day, the flat was warm from cooking the cakes and so the paste was sticky and cracking easily, NIGHTMARE!! :-)
With a few patches here and there the cake turned out ok, I know it could have been better but I just had to work with what I had.