Record deck cake - happy 60th birthday Paul!

For my second 60th birthday cake in as many weeks, I was asked to make a cake in the shape of a lifesize record deck, for a man who used to run his own record shop.  I was certainly up for the challenge, although I had to admit to Kathryn who ordered the cake that it wouldn't be LP size, as the biggest cake I could make was only 12" square (anything bigger won't actually fit in my oven). Having said that, a 12" cake serves 72 portions which was more than enough for the amount of people going to the party.  It ended up as a lifesize 45rpm record player instead:

For this cake I tried a new recipe for Chocolate Mud Cake from my Home Guide To Cake Decorating book.  This is a lovely rich moist chocolate cake, and with over half a kilo of dark chocolate, half a kilo of butter and 1.2kg golden caster sugar it's not surprising it tastes good. I added some finely grated orange zest to the cake batter and filled it with my chocolate and cointreau meringue buttercream. Yu-um is all I can say.  And I don't even really like chocolate that much.  (Just in case you're wondering, there are always trimmings of cake leftover when I level the top of the cake, I don't just cut a sneaky slice out of the middle and hope noone notices)

After I had filled and levelled the cake I covered it with a pale yellow sugarpaste.  I worked the edges with my cake polishers to create a sharper edge to look more realistic.  I then left this overnight to firm up.

The next day I started off with creating the turntable.  I found a cake tin with the right proportions to use as a template for the base.  I don't like to use black sugarpaste very much as it has so much colouring in it that it doesn't taste very nice, so instead I created a turntable out of marzipan and covered it with grey sugarpaste brushed with silver lustre to make it look metallic.  I then rolled the record as thin as I could make it from black sugarpaste and added it to the turntable with some edible glue:

Next up was adding the label in a nice bright red and the central spoke which was secured with a short length of dried spaghetti:

I left this to firm up before adding the writing and got on with creating the arm of the player.  For this I used a cake dowel covered with grey sugarpaste and brushed with silver lustre to create the main part of the arm.  I then made the head from black modelling paste and fixed with a combination of edible glue and dried spaghetti.  I think I was a little naive or just plain not thinking properly when I added a needle made from floristry wire - there was no way that that this would hold up the weight of the arm and show on the final cake, duh....  Anyhow, here's the completed arm, which I left upside down overnight to firm up with a ball of clingfilm to support the handle:

The rest of the cake came together fairly easily, with some details added made from black modelling paste.  I also wrote the label was using an edible pen. 

The trickiest bit was adding the arm.  I made the arm hinge in two parts with a section hollowed out to fit the arm in between:

The final dial was secured to the back using a couple of short lengths of dried spaghetti:

And with that the cake was finished:

But my challenge wasn't over yet.  I seemed to recall saying on more than one occasion that I would never take a big cake up to London on the train and tube again.  I clearly need to listen to my own advice more carefully as this was the heaviest cake I've ever carried, let alone during rush hour and standing waiting at Victoria Station for 20 minutes while they closed the entrance due to overcrowding.  I had given Kathryn advance warning that the cake was heavy, and to prove it I even weighed the boxed cake on our bathroom scales - it came to 1 stone 2.6 pounds, even I was shocked.  It's also darn awkward to carry, I must invest in some kind of cakemobile, at the moment I'm thinking of a suitcase strapped flat to two skateboards and a long handle to keep it travelling level - anyone got any other ideas???

Aside from the awkward journey up to London, it was a sturdy cake and made it there in one piece.  Kathryn collected it and took it home on the bus ready for Paul's party.  She said it was exactly what she'd hoped it would look like.  Paul - I hope you had a fantastic 60th birthday party, sorry we couldn't make it, but hope the cake makes up for it!

Wedding fever

Now that spring is here, there must be the smell of romance in the air as we've been getting lots enquiries for wedding cakes.  It's one of the few occasions where people get the chance to go all out for a fantastic cake, and I love working with couples to help come up with a design that fits in perfectly with their day.
 
A few weeks ago, Melissa and I attended our first wedding fayre in Burgess Hill, which went really well, although we did learn a few good lessons from the day:
1. Don't stay out late the night before - wedding fayres and hangovers are not a good combination;
2. People love free cake, but not as much as you might think - I made two 10" square cakes for tasters, thinking 100 portions each of two flavours would be about right for about 250 brides (plus their fiances, bridesmaids, mothers, kids...).  We brought back over half of each cake and even I can't make my way through that much cake before it goes off.  Luckily we knew a few people that could help us out...
3. Invest in a screen to put up behind the table - we thought these were provided so felt a bit foolish when we had nothing to hang our sign on!
 
Still, you only learn by experience, and we had a great day, generating lots of interest in our cakes.  Here's a photo of yours truly waiting for the crowd of brides to arrive:
  

 
I was really pleased with how the show cakes turned out -  I think they reflect our quirky style and also show a range of designs to appeal to different tastes:

 

And thanks to the success of the day and our recent marketing efforts with Your Sussex Wedding Magazine orders are now starting to fill up for later on in the year, which is great.
 
Meanwhile, here's a cake I delivered back in February, which I was really pleased with.  It was for a lovely Brighton couple, Julia and Chris, who had their wedding at the stunning Newick Park near Lewes.  They chose a chocolate cake with chocolate Italian meringue buttercream filling and with Grand Prix red roses cascading down the side - the scent of the roses was stunning.

Congratulations Julia and Chris, I'm so pleased to have been a part of your day, and thrilled that you loved the cake.

If you like the look of any of these cakes and would like me to make a cake for your upcoming wedding or special event, please email brightonbakery@hotmail.co.uk - I love to create bespoke designs so feel free to send me any ideas and we will come up with a fantastic and unique cake to be the centrepiece for your day.

The art of a great food photograph

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Suzanne Goldenberg, a freelance photographer and journalist who offered to take some photographs to try and pitch a Brighton Bakery showcase article to local foodie magazine, Edible.  Naturally, I jumped at the chance for a bit of free publicity and we discussed a few different angles for the piece.  One of the key things that sets us apart from other cake makers is that we offer a range of vegetable based cakes, so that seemed like a good option and I set my mind to work thinking of the best veggie cakes to bake for the photoshoot.
 
Suzanne pitched the idea to her editor and while the article was given the go ahead, it couldn't be seen as promoting just one company due to advertising regulations.  So instead Suzanne planned to write a general article, with a reference to Brighton Bakery and some local cafes that also offer vegetable cakes.  What a shame.  Still, all publicity is good publicity, as they say, and I had a nice chat on the phone to Suzanne about the benefits of using different vegetables in cakes.  I also offered to make a cake for her to photograph for the article as I was really keen to pick up some tips about taking a good food photo as I really have no idea what I'm doing.  I was sure that a certain father in law of mine would be very happy to help out with any cake leftovers...
 
So last Friday I baked a firm favourite from our market stalls, Courgette and Cinnamon cake.  I thought it was a good option as it has a lovely texture where you can see flecks of courgette and lemon zest and it's set off by a pretty zigzag lemon icing on top which I hoped would add interest to the photo. 
 
Suzanne arrived a couple of hours later with a few props in tow - a white board to reflect the light, a small tablecloth, two chopping boards, some pretty plates and a cake knife and fork to dress the scene.  I was surprised that she was happy to take the pictures in our basement kitchen as I didn't think there was enough light, but by angling the white board it lifted the shadows and the photos came out well.
 
We did a few different set ups, one with the cake in its tin, un-iced on a rustic wooden board, then I quickly iced it and Suzanne took a few more shots of the whole cake on the board.  We both new that the best photos would probably be once the cake was cut, so I cut two generous slices which gave us lots of options for the set up.  Different angles, a slice of cake on a plate with a fork, slices stacked up in front of the rest of the loaf, Suzanne busily snapped away dozens of pictures, all very slightly different.  I asked loads of questions along the way and picked up some good tips.  A key thing is that she used a 50mm prime lens, which we might have to invest in - our zoom lens just can't get close enough to pick up the detail that hers can.  The 50mm lens also allows you to open the aperture very wide and take lovely pictures in lower lighting conditions, which would be a real benefit in our house! 
 
Like most photographers, Suzanne is very particular when scrutinising her pictures, and is happy if she gets just 3 or 4 good ones from a shoot (and I'm sure she took well over a hundred photos).  Here's her final selection:

photos © suzannegoldenberg.net

And here's the link to Suzanne's article on the Edible Magazine website: Courgette Muffin Anyone? 

I love how our battered old wooden chopping board has come out in the pictures, and the rustic water icing really sets off the cake with a lovely contrast.

We only got a brief mention in the article, but it was great to see how Suzanne worked, and we already have a cake photography project planned for next year, so it was well worth the price of a couple of courgettes and a little bit of time.  Thanks Suzanne x

Dr Who Tardis Cake - Happy Birthday Lula

Last week set a pretty impressive record for the furthest distance anyone has travelled for a Brighton Bakery cake.  A very nice man called Phil lives in Rome found us online and ordered a cake for his goddaughter's birthday.  Unfortunately I couldn't persuade him to cover the plane fare for me to deliver it to him in Italy  as he was coming to Brighton for the birthday party that just so happened to be only two streets away from us.

The birthday girl Lula is a big fan of Doctor Who, and after discussing a few ideas Phil decided to go for a cake in the shape of the Tardis:

I was really looking forward to making this one, but it wasn't quite as easy as I thought it would be. 

I started off with an 8" square chocolate cake, which I levelled and filled with chocolate buttercream:

I put the cake in the fridge for a couple of hours to firm up so that it would cut more easily.
I then made a template for the shape of the Tardis and used it to cut the cake:

And then used the offcut to create the top:

I created a a base out of card covered with foil the same shape as the Tardis, and secured the pieces of cake with buttercream:

Then it was time to get busy with the buttercream, which I smoothed in a thin layer all over the cake so that the sugarpaste would stick.  The cake then went into the fridge to firm up for an hour or so.

Meanwhile I coloured the sugarpaste and covered the board.  I wanted it to look like the Tardis was flying through space so I mixed several different colours into the black to create a marbled effect, although the predominant colour that came out when I rolled it was the white which looks like a cloud of smoke which I quite like:

Once the buttercream on the cake had firmed up I covered it with a layer of blue sugarpaste and trimmed the edges:

I then created panels for each of the sides and the top and cut out rectangles.  This was much trickier than I thought it would be as sugarpaste pulls out of shape when you cut it with a knife, and if you use a cutting wheel it is very difficult to get neat corners.  I wish I had a rectangular cookie cutter as I think that would have been the best tool for the job.  I fixed the panels on with edible glue and added in the windows and the poster which had the tiniest writing I've ever done on a cake before.

The finishing touches I added were a base, the light on top of the Tardis, which was secured with a short piece of dry spaghetti, and the black sign for each side.  I painted on the writing on the sign with Superwhite powder mixed with a tiny amount of vodka.

And to finish the cake off, I added some silver lustre dust and red glitter to give it a little space sparkle:

Even though it took longer than I thought it would, I love making 3D cakes and think it turned out well.  I hope Lula liked her birthday surprise of her own personalised Tardis and had a very happy 10th birthday.

Fishing Boat Cake - here's how I did it...

I was really pleased to be asked to make this cake by Clair, who wanted a special cake as a surprise for her partner's Alison's 40th birthday.  A few weeks ago I met up with Clair for a consultation with a few ideas in mind - I thought it would be cute to have a sand beach at the bottom, with crabs, starfish, oysters and a chocolate wooden fishing boat on top.  But after speaking to Clair, I realised that I had been rowing down the wrong river, as they love to fish in their white Hampton boat on the Norfolk Broads, where at the bottom the river is nothing but weeds!  So a couple of dodgy sketches later (luckily my cake decorating skills are better than my drawing skills) we had the design nailed and I was really looking forward to making the cake.  This is how it turned out:

The cake started with an 8" round zesty lemon madeira cake, which I filled and covered with lemon curd buttercream and left to firm up in the fridge for an hour or two. 

To create a water effect for covering the cake, I mixed pieces of white, dark blue and green sugarpaste into some pale blue sugarpaste and kneaded it together. I didn't knead it too much so that when I rolled it out it had a nice marbled effect:

Then covered the cake, smoothed the sides with a polisher and trimmed off the excess:

I then left the covered cake in a cool dry place while I made the boat. I made this out of Rice Krispie Treats (recipe here) and carved into a boat shape:

I covered with a thin layer of buttercream and then with sugarpaste on all sides to finish it off:

I did the same with the cabin and fixed to the cake:

At this stage I did worry a little that the boat was oversized, but it needed to be this big in order to take the figure and it matched the proportions on my sketch so I carried on and added the keydetails to match Clair and Alison's own boat:

You can also see in the background the 3D '40' I made out of orange modelling paste.  I added some nylon thread for a fishing wire to the 4 and left a long end for it to be attached to the fishing rod later. 

Next up was making the figure, which I decided to make straight onto the cake itself.  The figure was deliberately out of proportion with the boat as this makes a stronger design for the cake as a whole.  I find that often when designing cakes it's better to take key elements to give the essence of what you are portraying, rather than sticking rigidly to exact dimensions.

Using modelling paste (which is simply sugarpaste with some gum tragacanth added and left overnight) I started with the legs.  These are made from a long sausage shape, with a notch cut from the middle and brought together.  Further notches are cut from the back of each leg so they bend at the knee:

I made a body from a cone shape made out of pink modelling paste and secured the legs and body to the boat with a piece of dry spagetti straight down the middle:

The shoes were added with short pieces of spaghetti and edible glue and the star design on for the t shirt was also attached with edible glue.

I then added arms and sleeves with my favourite spaghetti and edible glue trick:

Ooh I love it when sugarpaste figures start to come to life!

Next I added the head and hair, which was made by pushing sugarpaste through a garlic press and cutting to length. 

I sprinkled pearl lustre dust on the orange 3D '40' and cut at an angle to make it look like it was being fished out of the water.  I secured these to the cake using lengths of dry spaghetti. 

The fishing rod was made from a length of floristry wire covered with chocolate sugarpaste.  I made sure the wire had an extra inch or two at the bottom to fix straight into the boat between the legs of the figure.  The tricky thing was securing the end of the fishing wire to the top of the rod and keeping it taught.  Sometimes gravity just doesn't like me.

And to finish it off, I added river weed details all the way round the sides of the cake and a wooden sign reading "Happy Birthday Alison" made out of chocolate sugarpaste.

Fishing boat cake - done!

The cake was collected the next day by Clair's sister in law and kept under wraps for a big surprise at the party, so I had to keep my fingers crossed that both Clair and Alison would like it.  Later that day I got a text from Clair to say "The cake has been unwrapped and it was fabulous, absolutely perfect, Alison loved it and it tasted so nice, a great success, thank you so much."

I can't really ask for much better than that.

In The Night Garden Cake - Happy 2nd Birthday Alfie x

I've been waiting to make a children's birthday cake for ages and the time has finally come.  Yesterday was our friend Sacha's nephew's birthday and he had an In The Night Garden party at the weekend.  So of course the cake had to have Upsy Daisy, Igglepiggle and the Tombliboos Unn, Ooo and Eee.  If you don't have kids then those names probably mean as much to you as the names of deep sea amoeba translated into Russian but these happy characters are more famous than the Queen to most 2 year olds. 

 

Originally I had planned to cover the whole cake and board in green sugarpaste, but the green paste has very high levels of colourings and as it's for children a better idea was to cover it in white first, and then just use a very thin layer of green on top and for a grass effect round the outside:

This was a great backgound to add the characters.  I had been introduced to the crazy world of In The Night Garden when our good friends Sheena and Nathan came to stay with their gorgeous little boy called Murphy.  He's only a few months old but it's his favourite TV programme, he loves it!  So I had seen a couple of episodes of the show, but had to do a bit more research into who everyone was.  The In The Night Garden website is great, so I had it open on the laptop by the side of where I was decorating the cake.  The only problem is that the website has random snorting and farting sound effects that play every so often which was a bit off putting....

I started with Upsy Daisy as she's the most complicated.  I think it actually took me longer to mix up all the different colours than it did to put the character together!  I must remember how long it takes and build that in if I'm doing another cake with lots of colours. 

It took me a while to get the face right, for some reason the eyebrows kept making her look evil! 

Next up is Igglepiggle, which was much easier, as he's only 2 colours:

I think the blanket stitching detail helps to finish him off as he could end up looking too plain next to Upsy Daisy.

Then to add the Tombliboos:

And lots of handmade daisies:

I finished the cake off with a piped message and a glittery 2 and it was done:

Happy Birthday for yesterday Alfie, hope you enjoyed the party xxx

Turtle Wedding Cake - congratulations David and Inessa

I love it when people ask for cakes that are a bit different - it's really rewarding for me to make a cake that not only stretches my creativity and also one that's completely original and personal to the customer.
So I was really excited to make this turtle wedding cake for happy couple David and Inessa:

The story behind the design, is that the turtles represent that it has taken a long time for the couple to finally get married, and it matches the design on their wedding invitation.  As the groom is not a fan of white icing, the couple plumped for a chocolate orange cake covered with chocolate sugarpaste and filled with chocolate and cointreau ganache.  Yum.

I started about a week before making the toppers to give them plenty of time to dry and harden - a drooping bride and groom on top of a wedding cake would be a disaster!  I used modelling paste, which is simply regular sugarpaste with gum tragacanth added and left overnight.  I started with the bodies, which I made out of yellow modelling paste and a small amount of chocolate brown paste:

I rolled the brown paste into thin sausages and wrapped that around a fat yellow sausage.  I then rolled this round and folded it over a couple of times to get the marbled effect:



Using the same technique, I used a slightly darker brown to make the legs, stretching it and folding over 3 or 4 times to get the thinner marble effect.  So that each pair of legs matched, I made four sausages about half the size of the body and cut each sausage into two to give eight legs.  I shaped the hind legs into an "s" and cut in the claws using a craft knife:

I fixed the legs on using a short piece of dry spaghetti (yep - it works a treat!) and some edible glue.  I added a tail which I made from an offcut:

I made the neck and head using the same technique again, with a piece about half the size of the body for each.  I inserted a longer piece of dry spaghetti nearly all the way down the neck and left enough at the end to push right into the body and secured with edible glue to make sure it stayed put.  I then supported the necks while they dried:

I actually kept them supported this way for about a week to make sure they were as strong as possible.

The day before the cake was to be delivered, I baked the cake and while it was in the oven I finished off the turtles.  Having tried one technique for the shell I wasn't happy with it so I took it all off and started again.  I added a small lump of paste on top of the back and then covered with a circle of chocolate sugarpaste.  I added the textured effect using the end of my edible pen! 

I added the eyes and cut a slit with a craft knife for the mouths.  I made a top hat from black modelling paste and the bridal headdress from white paste which I shaped at the bottom using my scallop tool (I knew I'd find a use for that tool at some point!).  I added lots of details - daisies cut from flower paste filled with handmade edible pearls, some tiny yellow roses I made using a new mould I recently bought and yellow teardrop jewels and more edible pearls to finish it off:

They really came to life once the hat and headdress went on.  I was so pleased.  I left them overnight again, with a support, just in case.

The next day, I had until 3.30pm before I had to deliver the cake.  Plenty of time, or so I thought.  I had a bit of a disaster with the first batch of ganache filling, so it was about midday before I had the cake cut, filled, iced and in the fridge to firm up before covering.  So much for an easy relaxed day just adding the finishing touches...

Once the cake had firmed up in the fridge for a couple of hours I covered it with chocolate sugarpaste:

I also covered the drum in chocolate sugarpaste and secured the trimmed cake on top with some royal icing:

Next it was ready for the lilypads.  I made these from green sugarpaste mixed with a little chocolate paste rolled into a circle.  I then texturised the edges using a toothpick:

I cut a triangle out of each of the lilypads and shaped the edges a little to make them look more realistic before adding to the cake using some edible glue:

Time to add the turtles and a message piped in royal icing:





I finished the cake off with some yellow ribbon round both the cake and the drum, secured with a flower detail to tie in with the bridal headdress:

Congratulations David and Inessa - I hope you had a fantastic day yesterday and wish you a long and happy life together xx