HAT-A-CAKE!

Vince’s Companion Cube (and bear!) - 2013.

Another somewhat stressful endeavor… Birthday boy kept changing his mind as to what theme his 23rd birthday party was going to be and was insistent on receiving some kind of Portal themed cake despite the fact his fancy dress code was ‘growly animals’. I ultimately decided (on the day of the party…) that I would still go ahead and make him a companion cube, after coming across circular cake boards in ASDA. Umm, hello? OBVIOUSLY THEY WERE MEANT TO BE PORTALS. But what to do about his overall safari-esque theme? Well, he decided to dress up in a grizzly bear onesie (with heart shaped tail… Yes, really).

Anyway, so, when I chanced upon a tiny teddy with a heart on it’s belly I thought it was too good to be true… Teddy would be cut in half and travelling through the portals! Muahaha.

The cake was sticky Jamaican ginger flavoured, covered in spiced cream cheese frosting and white fondant which I sprayed silver. The fussiest part of the cake was angling the cube through the portals correctly, so it looked like it was tumbling through one to the other seamlessly. I don’t know why I didn’t just have it falling down straight, like in the Google image above, because it would have made my life SO much easier… I thought it would look too static though. The other time-consuming part was cutting out pieces of black fondant to the right size and assembling them. Other than that… I had a lot of fun making this cake!

The coloured sanding sugar on the fondant portal rings was probably my favourite touch… Apart from severing the bear in half, of course! :P

Bonus photos: A lion and a unicorn carrying the companion cube cake through to the birthday bear boy. It was an awesome party.

Andy’s Serenity (Spaceship from Firefly) - 2013.

A joint effort between me and a friend for this one… She made the cake (vanilla sponge), I decorated. It was a combination of a circular cake and a loaf which was used to create the body of the ship and the various extremities. The whole thing was edible, apart from the wing engines (polystyrene), the rear engine fins (cardboard) and the cockpit area (cardboard). If we had had more time, ideally everything would have been edible (through the use of sugarpaste, etc).

This cake, from the very start to finish, took four hours. Sounds like a long time, but REALLY NO. This was probably the most stressful cake I’ve ever attempted!!

The cake was covered with standard white fondant and sprayed with copious amounts of silver luster dust (with a little gold too, for shadows/detailing). Silver dragees in various sizes were used for bolts/rivets (like the steampunk teapot) and the windows. Gold dragees were used on the rear engine to emulate lights/windows.

My favourite detail is the use of battery-powered star shaped fairy lights around the cake (because it’s in space, duh!). Good old Poundland. Thank you for your questionably cheap tat and treats, I salute you.

Rachel’s Dragonfly - 2012.

Lucky Rachel, two cakes in a year! Well, the first one didn’t technically count seeing as it was a batch of Rice Krispie cakes masquerading as sushi :P

I decided to make her a ‘real’ cake last year and plumped for a dragonfly in honour of Dragonfly Festival, a beautiful and ambient place we travel to  in Sweden every year as a group of friends. The festival always falls on/around her birthday (late August) and this cake served in part as an homage to our special pilgrimage as sadly, it was cancelled in 2012 (rumour has it that it’s back on this year though, so woo!).

The cake inside was marbled chocolate/vanilla sponge made up of two loaves. They were covered with vanilla buttercream and marbled blue/purple fondant (which by the way, is a massive ball-ache to do… You have to be very careful not to actually MIX the colours together!).

Gold dragees were stuck to large ovals of white fondant to create the multiple lensed eyes which insects have. They were so shiny! Sadly, I only had my iPhone to hand here, hence the shoddy Instagrammy quality of photos ;)

My favourite detail on this cake was the use of coloured rice paper cut into wing shapes and stuck onto wooden lollipop sticks. They actually flapped gently in the breeze! I used glittery writing icing pens to create the veins on the wings and I’m slightly surprised they didn’t collapse under the weight… Hooray!

Stan’s Kookaburra Cricket Bat - 2012.

This was a nice and simple cake to make; two chocolate loaves held together with chocolate fudge buttercream.

To achieve the wood grain aesthetic, I first lightly sprayed the white fondant covering with gold luster dust. Then I scored along the bat with a fork to create grooves, before using a pastry brush and cocoa powder to accentuate the finish.

As I was using Stan’s actual Kookaburra Rogue to model the cake from, I also added three reddish dents to represent the spots on his much-loved bat from where he had been slogging the ball ;)

My favourite detail on this cake was the use of a stick of rock as the handle! That was a particularly inspired idea from my mum. Cheers, ma!

Hazel’s Steampunk Teapot - 2011.

This was the first 3D cake I properly attempted!

It was half vanilla sponge/half chocolate sponge, covered in vanilla buttercream and chocolate fondant.

I used gold luster dust spray over the dark, bumpy fondant to achieve the beaten metal aesthetic. The bolts and rivets are gold dragees and the spout and handle are made from sugarpaste (I wasn’t impressed with the handle then and I’m even less impressed with it now! Ah well, you live and learn, right?). My favourite detail on this cake has to be the multicoloured candyfloss I used for the steam! I think it adds a whimsical Alice In Wonderland/Studio Ghibli feel to it.