Monday 30 September 2013

Loving The Ruffle


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I don't often do buttercream cakes. People tend to like the clean lines and smooth finish of sugarpaste, but there are some cakes that are beautiful in buttercream, and unusually I had two last week. One of them was buttercream ruffles. Like any other technique and medium, the more practice you get, the better you get at piping buttercream and getting the effect you want, so I did a practice cake earlier in the week. I have done a buttercream ruffle cake before, waaaaay back when when I was a hobby cake maker novice, and I was going for a slightly more polished effect than that early stumbling-around-in-the-dark effort. So I did a practice cake. I was glad I did, as I got to figure out my technique, how to hold the bag, which direction to pipe in, how to move the bag to get the ruffles ruffley (yes, that's a word), and it was a good warm up for the muscles. Piping uses muscles. You find hand and forearm muscles that you never knew existed once you have ruffle-piped your way a round a 10" cake. But its worth it. And it looked awesome, so I'm smiling :)
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Number two was a buttercream swirl cake, in shades of yellow, for a golden wedding anniversary. I was alightly worried that the effect would be a bit garish, having only done the piped graduated swirls in pink before, but the yellow worked really well. It wasn't glaringly, hurting-your-eyes bright and the recipient was all smiles when I dropped it off so it was a good day, despite the 2nd good hand/forearm workout :)


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I also did a photo 50th cake this week. I don't normally warm to photos on cakes. I know they make a cake completely personal, but sometimes they can look a bit... simple...cheap... I don't know. I'm not a huge fan. But this one was a bit different. It was a cake for a lady's 50th, and the photo was of her as a baby with who I assume are siblings. I printed off the photo in the original sepia-type colouring, and framed the corners with peach flowers. I don't know why I chose peach, I just thought it would work, and it did, really well :) And peach made a wonderful change from pink. Sometimes I get pinked out. This time I was peachy-keen :) hehehehehe I crack me up :) Its late. Humour me ok?


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Happy Monday, have an awesome week, and happy baking xxx


Orignal From: Loving The Ruffle

Monday 16 September 2013

The Challenge of Urdu


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I have not done hundreds of wedding cakes (yet!) but I do love doing them. Weddings are occasions when everyone is happy and the lovely bride I did a cake for this weekend was no exception. I made this lady's engagement party cake last year, and when she got in touch to talk about her wedding cake I was delighted, especially seeing that she wanted something a bit different, but was happy to give me free reign on the design. Yay! I did have to include an Urdu poem around one of the tiers, which was challenging as I cannot read it and was worried with all the printing out, mirroring, tracing and transferring to the cake, would cause some mix up with the words (which are also read right to left), but I was veeeery careful and all was well.



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I was very pleased with how the cake turned out and once it was all set up at the venue, it fit into the setting perfectly (yes, that is a sword on the table, a sword to cut the wedding cake. Of course. Why use a knife when you can use a sword!?!?). The colour scheme was maroon and ivory and I was thankful that in the huuuuge room that is the Dome in Buxton, the cake was not lost. I received a lovely message from the bride today telling me that she loved the cake and so I close the chapter on this cake with a smile. Another happy bride.
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As wedding season winds down for those in the wedding industry, I sit at night and plan how to get myself a bigger piece of the pie that is the wedding cake market. And I have a cunning plan, so we will wait and see if it works. It does require some (in my opinion) significant investment, so I have to grit my teeth and take that, but as they say, you have to spend money to make money, so hey ho. Here we go.

Orignal From: The Challenge of Urdu