Not another edible image of Justin Beiber?

I was asked by the client to create a special cake for her daughters 14th birthday party, she adores Justin Beiber so would love a cake with him on but under no circumstances was it to be an edible image of the boy/ man!

When you taking a call you have to think fast Justin Beiber ( kid rock star, lots of money, screaming girls, trousers around his ankles, hat back to front, bubblegum pop songs, more screaming girls, tattoos, fainting kids, more screaming and so it goes on....), my idea Marquee lights and a sugar model of Justin Beiber, mainly because I wanted to have a go at edible marquee lights I'd seen a tutorial on Pinterest to make them, so I pitched my idea, gave the client some size and price options.

Settled on chocolate cake , 3 layers with chocolate buttercream filling with purple fondant icing.

Marquee lights for age , name on cake and a model (gulp!).

1st step Marquee lights follow the YouTube tutorial: http://pin.it/KekS80L

Here's my 1st attempt which I went with

Next make the cakes, 3 simple chocolate cake layers each with a 7" diameter , filled with chocolate buttercream and crumb coated, then smooth coated with buttercream and left to setup in the fridge. 

I iced the cake drum in black  keep to the brief of rock star cake and covered the cake with a deep purple coloured fondant using the upside down method to get the smooth sharp edges that I love ( thanks Jessica Harris for teaching me via Craftsy ).

Next for the model , I looked through loads of images of Justin Beiber, boy does he have a lot of images on Google most of them inappropriate so I narrowed it down, I didn't want to make a straight standing figure I needed the challenges of I found this image on Google.

Most of his body is covered up but he has a clean look and he challenge of a squatting figure. How do I achieve this with plenty of CMC in the paste and an armature of jewellery wire inside his boy to support the weight. The only real problem I had was the hands ( I just can't get to grips with them, must try harder), the shirt and tattoos were all hand painted, I really don't think it's too bad and I was really chuffed with the end result. 

 I just hope that Anya was pleased with him, I know her parents were thrilled with it.

Let me know what you think too!

The six nations Rugby

I have yet to make a cake for the Super Bowl but there is always a first time. So with that in mind I thought that I would focus on the other big sporting event in the world at the moment , that's it the Six nations.

An England rugby ball. I hand carved this cake from an extra deep oval Madeira sponge it was as 3 dimensional as I could practically make it with some strategically placed sugar grass around it for support.

The next attempt at the same rugby ball cake. 

Well there you have it I have also made another couple of cakes the same and an Irish rugby shirt cake the size of my dining table but the pictures are on the old computer , I'm sure I'll find them eventually.

What I did today

We'll shopping for Lino is probably not that high on most peoples to do lists but with refreshing my sanctuary (the kitchen) we decided not only on painting the walls (misty harbour blue) and woodwork now white instead of cream but the floor needed replacing too. So, we have ordered a black tiled Lino floor which will take about 2weeks to come so I have plenty of time to finish regrouting the tiles and replacing the worn work top where I roll the sugar paste. I will be happy when it's all finished.

Next on my to do list is painting the chairs for the studio I'm thinking bright colours something striking, am after some old picture frames too for my display cakes. Watch this space.

The case of the happy brown dog

The brief was a happy brown dog with houses for 5 year old Rachel and that was it not a lot to go one except it needed to be vanilla sponge for 10people.

I started with a sketch of a work in progress.

I started with 3 layers of 7" round vanilla sponge filled with vanilla buttercream and seedless raspberry jam then coated them with a peppermint green buttercream to the sides of the cake. I cut out a round of mid green sugar paste and placed it onto of the cake. 

The cake board was covered in poppy red sugar paste and the cake placed off centre on top.

I made the happy brown dog complete with red collar and golden dog tag he came out a little larger than I anticipated so I just went with it as he was sooooo cute! Because of the size of the model I had to place he houses to the front of the cake otherwise I would run the risk of the dog looking like 'Digby'.

I made the houses using shades of brick with one house having a thatched roof ( it just seemed more romantic) I used sugar paste and stuff them to the buttercreamed sides of the cake. 

The finishing detail was the writing a large number '5' using white sugar paste rolled out thinly to create the shape on top of the cake.I then used this technique to create 'Rachel' on the cake board. The finishing touch was a a red gingham ribbon around pad the board. And voila the cake is complete.

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The year of the Horse

With the beginning of another year I thought it was time to knuckle down to getting my business SugarBees Essex back up and running as I seem to have neglected it due to a change of circumstances.

So as it's the beginning of the year of the Horse and I thought that I would revisit some of my horse themed cakes.

The beginning of my love affair with horses heads (not in a macabre way), this cake was carved from a slab of Madeira sponge  and then hand cut in the various levels to make a Multi dimensional cake I then built up the head with paste before covering the whole head with chestnut coloured sugar paste. I love this horse as it looks like it has just won its rosette in the pony club gymkhana. The personalised rosette just finishes it all off.

Version 2was made on a tighter budget but it is still a beautiful cake a lovely bay horse with black muzzle with beautiful deep blue reigns and rosette for Katie's 6th birthday.

The final horses head was a grey fantasy horse with a pink mane , very 'my little pony'. The budget was even tighter for this cake and the design is very simplified. 

And so we move onto the inspiration for the 'Year of the horse' a collection of pictures that I hope to inspire you as they have me.

I hope I've inspired you and I'm working on some projects to do with the Chinese New Year for next time.

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The case of the wonky peacock

The brief was she loves the colours of the peacock.
Well that's something to start with ( I usually get a cake and pretty or something different but I'm not sure what) so this is a refreshing change.
I started by making the cake an 8" round sponge and then I made the body for the peacock a sort if oval shape with navy blue modelling paste with an emu shaped neck which I had to support with spaghetti as it was so fine and delicate. I left that to set while I iced the sponge with white icing and covered the cake drum with teal and turquoise marbled sugar paste.
The next job was to start adding the peacock feathers to the body and add the eyes to the feathers, I used a lot of artistic license here to achieve the look I wanted then added the birds crest. The whole bird was lightly dusted with jade green edible lustre and a touch of aubergine dust to achieve the correct colour, then added black to the neck and face adding white highlights around his eyes. I was really pleased with the overall colouring .
I added the age to the cake on peacock eyes and used the marbled sugar paste to add a ribbon effect around the base of the cake.

Sugar Bees Essex and the headache!

Have you ever stopped to think why are you doing something? Why make your life so much more complicated when things are just starting to settle down and go right!
Well I've been having the thought recently, my cake decorating business has been pootling along nicely everything no complaints there the usual. Mix of straight forward and novelty cakes but nothing that got me really excited and tested my metal on a daily basis.
TEACH! ME? Never, but then I thought why not I've been in the bakery business for over 20 years now. With my own business for 8 years , I've created hundreds of cakes for paying customers, so why shouldn't I try to show people the basics of the business?
And that's how it began, the headache!!!!
People not turning up for classes, so much time on FB organising classes, practicing, weighing out, measuring, timing classes , figuring out by trial and error what will work, am I asking too much of everyone?
The results have been mainly excellent, people can actually recreate the decorations that I'm teaching them, and everyone seems happy with the results, and me well I'm still busing with the results !!!! Thank you