Happy Easter everyone! I hope you all had a lovely break and indulged in plenty of chocolate
I’ve just finished a Wiggles Car Cake – more photos to follow later this week, but I wanted to share the first video which shows how I carved and ganached this cake.
Please note that this cake started off looking pretty terrible!!!! You will see in the video, but I wanted to include those parts so that you can see the process I go through. Most of the time my cakes look pretty ordinary during the decorating process and then towards the end they magically come together
I will post the remaining videos later this week. Enjoy!
I’m delighted to be sharing a recipe for some easy Easter bunny cookies over on the Feeding Guide blog today. These are SO simple and a bit different to the normal easter cookies you usually see.
For the full tutorial, head on over to the Feeding Guide and for a video tutorial see below. Happy Easter everyone!
It was my daughter Ava’s 5th birthday on the weekend and we had a Minnie Mouse themed party – pictures of the party will follow, but I wanted to show you a quick picture of her birthday cake
This gorgeous design is from Taartjes van Bel - I can’t take any credit at all!
I’ve made a full video tutorial for this cake as I thought it would be easier. The first part shows me making the Minnie Mouse Head and covering it (I used Rice Krispie Treat mix), the second part shows me decorating the head and the third part shows the decorating of the cake. Enjoy!
The inspiration for the top part of this cake came from Pom Pom Cakes
To start making the top, I firstly found a bowl that suited the top tier of my cake
Next stage was to line my bowl with baking paper, make my Rice Krispie Treat mixture (melt two cups of marshmallows, 1.5 tablespoons of butter and then add to 3 cups of rice bubbles), fill my bowl and then leave in the fridge overnight.
You could always make cake in a pudding bowl that was the right size, but I didn’t need any extra cake and RKT is cheaper and nice and light (so you don’t need any support in the cake), and I could make it well in advance.
The next day I made my chocolate ganache and cover my dome as smoothly as possible.
Once set, I rolled out some green fondant and covered my dome
To make the cloud, I rolled out a thick piece of white fondant (which was mixed with a hardening agent)
Using a circle cutter I cut out the cloud shape
Next I cut out a white circle for the sunshine and then left both the cloud and sun aside to harden
I then drew a really bad sketch of the house!! Measure your sketch above your hill to make sure the size is accurate. You can see that I also used a tiny blossom cutter to make the flowers
Roll out some yellow fondant (mixed with a hardening agent) and cut out your house
Very carefully using a knife, make indents for all the sides of the house
Cut out the windows and door and attach using some water
Cut out an orange strip for the roof and gently place it on the house with some water. Trim the sides/end so it is in line with the yellow house
Using an orange/red edible pen, mark in the outline/side of the house (I did the most terrible job with this!!)
Using a knife, very carefully indent your brick shape
Once the cloud and sunshine have been drying for 45 minutes, gently place some florist’s wire inside
Final step is to draw on the windows using an edible marker and to make two holes with toothpicks. Also stick a yellow circle of fondant on your sunshine and draw in the sun rays with a yellow edible marker.
Leave everything to harden overnight and then you can stick it all onto the hill
The ‘Olivia’ wording was made from FMM funky alphabet tappits, and for an easy bow tutorial you can see it in the humpty video here
One of my girlfriends had a Peppa Pig themed party for her daughter last week and I made her this cake
Peppa Pig is a HUGE hit in our house (though why don’t episodes go for longer than 5 minutes?!!!!!) and so I wanted to create some tutorials so that you can all learn how to make your own Peppa Pig cake. I decided to make a photo tutorial for Peppa and a video tutorial for George and Daddy – so you can choose whether you want to hear my voice and watch me!!! Feel free to scroll down to the end to see the video. To make the top part of the cake click here.
To start making Peppa you will need some red fondant, black, flesh/pink skin colour and a darker pink fondant. All fondant needs to be mixed with a hardening agent like tylo powder or you need to use gum/sugar paste instead of fondant.
Start with your skin colour fondant and using a sugar shaper, squeeze out a line of fondant. You could roll out a thin sausage of fondant using your hands, but I really would recommend having a sugar shaper – I use mine all the time (it is brilliant at creating hair) and purchased it from here.
Chop your line into two for the legs and squeeze the top of both lines together
Trim the top of the legs with a knife and then set aside.
Roll out your red for the body and shape into a triangle shape. Based on my prior figurines turning out too fat (this happens as the fondant hardens and your figurine slumps down a bit), I decided to start making my Peppa taller… but the first thing my daughter said was that Peppa’s dress wasn’t ‘triangle’ enough! Thanks Lily
So.. you probably need to make more of a pronounced triangle body than what I have shown in this picture.
Stick the body onto the legs using some water. Roll out two balls of black for the shoes.
Roll the balls into ovals and stick onto the end of the legs
Grab your skin coloured fondant and make a ball. I like to measure mine next to the body to check that my ball is the right size for the body.
To make the head shape, roll the ball into an egg/cone shape
Tap the smaller part of the cone onto the table – this will flatten up the ‘nose’
Last step is to use your fingers to create the ‘chin’ part of the head – if this part is confusing, see my video below as this shows you more clearly how I did this with George.
Stick a toothpick or piece of dry spagetti into Peppa’s body. Add a small dab of water and stick the head in place.
Wait for the head to harden (overnight – or at least 5 hours) and then using a flesh/pink coloured edible marker, mark on the mouth and nostrils
Roll out the darker pink and cut out two small circles for the cheeks. Attach using some water
Make two indents using a ball tool for the eyes. Roll out two white circles and attach using some water.
Roll out two teardrop shapes for the ears and attach using some water. I used a bottle of edible food colouring to place behind Peppa as stability for the ears.
Roll out some more flesh fondant using your sugar shaper. Cut out as per the picture below for the arms and hands and attach the hands using some water. Leave to dry for about 15 minutes.
Attach onto Peppa’s body using some water – be very careful with the water as the red fondant + water can make the arms turn red! Use sparingly. Also add the eyeballs with a black edible marker or tiny balls of black fondant.
For a video tutorial for how I made George and Daddy Pig see below
Stay tuned for the second part of the tutorial where I will be showing you how to do the top part of the cake.
When my friend first decided on a Playschool themed birthday party for her daughter, the first idea I had was to incorporate the playschool windows into some cookie favours.
I have a short video on making the cookie shapes
Once you have baked your cookies, wet your cookie with water and stick on your white fondant.
I then coloured 4 balls of fondant with the 4 colours I needed for the windows (pale green, pale yellow, pale pink and pale blue)
For the square and diamond cookies, roll out your fondant and cut out a square. Use the next size square cutter to make your square border.
Stick on the outer square.
It is a little tricky sticking the border onto the cookie because the fondant is so soft… so don’t worry, you can easily move the border into place!
Cut out some thin strips
Gently place them and then cut them to size so that they make the inner ‘cross’
The circle cookies are made in the same way as the square/diamond cookies, but using different sized circle cutters and to get the ‘arched’ shape in the arch-window cookies you use the same method but with circle and square cutters together (see the cookie video above)
I then wrapped my cookies in cello bags and tied them with some twine and a little playschool label that I made with an image from google
Remember Ella’s 1st birthday from last year? Her very talented photographer Mum has been one of my best friends since we were 11 – so roughly 10 years ago
I wanted to do a quick wrap up of the Playschool Party for you today
I wanted to show you how I made the fondant ‘happy birthday’ blocks. I started with some white fondant that I mixed with tylo powder. To use letter cutters you need to roll out your fondant and let it harden for a few minutes before pressing out the letters with your cutter. Once I cut out my letters, I left them overnight to dry.
I had my ‘playschool’ colours which I had mixed earlier when I made my fondant plaques. To make the blocks you need to roll out a ball of fondant and flatten it so that it is the height that you require for your block (see the red squashed circle on the right)
Let it harden for 5 minutes before using a very sharp knife to cut off the sides. This is the same process that I use for making fondant lego.
Let your blocks harden overnight
The next day, turn your blocks over and stick on the letters with some water. Leave them to dry and then they are ready to go on the cake!
I wanted to start this blog post by saying a huge thankyou to everyone on the facebook page who helped me finish off the design for the Play School cake. I was worried that my cake was looking a little bare, so I posted my unfinished cake and asked for help, and help I got!!!! So a massive thankyou for all of the wonderful suggestions – it’s much appreciated
Tap the smaller part of the cone onto the table – this will flatten up the ‘nose’
