Giant cup cake (1st attempt)

I had a silicone giant cup cake baking tin for my birthday, Above is a picture of my first attempt. I wasnt overly happy with the cake as a whole but haven't been deterred and will be having another go. The tips i have for you so far are 

• if like me you don't use boxed baking mixes the instructions on the giant cupcake mould box are useless. So you will  need a six egg cake mix to fill this mould.
• Use a very firm frosting for the top because there's a lot of it when it starts to fall you will get a landslide effect. 
• If you decide it might be fun to make a fake paper case out of chocolate fondant, Don't it's not.
• There is no room on this cake for novelty birthday candles, although some type of topper works very well like a cherry or sweets. 

layered fondant Birthday cake

This is a cake i made for a friend, that was to be revealed as a surprise at a birthday meal. (thank you Nando's staff for not dropping it, i know it was heavy) The cake it's self is 2 hexagon shaped vanilla sponges with vanilla butter cream centre and vanilla butter cream under the fondant. The fondant is attached in layers. Light green all over, followed by the dark green triangles, followed by the yellow strip at the bottom followed by the flowers. I didnt have an actual design in my head when i started this cake, it just kind of evolved by a need to play with my new flower cutting set. Remember when sticking fondant to fondant you only need a small amount of water.

Super Sweet Sixteen

My littlest sister just turned sixteen, and i thought i would let her know she is super sweet, with this OTT vanilla sponge decorated with pink butter cream (just add a very small amount of red food dye) and white chocolate jazzies ( available from any sweet shop, and much easier and cheaper to place than that many hundred and thousands would have been)  The cake is one layer of sponge baked in a hexagon tin.

Here we also have so cup cakes made over with left over frosting

Mini chocolate sponges

Elegant and great for sharing. This cake was made for my Mom. It is original one chocolate sponge mix. Once the cake had cooled i put it in the freezer for half an hour to firm up before carving. I then used a cookie cutter with an approximate diameter of 5 inches and pushed this through the cake, using a knife to help separate one cake into 4 mini round cakes. (this leaves you with plenty of cut off's to sample just to make sure you got your mix right) I then frosted the mini cakes and covered then in white fondant. For finishing touches i added black ribbon around the base and a fancy chocolate for the top 

Black and Red Tile cake

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Great for a quirky looking cake or even for you favourite football teams colours. This cake was made for a work friend in a basic round tin in two halves. I used a Victoria sponge with butter cream and mixed fruit jam to hold the two cakes together. I then used more butter cream with a little black food colouring in to frost the cake all over. The black food colouring helps to disguise any gaps when the fondant is applied. With store bought coloured fondant (thank you Angel sugar craft supplies) I cut out several squares about 3x3 cm sq. I used the top from an old herb jar to keep this uniform (make sure you clean it thoroughly else your fondant might taste a bit garlicky) When applying the fondant squares to the cake i recommend you start at the top in the centre as you would with any type of tiling, the butter cream will help the tiles stick. Take time and try to get it right first time, patients is preferable to having to wipe frosting off fondant.  As you work your way to the edge of the cake don't worry too much about messy or uneven edges as you can roll many balls of fondant to "hide" this, its not cheating its finishing touches :-) 

Spotty Sponge

Made  for a friend for her birthday i decided to experiment with sticking fondant to fondant, not as hard as i first thought it might be. You use just a little bit of water on the back of the shapes you want to stick. Although i would add make sure you put it in the right place the first time and if you sticking strong colours on be careful how much water you use as it may run.
I have to add here that i recently found the most adorable sugar craft shop that not only make bespoke cakes of what seemed fantastic quality, but also stock tools and  supplies that would enthral any amateur cake maker for a good while. Whilst perusing their ample collection of crafting must wants i noticed they stocked coloured fondant. So whilst i would love to take responsibility for the vivid red on this particular cake it would be most dishonest of me to do so. Thank you Angel Cake. I will most probably be happily spend my pennies with you in cake making times to come.

Vanilla Sponge


100 g /4oz soft unsalted butter
100 g / 4oz self raising flour
100 g / 4oz sugar of your choice (in this case i use just normal caster sugar but a brown sugar would work also)
2 eggs
tea spoon vanilla extract.

This is a basic sponge recipe to make a much cake as i used for the spotty sponge multiple it by 4, so 8 eggs 400 g etc.
cream butter a sugar together until light a fluffy add vanilla extract stir in eggs and flour a little at a time, it really is that simple bake for 20-25 minuets until cake is golden at 170 C/325 F /gas mark 3
You can make just one cake or several layers and stick them together with butter cream, before you ice them.
Spotty Sponge is made up of 3 tiers.
 bottom tier = 4 egg cake followed by the top two tiers being slightly narrower cakes both made with 2 egg mixes each. i trimmed the tops to make them flat, covered them in a vanilla butter cream before icing them with white and red fondant (cheating by using ready made fondant :-P )


Butter cream
225 g /8 oz softened unsalted butter
350 g / 12 oz icing sugar
1 teaspoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat the butter until very soft, stir in vanilla and milk then slowly sift in the icing sugar until beat until smooth, the long you beat this mixture the runnier it will be come so don't over do it or you cake will be sliding all over the place.

 

Chocolate Froggy Birthday Cake

It was recently my frog loving sisters 21st Birthday and i wanted to make her something special for the party..... and so was born the chocolate froggy birthday cake. This cake recipe is great just on its own or you can dress it up like i did for a special occasion. With just a little ready roll icing and hand moulded marzipan

Moist Chocolate Sponge
340g Unsalted butter
340g sugar of your choice
220g self raising flour
170g chocolate powder
6 eggs
hot water

Cream together the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, sift in the flour. In a separate bowl mix the chocolate powder with 2 table spoons of water until it is a smooth paste add more water if necessary and the stir into the main mixture until combined. spoon in to cake tin (this mixture doesn't rise much to don't be worried if the mixture comes close to the top of the tin i used a dome shaped tin for the frog cake to give me a good basic shape to work with later.) Bake for 30-35 minuets at 180 or gas mark 4. The best way to see if a cake is cooked is to gently stick a skewer into the centre when you remove it, if the cake is cooked it will be clean. 

To make a frog

I baked some of the cake mixture separately in a cup cake tin and used two cup cakes to add googly sticky out eyes.  After the cake is completely cool i placed it on a cake board (made from a piece of firm cardboard covered in tin foil)  i cheated just a little bit, there are so many products in your local supermarket that save time and make baking easier and stress free. I used a pre made frosting and covered the cake and attached my cupcake eyes on. Then i used marzipan which i moulded by hand into four foot shapes attaching this around the cake. you should now have a rough froggy appearance. Now the tricky bit, i used ready rolled fondant icing and added green food dye rolling this out i then draped it over the whole cake (including feet) take your time doing this. I also added some extra white fondant icing cut into circles to highlight the eyes and the added pupils and a smile with writing icing.