Mini Christmas Pudding Chocolate Cakes

Today is school's Christmas Fete....... so last night I made some "Christmas Puddings"

Here's how I made them .......

First, I made a chocolate cake mix

150g caster sugar
150g butter
3 eggs
120g self raising flour
30g cocoa powder
vanilla essence - proper stuff
chocolate essence - only found in waitrose

Butter Icing
some butter, icing sugar & vanilla essence - I don't really measure

I have this lovely 8 mini dome / semi sphere silicone bakeware (Tefal) which is great for making round cakes (used it to make mini angry birds)  - I can't find it anymore bought it a few years ago however found something similar on  internet

once cooled I cut the dome so they were level, scooped out a little bit and added the butter icing ....

I joined them together using "cake pop" mix I made using the off cut cake & butter icing

I then covered them in chocolate flavoured fondant .... very tricky

I did "cheat" and had to add some fondant on the bottom and blend the joins

To make the "sauce"  I used a round cookie cutter and hand shaped with a sharp knife

added some sparkle the "sauce"

Now making the Holly Berries & Leaves

I bought some special Beau Flowerpaste which happened to be "holly green". I use a holly leaf cutter but you could easily just cut the shape with a template & knife.

The holy berries was just some red fondant icing which I added some "Christmas Red" colouring to do make them more red.   I added them to the leaves and used a leftover apple packaging from Sainsburys to shape the leaves in to the dome shape..... (I made these first and left them to dry while I made the cakes)

Once I'd made the cakes I added the holly to the top using a bit of icing & water mix .....

To make them nice for the fete, I placed them on 4" silver bases and bagged & tagged

I buy most of the my baking supplies from Craft Company
The clear bags are from LakeLand 50 for £2.99
The cute labels are from PaperGlitter

iPhone 4S Cake

iOS5 Icons - see below for the close ups

For the iPhone 4S launch - Friday 14th October 8am, I made a cake for my work mates at the O2 store in Leamington Spa.

I hand drew all the icons with various edible ink markers. I used the screen shot from the display stand (see below) which shows the new iOS5 icons. It took me about 3.5 hours to make the icons and in total took about 5 hours to make. As it was quite late in the night I had to make a "quick" chrome band with buttons, etc... and the background was black as it would have been too fiddly to try and copy/create the default iPhone background.

I asked Siri if it would like some cake, unfortunately it didn't understand the question and told me it could only search for business in the USA

Thanks to @O2  for tweeting my image on http://twitpic.com/700zis - currently has 1,692 views

Me at work (O2 Leamington Spa)

Cake on the iPhone Stand

I started work at 7am on the launch day and worked until about 6pm, with just the odd 2 min break here and there to grab a bite to eat as we were super busy as you can imagine.  We had a total of 97 iPhone 4S that day and the second guy in the queue was Seb he got there at 3am.  We didn't sell out until very late in the afternoon.

I'm very lucky that I work with an amazing bunch and had the most exciting and tiring day ever :)

Looking forward to the next iPhone launch whenever that may be

Edible iPhone Icons

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We've only just cut the cake today, as it was "too nice" to eat :)

Finally cut the cake  :)

My Birthday Cake - R2D2

It was my Birthday on Monday and had no idea what cake I wanted.
After watching an episode of "Ace of Cakes" making a R2D2 cake I knew straight away that's what I wanted. I don't have the skills to make a full size, working R2D2 cake like Duff and his team but it didn't stop me having a go!

I went to my local cake suppliers and got some polystyrene cake dummies. I used a 6" round one for the bottom - I could have used cake but only had one 6" tin and didn't have time to bake a second cake. I also bought a 6" square one so I could cut it and make the legs.

I used a CAD program to draw out a rough shape for the legs.

For the dome I used the Wilton Sports Ball Pan, which is 6" round too.

I made a basic vanilla sponge and put some butter icing inside the dome.

Covered in white fondant and decorated using coloured fondant and used my cutters.

Some of the detailing is just random as just wanted a simple yet recognisable look

I took it to work and it was enjoyed by everyone :o)

For info on making your own Star Wars cake checkout - http://hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Make-A-Star-Wars-Cake

3D Angry Bird Cake

My oven broke just before Christmas and with the help of family and friends, I bought a new one from Ikea last weekend.

I'd been planning on making an Angry Bird cake after seeing @bobbiealice 's amazing cupcakes on PocketLint, I thought I must make my idea of a 3D round cake and thought what better way to test my new oven :o)

I used the Wilton sports ball cake pan for the big one and used silicone semi dome tray to make the mini ones. I decided to go a bit crazy with the insides and make what in USA call funfetti basically it's basic vanilla sponge with sugar strands

Covering them was very tricky as the fondant kinda pleated itself at the bottom. I managed to "hide" the messy bits the beige tummy.

The beak and feathers are attached with cocktail sticks

I've decided to take the Big Angry Bird to work for them to eat and I made some mini ones for my husband, best friend & a special black on for my son as it's his favourite one!

I'm hoping to post a mini to @roviomobile if they let me know their address asap as they won't fly that far


Update: The cake arrived at Rovio and they loved it. Pockelint wrote an article about my cake and my local cake suppliers Craft Company also sell the Wilton Sport Ball Tin.






All of the cakes with plushies ...






The insides .......

Mustang Cake based on a Mustang Transformer

I've been baking again!
I saw my husband's mustang transformer and thought it would be good to copy. A work mate is leaving and wanted to make a car cake (my first one) and I'm really pleased with it.
I hope they like it at work
*Update* My son saw the cake this morning and told me it didn't match so added the back red lights and the wing (more images on flickr)

The Cake was based on Mrs Beetons recipe for maderia cake
10 eggs
400g sugar (aster)
400g butter
500g SR Flour
a bit of baking powder
about 4 capfulls of vanilla essence
took just under an hour to bake at 150 though the other cake burnt I was using my new 12inch square tin that you divide up into various sizes these were 6 x 12 inches
Silverwood foldaway cake pan from Lakeland