When I handed this cake to the waiter he reacted like I’d just handed him a baby whale to look after. To be honest, when the restaurant agreed to let us bring our own cake to celebrate, they probably weren’t expecting a three-tiered retro radio the size of small suitcase. This beast of a cake is for my lovely Uncle who recently turned 60. He lives in America, so we celebrated this week while he and his family are visiting. Radio has always been a passion of my Uncle’s; he even hosts a radio jazz show in America. I used this image as a reference for the design. Instead of writing Happy Birthday I personalised the cake by putting JRF (his initials) and age as a radio station identity. To make the cake I started off with three tiers of vanilla sponge which I baked in a swiss roll tin so they wouldn’t be too deep. I then stacked it and carved the ends off to round off the sides. It was really nice to make something special for my Uncle and I think he really loved it. Happy 60th Birthday Uncle John! x
Today was my Granny’s 90th Birthday. I don’t even know how to begin describing her to you, for she is the most incredible person. Granny tells the best stories about her childhood in New York and countless other tales from her interesting life. All her anecdotes come with every detail as if it happened yesterday and I love hearing all her memories. My favourite accounts of hers are about the amazing foods she remembers, such as halloween ice cream cats from Manhattan or famous cookies from Boston. I hope she will be recounting her 90th birthday cake to people for years to come. I of course wanted to make something extra special for such an important birthday. I had the idea to make a cake version of a painting I did for her one Christmas. For the cake I made a three tier vanilla sponge and sandwiched the layers with raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream. I covered the outside of the cake in a layer of white vanilla buttercream, then added the colour on top. To achieve the paint-like appearance I mixed the white buttercream with food colouring as if I were mixing paints and used a palatte knife to create the brush strokes. I topped the cake with flowers I made in advance and let dry. I learnt how to make flowers out of flowerpaste especially for this cake and I loved it. I started with the roses as I vaguely knew how to do those and used the internet for help where I needed it. I made up how the other flowers would look just based on the painting and created the purple one by stacking lots of cut out flower shapes in different shades. I finished the cake with a ribbon that matched the border of the painting. I think it really does look like the painting, almost too pretty to eat. Almost. I absolutely adored making this cake, especially as it combined painting and baking. But mostly I adored making something special for a very special Granny. Happy 90th Birthday! x
I don’t really see Ginetta as my friend’s Mum, but as one of my own friends. She is amazing for so many reasons. Not only is she one heck of a scrabble opponent (we’ve been constantly playing ‘Words With Friends’ for years now),but she is warm, kind and has always been so welcoming to me. She is also one of those incredible people full of drive, ambition and passion for things she loves. For her 50th birthday cake I decided to combine two of these things, horseriding and flowers. As soon as I saw this stand I knew I had to use it for the base of the cake. It took me ages to track it down and it finally made it’s way to the UK thanks to my Dad via hand luggage (oops). Not knowing a lot about flowers I was lucky enough to have the help of Alexia from Bluebell and George. She helped me figure out how to arrange the flowers on the cake and chose the gorgeous yellow and purple calle lilies. I adore the shades she chose they work so perfectly together and stood out so nicely on top of the cake. For the cake itself I made a three tier Madiera cake using this simple recipe, then filled it with strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream. To decorate it I covered the whole thing in more vanilla buttercream and then wrapped a piece of clear acetate around the cake, so the flowers wouldn’t be directly touching it. We glued the calle lilies onto the acetate and secured them with a matching coloured ribbon. I love that the cake is kind of hidden and the beautiful flowers are the focus. I hope she enjoys her cake and her special day. Happy 50th Birthday Ginetta!
Teddy (and Emily) are new friends but somehow they feel like a firm part of our friendship group already. Teddy has had all the birthday luck this year. Not only did her birthday fall on a bank holiday, it also was one of the warmest days we have had so far this year. We celebrated by having one of the best picnics ever on top of Primrose Hill in the sunshine. I totally had this in my head the whole time. I of course wanted to take her some birthday cupcakes and couldn’t resist making tiny teddy toppers. As she is over from Canada I chose red and white and finished them with a teeny red flower. I hope she had a lovely day and a memorable birthday in England! x
This might be one of my favourite things I’ve made to date. Nothing says birthday like rainbow and this birthday cake is for my cousin Eloise. She doesn’t really like cake (what?! yes.) but really liked my raspberry macarons so I decided to go on that. I knew exactly how I wanted it to look and made multiple scrawly drawings trying to plan and get it perfect. Because I feel a birthday cake should have at least a small amount of cake, I made a vanilla sponge to act as a pedestal for the macarons. I lined the outside of the cake in two tiers of macarons and put the rest on this clear 4 tier stand. I chose to do a reverse rainbow and one of the hardest parts was deciding on what flavours to use. I went for pinky red raspberry, orange, yellow passionfruit, green mojito, blue coconut and purple blueberry. I loved mixing up all the fillings, especially the mojito using rum, lime and mint. It tastes exactly like the drink! I adored making this cake but it took a long time, in fact, ALL day. But after 12 hours and many batches of macarons later it came together. I couldn’t have done it without my sister who was such a massive help. I think she secretly enjoyed it, even if I did make her wash the spatula about 16 times. I’m really proud of how it turned out and I hope Eloise enjoys eating her mountain of macarons! Happy Birthday Eloise x
I seem to think that making birthday cakes for family and friends is the best time to experiment and try different things. I guess it’s not really a bad thing, it allows me to learn new techniques and make a cake special to that person. This cake was for a dear family friend of ours. We’ve known her forever and she’s so kind and lovely and one of my favourite people. I made her this giant 3- tiered pink cake made up of layers of vanilla sponge, raspberry jam and vanilla frosting. I covered the top with fondant flowers which I left to dry in cupcake tins so they stuck up and then painted them with edible food colouring. I finished it by wrapping it in a matching pink bow. I hope she enjoys it and has a special birthday. Happy Birthday Azra! x
Everyone should be provided with cake on their birthday. Fact. These cupcakes are for our lovely friend Sharon to celebrate her birthday today. I wanted to make her something pretty with a bit of sparkle. I made vanilla cupcakes and topped them with glitter and circle sprinkles, which I’m slightly obsessed with. I hope they brighten up her day and distract her from the blizzard which seems to be happening outside. Happy Birthday Sharon, have a wonderful day! x
I saw this stacked cookie cake a while ago and knew this was the cake for my cookie loving Cousin. He has been known to eat cookies as fast as I can make them and ate about 30 in his last sitting. As I didn’t think it was a birthday cake without the cake I added a single tier to act as a sort of pedestal for the stack of cookies. Naturally I made this in a chocolate chip sponge. I used mini chocolate chips in the whole thing which allowed the cookies to be nice and thin and used this recipe. I used vanilla frosting to cover the cake and in-between the cookie layers. To get the cookies roughly the same size I put the cookie dough in the fridge to chill a bit and then used an ice cream scoop. I then flattened them between baking paper.
I really like the minimal look of this cake and I just used one white candle on top. The best thing about this cake is the slice that you get. It’s epic. So huge it only just about fit on our plates and I definitely shared mine. To get the cookies to cut like a cake I put the whole cake in the fridge for a few hours. This makes the cookies softer and lets you cut into it. I loved making this cake and I think there are enough cookies here to keep my cousin quiet for a bit. Happy Birthday Fabian!
This week my sister came home with the Bake it in a Cake book for me. It was such a lovely surprise and after one flick through the book, I knew I wanted to make this recipe for my Dad’s birthday cake. My Dad loves cherry pies (I made him one here) so I knew he would love to find one inside his cake. I scaled the recipe up to birthday size and used a cherry pie enough for two people so it would fit in the cake tin. If I had more time I would have made my own, but this one worked well and stayed intact inside the cake. I kind of expected the pie to sink but when he cut it it was perfectly suspended inside. I really didn’t know what to expect when making this cake and watched the oven the whole time it was in there, half waiting for it to explode. The only problems I had were that it slightly sank at the top and the cake was a tiny bit less baked around the pie. However, it tasted delicious and the frosting was amazing. It was vanilla, but flavoured using the pod instead of essence which gave it a lovely taste, almost like custard, and cute black freckles. Wanting to keep the outside simple and not give away the inside I chose to follow this tutorial and create scalloped sides which was simple to do and gave it a neat finish. Dad loved his birthday cake and I loved seeing his face when he saw the hidden pie. Happy Birthday to the best Dad x
Today is my birthday. Woo! To celebrate, tonight I’m going to Hot Tub Cinema. To coordinate with this my Mum made this hilarious birthday cake. I love it. It’s probably the funniest cake ever I’ve ever seen. I especially love that it combines two birthday essentials, cake and jelly. The jelly was even lemonade flavour. So so good. Thank you so much Mum and everyone else that has made my birthday so special! x
