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 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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New venture

Another phase of 'Sugar Bees' evolution has begun, with a venture into Cupcake decorating classes and 'little old me' becoming a teacher!
How did that happen ? And how fast did that happen?
It's all been a bit of a blur I must confess, but a lovely blur, with a trial run at home with 7 ladies squished into my dining room to see if I would be any good as a teacher, and Wow they were all really impressed with the results and wanted to know when the next class was.
So class 2 & 3 was thought up with valentines in mind.
A Basic valentines class and a vintage valentines class were introduced and I started to look for a venue, the village hall was booked and classes were full, lots of happy people who didn't mind coming out early on a Sunday and me being exhausted from teaching up elated from the 'buzz' of being able to show people something exciting and teach them something they didn't know before they walked through the door.
But the village hall wouldn't do, so 'the Hive' was found on a trial run, and I love it. It still looks like an office but its mainly my space and I have filled it with lots of things, but more need to be found until I'm happy with it.

When the Sugar Bees Essex world went crazy.

Who would have thought that a relatively normal week in the kitchen could develop into something totally surreal?
After the wedding fair last weekend I decided to post a picture of my Joules inspired wedding cake onto the Joules FaceBook page, I didn't tag the picture with Sugar Bees Essex, I just posted the picture to see what they thought of it. The photo got over 100 likes and some really lovely comments. I was really chuffed. The next day I had an appointment at the hospital so was unable to log into FaceBook, when I returned my best friend messages me to say have you seen the
Joules page? To my amazement they had reported my picture along that a
Joules Fan had sent in the picture and that it could be a contender for the Great British Bake Off which was Airing on TV. It had 800likes and counting, with 40 comments ( all good ones).
Every time I returned to the page it had gone up by 100, totally amazing!
I went to bed with the picture up to 1100+ likes, how awesome is that?
When I got up I had 12 new likers on my FB page and over 1200 likes on the Joules page. All for one little cake that dared to be different.
Who says that FB is rubbish when it clearly is a great platform to promote yourself. Thank you FaceBook xxx

Snowy day at Layer Marney Tower

You never know what it's going to be like when you head off to set up your stand at a wedding fair, but I knew that it was going to be cold, very cold. It had been snowing all night and the car was covered with a thick layer of crispy snow, but I had to clear it all off my little car so that I could pack it with goodies for the lovely Brides that I was hoping to meet at the venue.
I loaded the car up with the boxes of display cakes and all the general bits I need for the stand like postcards, diary, business cards, table cloths , pins , signage and portfolio then I headed off to the garage for some petrol ( they always know when I'm heading off to either display or set-up a cake, I must look different, like a frightened rabbit perhaps,!, as I'm rather shy), when I told them where I was going they looked at each other and said you know it's going to snow a lot later on, I just replied that if I get snowed in there it would be an adventure, they both laughed and off I went with my supplies of a Mexican cheese roll, water and mints.
The roads were ok from Sugar Bees as they had been gritted, but as soon as I turned off to Layer Marney I thought what am I doing here, no grit, just ice. And lots of snow, but my little car and I chugged on and made it up the very impressive and long driveway to the tower. I wish I had taken my camera but I figured that it would just be too cold to stand around taking pictures. http://www.layermarneytower.co.uk
It took 4 trips up and down the stairs to get all of my goodies to Tukes Chamber where I would be exhibiting, but I was glad that I was here as I could sit right on top of an old cast iron radiator which happened to be on full blast. Then started to set up the stand keeping one eye on the what was happening with the weather outside. I took my time just I case we had to make a dash for the cars as the snow came down a little heavier. Other stall holders started to arrive and the panic set in that we might get snowed in or no Brides would show up ( perish the thought!).
So, the stand was all setup and I got myself a cuppa coffee to keep myself warm and waited and waited ( well I did arrive rather early), then just before 11am 2 cars came down the snow covered driveway very tentatively and then they got out of the car, the cheer in the room was more like a sigh of relief in a way, that the Die hard Bride will brave any extreme weather condition to get her Free bottle of Bucks Fizz and Goodie bag of wedding magazines.
Another 10minutes later and a couple more cars braved the snow and ice to travel to Layer Marney tower, but we had to wait 20minutes for the brides to work their way around the venue and come and visit the exhibitors in Tukes Chamber. They didn't really seem that interested in anything we had to offer and so they left pretty quickly, but who could blame them it was cold and snowy and they could have been doing something else instead.
Anyway sometime passed before the interested Brides came my way ( I hate forcing conversation, but the offer of Caramel cake was too much temptation and they seemed to be drawn to my stand) I am not too sure what they thought of my new collection which I have named ' Dare to be different!' As its a massive break from my comfort zone but I was really pleased with the results.
A beautiful bright sunshine yellow and dusky pink hand painted rose cake, an homage to Joules patterns that everyone seems to love now.
A buttercream ruffle cake in shades of dusky pink with a massive handmade sugar open Peony.
And the last one , black piped swirls with handmade sugar anemones in black, dark blue and poppy red with gilded vintage sugar buttons.
No one can say I'm run of the mill, and I certainly havn't copied everyone doing the old favourite of large Sugar roses in every shade of pink imaginable.
If I'm honest I think I only really chatted to about 10 couples but they seemed to like what I had to offer, so only time will tell. Anyway we packed up early , and yes I made it home unscathed but I desperate need of a cuppa x

Cath Kidston Inspired cake.

Cath Kidston inspired!

This cake has created a huge amount of interest on my FaceBook page.It is a Cath Kidston inspired Hand painted No.1 cake.
The cake itself is palest green and the pattern has been painted with edible cake dusts mixed with rejuvenator fluid and SuperWhite powder .
it took forever but I love it!
Happy Birthday Leila!
I think that this could start a trend for Hand painting and finally I may get back to my Fine art Roots X

Layer Marney Tower Wedding Fair

With the launch of my new site http://www.sugarbees-essex.co.uk/  I thought that I had better blog about yesterdays event. I was completely blown away by the lovely comments from the lovely people I met Yesterday at Layer Marney Tower, and It was great to get instant feedback about some of my products.
The previous week I had spent  on creating a Vintage style display, and I think you will agree that it has been worth it. Everything came together and  I just wished that I had a bigger Table as I would have loved to have incorporated some of my Vintage China into the display, so that everything tied in nicely.

My Keepsake Cake was the star of the show and I am so pleased hat I spent so long making the Handmade sugar flowers, it really was worth it. The surprise item of the stand was the Cupcake in a jar, I feel like I have really inspired some Brides with their choices, what an achievement.

Lazy Spa Cake

Look at these 2 enjoying a relaxing dip in their Lazy Spa cake.
This is a 10" round cake carved to form the curved shape of the Lazy Spa. They look really chilled in this cake. I also made a small BBQ complete with sausages, burgers & a T-bone steak ( perfect!).

80th Birthday cake for a Town Fan

This cake was for an 80th Birthday. The ladies son said that she was a lifelong Ipswich Town Fan and loved to watch TV. So, this sugar model shows the lovely lady sitting in front of her television, with her remote & mobile and a cuppa tea. I made  the scene on a cake card so that it could be kept, as I can't imagine anyone wanting to eat themselves. 
If you could be replicated in sugar what would you be wearing?