This is a cake with an elephant on top, need i say more?

Howdy

So this week i made my first ever cake that wasnt for friends, family, or someone who felt sorry for me so let me make them a cake for money- HELL YES.  However, it also feels like quite a bit more pressure since theres 100% no room for error, i want to impress, and the only way to do that is to pump out some badass and as near to utterly perfect as humanly possible cakes.  Thankfully again the brief was quite fun and there was plently of opportunity to experiment and make something fabulous.  The cake was for a ladies birthday, and i was told she 'likes purple, elephants and is a bit of a hippie'- to quote. (im sorry if you're reading this but your friend called you a hippie). 

I won't even attempt to explain the thought process behind this 'masterpiece', one minute i was making a sophisticated birthday cake fit for a lady and the next i had glitter on my face and an edible elephant the size of a tennis ball sat on my kitchen counter.  So enough said, here it is...

1) The finished project 2) since i dont have any business cards an actual card will do :) 3) A tower of sponge cake 4) a lil close up 5) this took me 2 hours 6) and then i doused it in glitter.

The whole cake is made up of four layers with buttercream (in a smashing shade of purple) in between followed by a crumb coating of said buttercream and a layer of white ready roll icing.  I had such a hard time getting the icing to be purple, the colour i wanted was a bright violet but no matter how much sodding food colouring i put in i got lilac- oh well, c'est la vie.  I think it looks cool how the layers of icing are overlapping, makes it slightly more interesting, and i'm even more impressed that this was totes by accident.  afterwards i brushed some glitter here and there, added some silver sparkly ribbon and voila! 

 

I am reasonably pleased with it, except i do think it looks quite like a 'Welcome to the world baby *insertnamehere*' cake- but i'm trying not to think about it, i think it's the lilac.

Thank you ever so much for taking the time out to read my little post- it means the world :)

Louise xx

Lovely Tom's 21st

Before I start, my name's Louise and I make (am obsessed with) cakes, and it turns out i'm not too shabby at it.  I thought it might be fun to document the cakes i make to inspire anyone else who loves to bake, and if you dont care to bake then just look at the pictures :)

So this week I was handed  the task of creating a 21st birthday cake for my good friend Tom with little guidance other than 'it MUST incorporate fireworks'.  With a brief like that (and the promise of generous payment) it's almost impossibe to refuse.  I'd never made a cake for a fella before and decided to stick with blue/turquoise (boys like blue right?) and gold, since that meant I got to play with edible glitter again- hurrah. I think the end result looks kind of like my imagination exploded onto a cake and as usual I didn't stick to my original plan, but I think it turned out pretty okay.

1)them ingredients 2) exactly why you ought to wear a pinny 3) turquoise and gold buttercream 4) crumb coating the cakey-cake and i finally mastered a paper piping bag 5) a second and smoother layer of buttercream 6) i sprayed on gold glitter spray and then brushed on gold glitter powder to give a lovely gradient effect 7) the finished product in terrible lighting 8) a lil' close up 9) you asked for fireworks and I delivered.

Big up to Paul and Mary (Hollywood and Berry respectively, obvs) for their sponge recipe which has become my safety blanket for basic sponge cake and is lifted straight from the 'Great British Bake Off' book.  The cake is made up of three layers, with strawberry jam and buttercream in between the layers.  The buttercream itself is just a combination of icing sugar, milk/cream and butter and you should probz consult Mr Hollywood about that recipe too.  The gel food colouring i used is the best! it's from lakeland and is a mixture of a 'sky blue' and 'moss green'.  I only had to use a little and the colour is crazy vibrant. The gold glitter spray i used from a co-op i believe, the edible gold glitter cost me an arm and a leg (£2.50) for a teeny tiny vile from Fenwick.

PS: A thousand appologies to my wonderful flatmate Toby for putting up with the trail of destruction my baking leaves behind, and i hope the photo's are okay- i'm still playing with my new camera :)

Louise x