If life hands you lemons...

If life hands you lemons... you'd better make lemon cake.
Oh yes, make an elegant lemon birthday cake for Karen. 

Murna visited the other day and after a catch up asked me to make her

 sister's birthday cake and to decorate it with a yellow rose. 

The colour palette feels fresh and perfect for spring (even if the weather isn't) 
yet remains understated and refined.

On the inside: light and fluffy lemon Genoese sponge with a zingy lemon buttercream filling. 

On the outside: spring-like yellow sugarpaste, piped royal icing details and modelling paste roses and leaves.

 Anyone else's mouth water when they think about lemons? 
Just me? Ah well. Happy Birthday Karen.

Of course, if after all that lemon cake baking you still have lemons left, then maybe make some lemonade.  You know, to quench your thirst after all that lemon cake baking. You deserve it. 

Arty shot!

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Can't make cake without breaking eggs!

Been cracking a few eggs this week.

I'm not frivolous enough to crack eggs straight into my mixing bowl. Respect if you do, though.

 These all went into a beautiful Lemon Genoese Sponge

 which eventually became a birthday cake. I'll tell you about that tomorrow morning.

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Where the Wild Roses Grow

I'm making roses at the moment and I'm loving it. There's something about interpreting the beauty of nature using Sugarcraft that I really enjoy. So I'm pretty pleased to be working on a cake for very dear friends who thought of me when they required something extra special. 

 

 In the evenings, as the sun sets you can find me busily hand crafting lots of tiny shiny rose buds for this cake. Each one is moulded from modelling paste and dusted with some sparkle. 

As you can see, a lot of thought goes into each individual flower.

When the buds are ready it'll be on to half roses, then full roses, all with a delicate pearl sheen. I'll keep posting as the cake develops. You'll see it go from start to finish.

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p.s. Anyone else notice how both football teams I blogged about at the weekend won their matches? If only there was a way for me to connect and nurture this link between cakes and football predictions, I could do amazing things! Muahahah!

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Andreas' Chelsea FC cake

On to the second of my football cakes for this footballing weekend.

I'm not into football much, but many of my friends are, including Andreas, a young man I know very well 

who supports Chelsea FC. This is his birthday cake.

On the inside is a rich chocolate cake with silky chocolate ganache filling covered in chocolate fondant.

On the outside it's Bas Relief shaped into the trademark ceremonial lion crest. Instantly recognisable. Ridiculously cool.

Let's see how Chelsea does in the FA Cup semi final against Spurs this weekend! 

Well, I won't actually be watching myself... But I'm sure Andreas will let me know the score.

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Liverpool FC Cake

It's a big weekend in football, so I have a couple of football related posts for you.

Firstly, I find football pretty boring, but I do love cake so I didn't mind making this! 

 I don't have a t'shirt shaped cake tin and I now realise that you don't need one either.

It's so easy to carve the cake into shape. So that's what I did. 

On the inside, it's a strawberry and vanilla madeira cake with vanilla buttercream.

On the outside I carved then covered the cake in red fondant (took ages to colour myself) and sparkles. 

Then I used modelling paste to mould the shield before piping with white royal icing. I love piping.

The great thing about this type of cake is - the possibilities are endless! 

It doesn't matter who you support or play for you can recreate the look. 
Change some colours, add a logo and hey presto!

So good luck Liverpool, a team I have been forced to watch on many occasions 

when it becomes obvious I can't get anyone to give me the remote. 


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Cynthia's Nursing Graduation Cake

Cynthia is one the first people ever to ask me to make her a cake.

So when she called and asked me to create a something to celebrate graduating in nursing 

I couldn't be more pleased.

Here's what we came up with.

On the inside it's a classic vanilla madeira cake with strawberry buttercream.

On the outside it's got some of the things she'll need. 

There's a syringe, pills falling of the side, out of a little pill pot and sprinkled at the corners. 

Don't worry they're all placebos!

Her very own nurse cap sits on top and to finish her pink stethoscope wraps itself between the tiers.

Congratulations Cynthia.

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