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!