Stunning wedding cake for a very special couple

I had the pleasure of making the wedding cake for Addie and Ian’s special day.

We worked hard to come up with the perfect design that fit within their budget and that also provided them with plenty of cake to share with their wedding guests.

The bottom tier was vanilla sponge with a vanilla buttercream filling and the top tier was a delicious lemon sponge with a lemon buttercream filling.  Covered in ivory icing, decorated with handmade sugar craft roses and ribbon.  My friend Lou Lou baked the top tier as part of their wedding gift as Addie is a good friend of hers.  I love team work on cakes 🙂

Photo Geoff Salisbury Photography

I have been doing some research on fondant as I have been using Massa Ticino sugarpaste for wedding cakes which is rather expensive but does give a beautiful finish and it lovely to work with.  Lots of people recommend Couture as a cost effective and still very good alternative.  Using this would mean I could bring the price of the cake down a little.

It was nice to work with and better than your supermarket brands but no way near as good as Massa Ticino so I will be continuing to use that for all future wedding cakes. At least I have done some research and can justify the cost 😄

5 tier wedding cake with personalised handmade fimo cake toppers

 

This has to be, to date, my favourite cake I have made 🙂  I really enjoyed making it and it turned out to be the tallest cake I have created.

This wedding cake was 5 tiers of different flavours.  The bottom tier was Limoncello sponge cake, next tier up was Chocolate Orange with chunks of Chocolate Orange in the sponge, next was vanilla sponge with salted caramel buttercream, then a traditional victoria sponge with raspberry filling, with the top tier being fruit cake with marzipan.

Each tier was over 10cm tall.

 

The cake toppers were made from Fimo and were personalised with little traits to represent the Bride, Groom and their little girl, I also did a bunch of Fimo flowers so they can all be kept together as a keepsake.  I provided a clear box for them to be displayed in, which will also help keep them dust free.

The flowers were made from flower paste.  They were white ranunculus which were the same flowers the Bride’s bouquet was made up off.  I hadnt made a ranunculus before and they were a little tricky as the first three I made just looked like roses!  I finally realised it was the cutter I was using, so I headed to Centre Attraction in Old Swan and bought a new petal cutter set which solved all my problems and allowed me to create some gorgeous flowers.

Real Ranunculus 

Sugar paste ranunculus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were invited to the Evening Do and it was lovely to see everyone enjoying the cake and discussing the flavours.  Chocolate Orange has since become my new favourite flavour too!

The Bride and Groom have a love of Limoncello which is why they requested a tier of the cake to be this flavour.  The sponge was made using lemon juice and rind, then once baked and cooled the cake was drizzled in a Limoncello syrup before being covered in icing.   I used a Jamie Oliver recipe for this – click here to visit his page.

For this cake I used Massa Ticino ready roll fondant for the first time and WOW!  It was tough to use at first as it was rather hard and difficult to knead, but once I started rolling it out and covering the cake I was hooked.  The fondant is very easy to use, it doesn’t tear or create any elephant skin corners and gives the cake a near perfect finish.   It is more expensive than other brands so maybe not worth using on all cakes, but I will be using it for all future wedding cakes as the finish it provides is priceless.

Wishing Clarkee and Burkey a long and happy marriage together and enjoy your fruit cake at Christmas 🙂

Cutting of the cake

White Ranunculus

5 tier white and black

FIMO Flower girl

White ranunculus

 

 

 

Back to the Future Wedding Cake

So the 21st of October 2015 was the date in Back to the Future II that Marty McFly and the Doc travelled to, from 1985.  Scott and Dave took this as their theme for their wedding and had asked for a Back to the Future themed wedding cake – this was going to be super exciting!!

The plans started coming together and the cake included a model of the delorean, a hover board with boots, the clock face from the famous clock tower and fimo models of the 2 grooms along with their pet dogs – it was jammed packed with character.

My friend Chris made the fimo models of the 2 grooms and the 2 dogs and they turned out super cute.

Fimo cake toppers

 

The delorean was made from homemade marshmellow rice crispies, covered in icing, with the detail then added.  It was lifted off the board slightly with the wheels turned so it looked like it as taking off.  A couple of LED lights were added to the back of the car too, which when set up reflected on the nearby wall and looked fantastic.

Lights for the Delorean

 

The hover board was made from icing mixed with tylo powder to give it the strength to keep its shape.  The boots were made from homemade marshmellow rice crispies and then covered in icing.  We also had the time display from the delorean printed onto edible icing with significant dates on it which sat behind the boots and board, again with another LED light pointing up at it.

The fimo models were placed on the top tier of the cake with the clock face inbetween Scott and Dave, and we used another LED light behind the clock.

This cake was so much fun to make and using LED lights in the cake design for the first time was alot of fun.  They are small twist on LED battery powered lights and they stay lit for hours and don’t get hot, so you position them, switch them on and step away.

 

I had to purchase a new tool for the cake which was a rainbow dust pearlescent white click-twice brush, this was to create the lightening effect detailed over each tier.  Sadly the brush was too thick to use to draw the lightening, however I simply squeezed some of the pearlescent dust out into a small tray, then using a very thin paint brush I added the detail and it worked brilliantly.

FIMO groom, groom and dogs

The Delorean

Guitar cake for a wedding

When I was asked to do a wedding cake, at that point I had any idea what the request would entail. The details started to come in and the request was a life sized guitar and of course I heard myself saying yes!!

I could not believe my luck when my friend Lou Lou informed me she had a life sized guitar cake to do, so I booked in to help her out and Lou booked herself in for helping out for the wedding cake – perfect team work.

I really enjoyed making the cake and I love it when Lou and I get together to cake, we always have loads of fun and keep each other calm.

The cake was made from 2 x 10″ square lemon sponge cakes, layered and carved to shape. I was honoured to have my friend Matthew make a wooden board for the cake which included a raised board for the fret to lie on – it was the perfect, sturdy board I needed for the cake and it proved its worth during the car trip to the venue, when the cake slipped but no damage was done as the board kept its shape. We felt like Ace of Cakes having a board made!

The guitar was modelled on a Les Gibson, the preferred guitar for Slash from Guns n Roses. On some of his guitars he has a logo of a smoking snake wearing a top hat – I wanted to give the cake a unique, special design so I created a version of this logo incorporating the initials of the happy couple and I was really happy with the outcome. I used printed copies of the picture and letters, transferred them onto acetate, then made it out of icing and painted it with edible colouring mixed with rejuvenating fluid.

The strings were made from embroidery thread, using 1 strand for each strong and secured round a cocktail stick that was then stuck into the cake and covered with icing – it worked really well.

To ensure we had enough cake for all the guests there was also a 10″ cake, kept simple in decoration to sit next to the guitar, this cake was a chocolate sponge.

I was really happy with how it turned out and have come up with a number of different things I would do next time I get a guitar cake order – so bring them on!!

 

 

Life sized guitar

 

 

 

Louise ad Emlyn’s wedding cake 4 tier wonky purple, silver and ivory

When we heard the exciting news about our friends tying the knot we knew a fantastic cake was to be created for their special day.  We sat with the happy couple and went through some ideas with them to gain an insight into would like.  The decision was made to make a wonky cake (also known as a mad hatter cake, tospy turvy cake or asymmetrical cake).

I was a little nervous about this as I had not done a wonky cake as a wedding cake before and the idea of making a wonky cake look wedding cake perfect seemed a challenge, however I was working with my cake partner in crime Lou Lou and I had great faith that she could carry us through this challenge.

We had the style sorted, colour scheme as purple, silver and ivory, our friend Chris was making a fimo bride and groom along with fimo models of their cats as a surprise and we were having petal paste flowers – the plan was in place.

I headed over to Lou Lou’s house with the petal paste flowers, where she had baked the cakes all ready for decorating and we got to work icing and decorating the cake.  It took us two evenings to get the cake finished and it all went fairly smoothly.  We work really well as a team, getting on with things, talking things through when needed, keeping on top of the cleaning and mainly having fun.  By the end of the first night we had a clean kitchen along with a cake all iced and stacked ready for the detail.  The second night we had Chris with us as he had finished the fimo characters and they were ready for the cake.  We set to decorating the cake, added the bride, groom, cats and flowers to get an idea of the finished piece and then stepped away happy with our creation.

The cake was set up at the wedding in time for the wedding breakfast as a surprise as they were not expecting it to be set up until the evening do.  The cake looked amazing and the happy couple loved it.  Congratulations to the new Mr and Mrs Jones, we had such a fantastic day and wish you years of happiness and laughter together.  Thanks for letting us make your wedding cake we had a lot of fun!

4 tier wonky wedding cake

<img class="size-medium wp-image-5287" alt="Handmade flowerpaste flowers & Fimo bride and groom " src="http://www.hoursoffun.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/tier-wonky-wedding-cake-purple-silver-and-ivory-1-300×195.jpg" width="300" height=" Handmade flowerpaste flowers & Fimo bride and groom

Handmade fimo cat

Handmade cat & flowers

 

The top tier was lemon which we placed in a box and gave to the bride and groom to take home and enjoy.  The second tier was chocolate, then lemon, with the bottom tier vanilla.  The flowers we white roses and purple lisianthus made from edible petal paste.  I had never made lisianthus before and I am now proud to add them to my flower collection.

Elegant 4 tier wedding cake with dusty pink roses

I have been lucky enough to make quite a few wedding cakes this year for friends and family, and the last one of the year was for Mikey and Nicola’s wedding reception.  They were married in Jamaica and then stayed there for their honeymoon which included a visit from Hurricane Sandy!    They had then organised a spectacular wedding reception/evening do for all their family and friends to come along to and join in their celebrations once they were home.

One thing I love about making people’s wedding cakes is that I get a back stage pass to some of the organising.  I often get to know about the colour schemes, decoration and if doing a bride and groom topper I get to see the dress and suit as well.  I also get to see the room(s) all ready when we arrive to set up the cake.  Some may see this as spoilers and not want to know but I love it!

Nicola knew what she wanted with regards the cake which is fab for me as she had even provided a picture.  We chatted about colours and layout etc and agreed the cake they wanted.

It would be a 4 tier ivory cake with dusty pink roses cascading down the tiers with minimal additional detail other than some piping around the base of each tier.  I got to make more flowers YEAY!  I love making roses too as they are rather therapeutic and you can build them up to any size you want by adding more layers or less layers. 

 

It takes me about an hour to sit and do each stage of the flowers and following completion of each stage they are then left to dry for 24 hours.  I made my plan for the 2 weeks leading up to the big day and got organised.

I may be getting a little too comfortable with wedding cakes now as I designed my do to list with quite a bit to do the Friday before the big day.  I had my amazing husband in the kitchen as assistant and we got to work with buttercream and icing, however it did not get off to a good start.  Everything seemed to be surrounded in slight chaos.  We had to re-roll the icing, re-ice a cake, on opening the icing sugar we were covered in an icing sugar bomb, the chocolate frosting was too hard to spread over the cake and the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it!!  This is to name only a few of the kitchen activities that were going wrong!  We needed to step away!  We took a little break, stepped away from the chaos and returned only when we had a plan.  Plan B was then implemented!  We cleared the whole kitchen, tidying up everything, cleaned up all traces of chocolate buttercream that had managed to get everywhere and started afresh!  This time we started with the vanilla cake as when doing different flavoured cakes you should always leave chocolate till last as it makes a mess, stains the white or ivory icing and gets everywhere!

Plan B went super and it wasn’t even that late a night when we finished.  The cake and flowers were packed up along with the travelling cake kit.

On arrival at the venue we had construction of the cake tiers to do then some piping.   This was a new experience for me as I have not had to do anything more than a bit of construction on site before, I was a tad nervous!  It all went well and the cake looked fab.  I had used a spirit level to get it all even, however when we came back in for the evening do the staff had moved the cake so my spirit level work was wasted! 

Note for future cakes

• don’t get cocky and leave too much for the night before
• Speak to the venue about movement of the cake before using the spirit level!

Congratulation to the new Mr and Mrs Clifford.  We wish you a long life full of happiness and love together and we hope you loved your cake J

Cadbury Purple 3 tier wedding cake simple and elegant

The weekend gone was a super busy and fun packed one, with Saturday requiring delivery of a wedding cake up in Morecambe, then over to my Mum and Dad’s to celebrate my Dad’s birthday by having a family lunch then a trip to watch Morecambe play Burton.  This was the first ever football game for nephew so we were keen to be there for this momentous occasion, even if Morecambe didn’t step up to the event and the game resulted in a 0-0 draw!

Sunday was all about the craft fair at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool, click here to read all about it.

The week leading up to all this fun needed to be well planned and there would be little time for sitting and relaxing as I worked my way though stock preparation and cake decorating.      Fun as all this is, I was still feeling a little sorry for myself with my forever growing and never-ending to do list, when all I wanted to do was slob onto the sofa and watch The Waltons!

The cake had a simple design – 3 tiers of cake, each tier separated by blocks to allow a gap for flowers to be placed between the layers.  There were having silk flowers and I had arranged to meet with the florist Val, at the hotel when we arrived.  She was absolutely amazing and she offered to meet us at what ever time suited with us travelling up from Liverpool and she lived locally.    This was re-assuring as it can be rather nerve-racking doing a cake when you don’t actually know what the flowers will look like or how it will all look when put together.

The cake set up went smoothly and Val was there to meet us and show us the flowers, which meant we could pop some on the cake for a photo before we left, as Val was then staying to fix all the flowers in place around the cake.  The hotel had even set up a cake stand which meant I didn’t have to leave mine there and ask my Mum to collect it the following day.

The cake looked fab once all set up with the bride and groom on the top, the colours matched well and the flowers looked gorgeous and I have since received feedback the cake was loved and enjoyed, yeay!

I have never done a cake this style before; separated with flowers around each tier.  I enjoyed the new challenge and I would like to try one next that uses decorative pillars to separate the tiers.

This cake had a fruit cake bottom tier with marzipan, a vanilla sponge with buttercream as the middle tier and the top tier was chocolate sponge with chocolate buttercream.

Congratulations to Andy and Linda, hope you had an amazing wedding day.

Wedding cake picture – Apologies I forgot to include a full picture!

If you read my last post about a 3 tier heart shaped wedding cake, you may have wondered why I didn’t include a photograph of the full cake.  I forgot!  I meant to and had cropped a photograph ready but appear to have not uploaded it.

If you didn’t read here click here.

I thought I would also include the close up photographs of the flowers again too!

   

3 tier heart shaped wedding cake with royal blue and turquoise roses

I came home from my brother in law’s wedding and started to pack up the cake things, when I realised I had another wedding cake due in about 3 weeks time.  This meant that the cake equipment needed to stay out and I really should start making flowers that week.  This just seemed too much!  I wanted to get on my website and prioritise that for a few days, so I stepped out of the kitchen and decided I would start after the weekend.

The colour scheme for the cake was royal blue, turquoise and white.  I headed to the cake shop to enquire about coloured icing as I needed sugar paste for the flowers, only to be told they didn’t do it – not good news!  I did not fancy colouring sugar paste as it takes some time to knead in the colour as the icing is quite tough.   I did some research and headed to another cake shop and managed to find some ready coloured blue which just needed a little tweaking, and I purchased a dust to mix with others I already had to create turquoise.

I again loved making the flowers and was really happy with them.

The design was a 3 tier heart-shaped wedding cake.  It was placed on a S-shaped stand with a spray of flowers on each tier.  I did frills around the cake sides and piped with glace icing around the edge of each cake.

The top-tier was a Jamaica fruit cake with marzipan, the middle tier was chocolate sponge with chocolate frosting and the bottom tier was madeira cake.

Just spotted I havent included a picture of the cake in full, I will sort that evening and post it – sorry!!

 

Congratulations James and Mash, hope you had a fantastic day.

Bride and Groom figures and flowers – handmade wedding decorations

My last 2 posts have been about my brother in laws wedding cake and I promise this is the last one as I am spreading out all the delights of this cake into 3 posts as I feel it deserves the attention.

For this third and last post I want to give you a closer look at the bride and groom figures that were on the Trotter’s reliant van and the flowers which were on 3 tier wedding cake.

The bride and groom were made by my very talented friend Chris Mason.  He made them out of fimo and they are now the third set of bride and groom figures he has made.  They look fantastic displayed on a cake and are a keep sake after the cake has been eaten up!

 

The flowers were made by myself from petal paste, edible however not recommended!  As you probably know by now, flower making is my favourite to model out of icing.  I find it very relaxing and as long as plenty of time is allowed it is fun and you can be really creative with detail and colouring.

These red roses with dusty purple calla lilies and white calla lilies.

 

Chris has made more fimo bride and grooms and bottle stoppers too, check out the gallery below for more pictures.