A Surprise call from Wedding TV

During the summer I booked to attend a wedding fair at The Italian Villa in Compton Acres. The event was organised by Melanie Kiani from Bellissimo Wedding and Event Planners who was approached by Wedding TV to become a presenter on a show filmed during the summer. During this time I also attend a WIBN meeting where we talked about my cakes and my company. To my surprise, Melanie put my name forward for another show with Wedding TV called The Great Cake Bake, where 3 cake decorators are invited to meet with a Bride and Groom to discuss how they would make a 'dream' wedding cake for them. The couple then choose which cake decorator they would like to make their cake.

When I received the call from Wedding TV to see if I would like to be part of the show I was amazed and delighted, even though I am very new on the scene it was a fantastic opportunity. First of all I had a interview with the Richard, the cameraman who instantly put me at ease, we talked about my background and training and what kind of cake I might think about making for the Bride and Groom.

The theme for the wedding is Winter Wonderland. For the consultation I took along some cake dummies, sources of inspiration as well as some carefully made samples for the Bride and Groom to taste. The wedding is being held at Rownhams House in Southampton and even though I was incredibly nervous Roger and his wife Penny made us feel so welcome and they were so very helpful that I soon calmed down and enjoyed the day. The Bride and Groom were everything I could have hoped for - friendly, kind and full of fun. With lots of questions, cake and giggling - I almost forgot the camera was there!

My husband and I left Rownhams House and headed back to Poole with the promise of a call around 8.30pm to be told whether I was the lucky cake decorator, so when I received a call from the Bride at 6pm I was very surprised - her voice cut out slightly with the phone signal but I managed to hear 'to do our cake' and hoped that the words before that were 'we would like you..' I was absolutely amazed to be the cake decorator the Bride and Groom chose as the other cake decorators were very experienced and I never thought that I would get the opportunity. Needless to say I was (and am) delighted to be making the cake - the wedding is on 28th December so I am now working on designs and planning for the big day! The show will be out early next year - watch this space!

Special Cupcakes for a Birthday Girl

Last week I received an emergency cupcake order from a Mum at school who had seen some of my creations coming in for my daughters and wanted to order something similar for her daughter's birthday. Her daughter was very keen on the hand dusted butterflies I had created previously but as these are very time consuming I didn't think I would have enough time.

I baked vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and piped the buttercream to look like an open flower and made lilac butterflies with petal paste which I had painted and shimmered. I also made some little plunger blossoms and added them around the sides of the flower buttercream. The effect was finished with abundant sprinkles and glitter. It was wonderful to see her face when I arrived at school and to hear her say 'Mummy, look it's butterflies!'

Needless to say I loved my job that day!

Happy 1st Birthday Absolutely W.I. Ferndown

I was asked to decorate a fabulous fruit cake for the Absolutely W.I. in Ferndown for their 1st birthday party. Their leader Jacqueline entrusted me with a very special fruit cake she had baked for me to mazipan, cover with sugarpaste and decorate with moth orchids to match their logo.

It was a lovely challenge and I was so pleased when they were delighted with the result. I was unable to attend the party as I had an emergency cupcake order to fulfill but apparently the cake was well received by all!

Hello Kitty Birthday Cake with matching Cupcakes!

A few weeks ago, I had great fun creating a special birthday cake for my daughter Annabelle with matching Hello Kitty cupcakes to give out to all her friends at her birthday party.

I created the little kitty faces by making run-outs in Royal Icing and adding extra special pink sparkly bows to each one. The cupcakes were yummy lemon ones with hidden lemon curd inside and topped with lemon buttercream. Once the Hello Kitty faces were on I finished them off with a nose and whiskers in black Royal Icing.

The cake was a 6" round with pink sugarpaste and pretty flowers and a love heart chain. I made a mini Hello Kitty to sit on top with a pretty scalloped skirt and matching bow. She is still sitting under a glass cake stand in our kitchen - I just can't bring myself to throw her away. Annabelle insisted that she should have a smile and I think she was right.

All the children wanted to take the big Hello Kitty home but were very happy with their own Kitty on the cakes!

A dash to Melksham for a Summer Wedding

I had the great pleasure of making the wedding cake for David and Natasha in July. It was a beautiful day and their wedding cake consisted of 90 chocolate cupcakes with fondant icing in lilac and white with miniature roses on each one on a mirror tiered tower.

The display was finished at the top with a decorated 6" fruit cake, covered with sugarpaste and delicate swags with small lilac roses.

This was finished with a bespoke posy of roses, freesias and hand-made sugarpaste butterfiles.

As we had only had discussions via email and the phone in the run up to the wedding, I was so pleased when they expressed their delight in the finished result.

A Special Campervan for a 40th Birthday

I was very excited to create a Vintage VW Campervan for a special 40th Birthday celebration. After searching the internet and shops for inspiration, I ended up with pictures pinned all up around the kitchen for reference. The cake was a lovely lemon sponge with lemon curd and buttercream, covered in sugarpaste with the baseboard made to look like sand, with coloured sugar added for extra texture.

Even though it was quite a challenge, I was really pleased with the result, especially the bespoke Kayak on the back of the van.

A very hot day and Peppa Pig

As any cake decorator will tell you trying to decorate cakes in the summer can be incredibly difficult, first dealing with buttercream in a warm kitchen is very tricky and even when the cake has been in the fridge for a few hours you still have a race against time to get the cake covered without the buttercream melting or air bubbles developing in the icing. I have discovered a solution - in the absence of an air conditioned kitchen I have been using the new fan from Dyson to help to keep the cakes cool.

On a particularly very hot day, I covered the cakes for the Peppa Pig birthday cake and watched as probably the biggest air bubble develop I have ever seen - thankfully with the use of a scribe and a lot of smoothing I managed to deflate the cake.

The next morning I added Peppa, some clouds, a sun made from pastillage and pretty flowers to finish the cake. The recipient was delighted with the cake and very sweetly said 'uh oh, Peppa' when the cake came to be cut.

Special Cupcakes for a Special Girl

It was my youngest daughters birthday earlier this month and I made some cupcakes for her to have with her friends at school, although I was going for simple pretty buttercream with sprinkles and love heart sweets she begged for butterflies.

How could I possibly refuse? Considering that these all had to be edible the only way to make them look as if they had just landed on the cakes was to make them with petal paste and then dust individually with yellow and pink. A sprinkle of edible glitter added that extra special touch perfect for a gaggle of little 5 year olds!

Even though it meant staying up until 2am to create these pretty cakes the look on her face in the morning was worth the extra bags under my eyes!

A Miniature Macaron Tower

For my final piece in my Level 2 A.B.C. Sugarcraft course I wanted to make a miniature wedding table with a macaron tower as the wedding cake. I love French macarons and make them all the time so I thought it was fitting to recreate a tower for the table.

The piece is very small and delicate, the collar alone took over 2 hours to make and when my Tutor Dawn put the collar on I held my breath waiting to hear it break. I then had to put the macaron tower on top of the cake. The macarons were all individually piped out using Royal Icing and to make sure they looked authentic I piped Royal Icing inside each shell before sandwiching them together and putting on a cone. As everything on the cake has to be edible I made the ribbon out of petal paste and shimmered to make it look like a real ribbon.

I was delighted with the result, although I managed to damage the collar in my exhibition for a brief period of time the cake was perfect!

ABC Sugarcraft Exhibition

I can't quite believe an academic year has passed and I have finished my Level 2 A.B.C Sugarcraft course. What a year it's been, the opportunity to train under a fantastic Tutor - Dawn Pennington and to learn as much as I have has been amazing.

All the students from the Bournemouth and Poole College who took any of the courses in Sugarcraft were invited to exhibit their work to the public. It was great to see all the hard work that people had put in to make some fantastic pieces of work. I didn't realise quite how much I had achieved until all my pieces were together on one table. I was also delighted to hear that I had a provisional mark of 3 distinctions.

It's been an exciting year and I have made some great friends. My Friday mornings just won't be the same over the summer! Now it's all systems go to beginning Level 3 in September - watch this space!

Sweet Pea Fairy

I have been attending classes at Magic Moments in Poole on a Saturday morning with the owner Karen, normally we make flowers but as we had a few extra sessions before we finish for the summer Karen asked us if we wanted to do something special, which was this very cute Sweet Pea Flower fairy complete with little toadstool.

She took a little while to make but I think she is adorable and made from sugarpaste and petal paste. The head was molded using a special fairy mold and all her features were painted on. I particularly love the little fairy shoes complete with bows and the pretty sweet pea hat.

My daughters thought she was lovely and now she has pride of place on our sideboard watching over all of us!

A Special Birthday Cake - Charlotte the Sunflower Fairy

On Saturday my daughter Charlotte had a 7th Birthday party, her request for her cake was 'something pretty with flowers on', she is a fan of the Rainbow Fairies books and loves the book 'Charlotte the Sunflower Fairy' - unsurprisingly! Knowing how much children like cupcakes I made a pretty cupcake tower with primrose and petunia flowers with a special cake on the top covered in brush embroidered sunflowers and Charlotte the Sunflower fairy sitting on the cake.

As it was a surprise I had to wait until she went to bed to make the fairy, she was a delight to make and I was thrilled when her friends arrived and said 'Look, it's Charlotte the Sunflower Fairy'. Great fun!

ABC Inter-College Competition 2010

There was a hubbub of excitement at College in the run-up to the first ABC Inter-College Competition run by our Tutor - Dawn Pennington, at Bournemouth and Poole College. She invited all the colleges in the UK doing the same courses to take part. The competition was amazingly organised, with Eddie Spence as one of the judges, a guest appearance from Mary Ford and the Mayor of Bournemouth.

The display of cakes and flowers were stunning. Often when we are all in class we miss what other people are doing. It was also really interesting to see what the other colleges were creating considering everyone would have been given the same brief and requirement for each category, the variety was truly inspiring.

I was delighted to achieve a Merit for my Christmas Carousel, my first ever Royal Iced creation and a Gold Medal for my Paris Showgirls Sugarpaste cake.

It was also a honour to meet Eddie Spence and Mary Ford, both very inspirational people. After a long conversation with Eddie about my Christmas Carousel (apparently it was only 1 or 2 points off a bronze!) it was very interesting to see how much attention to detail and how the smallest things make a difference when it comes to judging. I will be getting my protractor and compass out for the next Royal Iced cake methinks!

Dragonflies for a Special Girl

My daughter Charlotte turned 7 this weekend and even though she is having her 'proper' cake, as she calls it, at her party on Saturday there is a tradition at her school that the parents bring in a cake, or cakes for them to share with their friends, which I think is lovely. They also sing Happy Birthday and get to blow out candles in assembly - great fun!

So considering that I am training in cake design I couldn't really pop to the shops and turn up with plain fairy cakes. Charlotte had asked for dragonfly fairy cakes (featured in the Planet Cake book). So I pushed up my sleeves and with a bit of lilac shimmer, petal paste wings and purple royal iced bodies created these.

I have to say I was really pleased with the end result, and when I dropped them off at school Charlotte was very popular with her friends. I just hope the other Mummies didn't mind the lilac shimmer effect that ended up on their lips making them all look like funky models!