I used to love visiting art shops. During A Level and Art College I would love wandering the aisles of tubes of paint, rainbow pastels, and professional fine liners. I always managed to justify buying more colouring pencils because it came with a student discount. Amongst the little calligraphy section and wooden models of hands used to be these mini easels and canvases that I always used to wonder if anyone actually used. These little structures entered my mind not long ago and then it clicked – they were the right size to sit on top of cake. It was sort of a ‘Duuuuh’ moment and then I knew exactly who the cake would be for. My friend …

It’s amazing sometimes how fast time goes by. It was five years ago now that we went on the most amazing road trip across America. It was the most incredible adventure and the memories and photos we collected along the way are the best we ever have. While we took a staggering 15,000 photos over the month or so we were there, this one has to be my sister’s favourite. That’s why for her birthday this year to celebrate (a little nod to the 5 year anniversary of the trip) I made her a cake with it on it. The photo was taken in …

Think you’re excited about the Rugby World Cup? You should speak to my Dad. Our house has reached a fever pitch of World Cup excitement. It has been filled with wall charts, rugby ball and shirt balloons and pretty much every game has been screened one after another. We went to the opening ceremony and England v Fiji match last weekend and it was so much fun. With an England scarf wrapped round my neck and beer in hand I cheered along with everyone else and was totally caught up in the excitement. I love a World Cup, but this is better because it’s Rugby which is way better than Football – it’s way more aggressive, there’s always a bit of bloodshed and even sometimes shorts fall down whiiiiiiich is always funny (see South Africa v Japan). To celebrate I made these cupcakes ahead of …

This summer I had to tackle sugar flowers in a major way. I’ve learnt to make a few here and there, mostly simple ones for cupcakes or to be stuck flat on to cakes. I set about teaching myself (basically reading this book over and over, learning step by step) some more complex flowers, including how to wire them properly, attach them to tiered cakes and create more interesting arrangements.

The thing about sugar flowers is while they always turn out super pretty and are in the end very rewarding, they often take many steps and days to produce because of the drying time in between each stage. They also end up mega fragile (I broke a fair amount of rose petals along the way) therefore I …