Antique Roses - Sketchbook

Frozen Characters - Sketchbook

Owl

A recent artwork done in pencil as a gift for a friend. (Size A4)

Farm scenery from my sketchbook

A rough sketch of one of my favourite views on my family farm. 

A Touch of Elegance

This cake is perfect for the loved one in your life that adores a touch of elegance. A rustic bouquet of 'You are lovely' Gardenia's and lazily drooping pearls creates a feeling of 'shabby chic' to this otherwise formal cake. 

When my partner in crime and I were asked to make this cake, we loved how beautiful it was and simply couldn't say no...

We were asked to make it a pastel rainbow cake. As this was our first I found the recipe on the internet and loved the results. The cakes were fairly moist and very easy to make. The link to the recipe we used can be found here. 

We cut the cakes to ensure all were even in size and layered them with buttercream. Yum, yum!

Once the cake was completely covered with buttercream and as smooth as possible, it was placed in the fridge to set. 

After colouring and kneading the fondant for an age, working quickly, we rolled the fondant out. It's important to work quickly at this stage to make sure you don't waste all your hard kneading. My Grandma always says, "Knead the fondant till you think you've done enough, then do it again." I can't stress enough how important it is to knead your fondant REALLY well! Also, note to self, never try to use old fondant. We tried to use some that was left over from our last cake, but the air had done its thing and when we put it on the cake it cracked and stretched and was horrid. After a quick trip to town for new fondant our second attempt looked much better. 

It was all hands on deck to carefully place the rolled out fondant over the cake and then the smoothing process began. Plastic 'smoothers' for want of a better name were used, however the best fondant 'smoothers' around are warm hands and patience. 

The plaque is just white fondant and the template was drawn by hand. Using a tooth pick, little dots were made as a guide for piping the '80' and small holes to represent the pearls. These where then pipped on using royal icing. 

The flowers we used here bought, fake flowers, but despite this fact they looked really pretty. I left my friend to do the arranging and the result was gorgeous! So fresh and pretty. 

We asked the lovely people we sold the cake to to take a picture of the inside for us, and here's what it looked like. 

Till next time. God bless,

Little Wren xxx

St. George Jersey Cake

I'm not a St. George supporter, however when my best friend and I were asked to make a St. George Jersey cake, as one of our first paid jobs, we jumped at the chance. Below is a rough tutorial on how to go about making a jersey cake. You could use the same steps for making any football teams colours and styles. Go the Storm! *cough, cough*

As we are visual people we like to set everything out as we go to see how the end result will look. We are usually designing as we go also so, as you can see above, we have placed out the cutters to see how it will all look once finished. (As we only have one of each letter there is a little interesting spelling going on. :))The torso of the jersey was cut from one large slab cake (sometimes called a lamington slice tin) and the arms were cut from another small cake. The template for the cake can be found here. 

The next step is to patch the cake with small pieces of fondant icing. (Sorry I don't have a picture of this step.) This will help the cake to end up with a much smoother finish. You can either use a small amount of egg white to stick the fondant on, or melted jam (explained below). Then ice the cake with butter-cream icing. (Sorry I don't have a picture of this step either.) The butter-cream icing not only helps the fondant to stick to the cake, but also helps keep the cake moist, improves the taste greatly, and for people who hate fondant, they can simply peel the fondant off their piece of cake before eating and still be left with nice tasting icing. Refrigerate the icing until firm. Other options would include chocolate ganache, or if you don't wish to have any icing underneath, heat a small amount of jam (any flavour you like) and paint the warm jam onto the cake. 

Roll the fondant out until about 1-1.5 cm thick (approximately 1/2 inch) and carefully drape over the cake. Start to smooth the fondant, beginning with the top of the cake first, using circular motions with a smoothing paddle. Gently work down the sides until the entire cake is smooth. 

Carefully cut the fondant around the edge of the cake (If you are using a cake board, be very careful not to mark it). Try not to cut too close to the cake as it's better to have extra left around the edge then not enough. Using the smoothing paddle again, push the cut edges into the sides of the cake and smooth the edges again. (Sorry I don't have a picture of this step.) If the fondant begins to go hard before you have made it smooth enough, run your hands over the cake for a bit. The heat from them will help to slightly melt the fondant and allow for extra smoothing. 

For the dragon I took a tooth pick and traced around the dragon shape onto the fondant. (See template). Then with some edible chalk (which I'd crushed it into a powder) I coloured-in the shape of the dragon using a small brush. A black edible pen was then used to outline the dragon and flame.

For the collar and V we did this free hand. We used the template I'd drawn out, but made the strips slightly bigger then the drawn version as the cake had become bigger because of the added width caused by the fondant. The words were cut out using alphabet cutters. 

And there you have a jersey birthday cake! 

God Bless,

Little Wren xxx

Birthday and Special Occasions Cakes

Here is a selection of cakes made by my best friend and I. 

Death by Chocolate 

The ring of balls around the edge are chocolate cake pops.

Sweet and Simple 

Strawberries and Cream 

ST. George Birthday Cake 

The dragon was made using edible chalk and edible pens. Click here for the tutorial on how to make this cake. 

Our First Wedding Cake 

iPhone 21st 

Akubra and Australian Flowers 

These flowers are made from chocolate that we coloured and then pipped onto baking paper. We then placed them in the fridge to harden. These make awesome flowers as they are easy to make, look great, and taste good too. :) 

Balloons and Streamers

 Christmas Trees and Cup Cakes 

These little Christmas trees were inspired by ones that we saw on Better Homes and Gardens however we struggled to make the trees stable enough when simply using tiny patty cakes for the bases. For our version , we made the bases as cake pops (pressing the cake pop mixture into little patty cake trays to set). There are strawberries under the icing and the stars and baubles are made from fondant. 

Floral Cup Cakes 

Wedding Cakes 

This wedding cake is a chocolate cake with butter cream icing. 

This wedding cake is a light fruit cake with fondant icing. 

The wedding that we did these two cakes for was an afternoon/evening wedding were the Bride and Groom wanted a cake for the afternoon tea and also the reception as only close family members were invited to the reception, but they wanted everyone to get some cake. The chocolate cake was for the afternoon tea and the fruit cake was for the reception. For the tutorial of how to make the roses used on these cakes click here. 

Dora the Explorer Hot Air Balloon Cake 

This cake was inspired by one we saw on the internet. 

Australia Day Cake

God Bless,

Little Wren xxx