Joystick Cake :-D

This weekend it turns out I was only making the one cake because the other was postponed. I don't mind though because it meant I had more time to make the joystick cake. 


It came out pretty good and I'm really proud of it. I did the easy part first, making the basic shape, adding the buttons and joystick and details in the icing. Then I steamed the cake to get that smooth shiny finish and put it in the fridge while I prepared myself for the difficult part.

Here's the cake in its unpainted melted stage

Arcade Joystick Cake

The cake inside is vanilla sponge with a raspberry jam and buttercream filling. 

For the design on top I wanted to make it look like Street Fighter but I'm not a good enough artist to paint a character. Well, maybe I could with time and stenciling but I was afraid of ruining my lovely cake :-p. 

So in the end, I decided to just have the street fighter logo except instead of writing "street fighter" I'd do "happy birthday" and instead of "IV" I'd put the birthday boy's age which is 32, written in roman numerals as "XXXII". Very long indeed, I wasn't sure I'd be able to fit it on the cake :P. At the bottom there is usually a capcom logo so I put his name in the capcom colours.

The cake is a bit smaller than the actual size of the joystick so I couldn't do all the details exactly perfect (like writing 'turbo' on button). I was disappointed that I couldn't find a Street Fighter IV font anywhere online to make sure the letters looked perfect but I don't think he'll mind much.

Here is the finished cake:

Arcade Joystick Cake

New children's cakes!

This weekend I got asked to make a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake and an In the Night Garden cake. Busy Busy! Here are the results:

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake

In the Night Garden cake

Handbag cake number 3 :-D

One of my colleagues saw pictures of my handbag cakes and asked me to make one for her daughter.  She's turning 11 so I chose brighter colours and a prettier design with flowers etc for her cake. It was so much fun to design and make that I already feel like making another one :-p. 

Girl's Handbag Cake

Girl's Handbag Cake

Oh, I don't know why it looks tinted in the photos, the cake is actually bright white. She also ordered cupcakes:

Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry & Vanilla Icing

I hope someone asks for a Halloween cake next month because I am itching to make one. Might just make one anyway!

Catch up - cakes and Super 8

Lately I've been busy with so many things I haven't had a chance (or inclination tbh :P) to write in my blog. I am now taking a few minutes out of internet-shopoholicism (is that a word? it is now) and making decorations to catch you up on what's been happening lately. And by you, I mean you, the one person who reads my blog :-p.


Anywho, first there was my sister's wedding reception at the end of July which kept me busy mostly because I was in charge of making the wedding cake. Plus, I made 50 cupcakes too. I decided to make the cake as bollywood glam as possible so it looks a bit over the top :-p but that's what asian weddings are like. I like to think of it as my Pakistani bride cake because it has everything a bride does: roses, gold, henna and a veil draped for modesty :-p

Pakistani Wedding Cake

Everything on it was edible. My sister wanted red roses, gold leaves, a drapey thing and henna design. She initially wanted a red cake with gold henna design but I couldn't find gold writing icing anywhere! Where do people buy it from?? Anyway, bottom cake was victoria sponge and surprisingly and thankfully it held out well. Middle cake was red velvet cake which vanished in a flash as soon as the cake was cut so I think it turned out well ;-). Top cake was chocolate, my favourite.

Here are some of the cupcakes I made, also in various flavours:

Wedding cupcakes

I made these in 3 flavours; chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. They also magically disappeared. Strawberry was especially popular so I made a whole bunch of them at our next party.

 Funny thing is, I used the all-in-one method (bung it all in a food processor)  to make them because I was in a hurry and they still came out pretty perfect. Just goes to show :-p.

 Only thing is, with the all in one method they get a bit of a peak on top, which I don't mind on cupcakes because it gives the icing a nice shape, but I once used it to make a Victoria sandwich and the peak was huge, had to cut the cake to make it level which is an awful waste of cake.

Oh yes, before all of this I made a barbie cake for my cousin's birthday with strawberry sponge and vanilla butter icing. The frills took ages but it was worth it :-). The writing icing sucked though. Almost as soon as I wrote with it the icing spread and looked awful. I will just make my own from now on instead of being lazy and buying it from Morrisons.

Apart from making mountains of cake lately, also saw some movies. Most recently, finally saw Super 8. Had been dying to see it ever since the first teaser trailer but when I saw how far down it was in the US charts I was afraid it had been too hyped up. Well...I absolutely and thoroughly enjoyed it! All the kids were amazingly natural. Haven't seen kids act so well since Goonies. In fact, it was a lot like Goonies if the Goonies had been in District 9. Yes, there were a few cheesy moments but it all fit in well the mysterious creature was suitably mysterious and made us jump in our seats many a time. All in all good fun. The children in the movie are making a zombie movie throughout the film and I was really glad that at the end, they show us it all. Was so funny.

 Wish I had invited my cousins along to watch it too because it reminded me of a mystery/horror script I wrote for us. We shot a few scenes (awesome ones) but never got around to finishing it that summer and by the next summer the boys were all taller and different looking. We kind of lost interest by then too. It's the only story I've ever written that had an awesome title (which I won't reveal here in case I want to use it later on). And it wasn't even me who named it, it was my cousin Hana :-p should get her to name all my stories...

Oh yeah one more thing. The decorations I'm making are for my Alice in Wonderland Tea Party yay! But more about that in later posts as I'm having it in 2 weeks. Just hope it doesn't rain that day :-S

Howzat?

I made my cricket cake today :-) and it did cheer me up. Especially making the ganache (whipped cream, a little butter and lots of chocolate melted together) yummy! I could have eaten the whole bowl :-p.

Cricket Cake

The cake was a three layered chocolate sponge. The bottom half was sandwiched together with chocolate butter-cream and the other half with ganache. I also spread ganache all over the top and sides then dusted the top with cocoa powder.
The cricket ball is also chocolate cake that I made in a bowl but covered with coloured ready to roll icing and the stitching is in white chocolate. The stitching was going to be perfect, I was going to use my ultra thin piping bag to make the line's thin and accurate. But I made the chocolate too thick at first and it got stuck in the damn nozzle :@ my bad luck is still hanging round it seems. I just couldn't wash it out or anything. So in the end had to use a toothpick to make the thin lines of chocolate. Didn't want to use my regular piping bag because then the lines would have been too thick.
Anyway, I used the thickened chocolate to make the cricket bats and used sugar-paste for the handles. And then of course, stuck chocolate fingers all round the edges. 
Was the most chocolatey yummy cake I've ever made. I'm going to experiment with using two fillings for one cake more often.
Though with all that chocolate, butter, sugar and cream that one slice is probably 1000 calories :-p. Good thing I don't like eating cake all that much.
Plus, I had a lovely afternoon with the family and had fun playing Just Dance 2 on the wii with my 5 year old nephew :-)


Just in case you're interested, here's the recipe for super yummy ganache:


275g chocolate
250ml double cream
50g unsalted butter


Put chocolate and butter in a bowl. Put the double cream in a pan and bring to the boil. Then pour over the chocolate and butter and stir gently until it's all melted and blended. Try not to make bubbles. Then put in the fridge to cool and thicken. Then try not to eat it all before you put it on your cake :-p

My first cake order :-) peppa pig

I love making and decorating cakes, but so far I have only have made them for family and the only ones to order them from me were family. So I started showing photos of my cakes around work and finally got my first non-family order :-D woohoo.
It's after 2am and only half an hour ago I finished decorating a cake which is being picked up at noon tomorrow :-p. Yes, I am the queen of procrastinators. I made the cake after dinner and didn't start decorating till around midnight (that includes designing and deciding what to put on it and printing out a template to copy). Then I worked incredibly slow and careful because I knew if I messed it up I wouldn't be getting another chance, I had left it too late.
Luckily, it's gone well. Hope it tastes as good as it looks! I've made it for a friend who has ordered it for her granddaughter's 2nd birthday. I'm wondering now whether to add any more decoration but I think simple works best and I don't want to ruin it. It's safe in the fridge and I just hope I don't manage to kill it before she picks it up.
The cake is vanilla sponge with butter icing and strawberry jam filling. Then I jammed the whole thing and rolled out some ready to roll icing to put on top. I used to find that the hardest thing about making cakes; rolling out the icing without it sticking to the damn board. Because no matter how much icing sugar I sprinkled on the surface first, at some point it would stick. A colleague suggested putting down some cling film first. I sceptically tried it out and it actually does work!
Peppa and the balloons are also ready to roll icing that I coloured in little portions. I had fun making the eyes and balloons but I almost forgot to make her tail! Which ended up being the hardest part of her to do.
Anyway, here it is, my Peppa Pig cake:

I rearranged the balloons a bit after this picture because the 'a' looks rather lonely up there. I might make some sugar paste buttons in the morning and stick them on the sides. Or maybe sponge some light food colouring on the sides although I can't think of a colour that won't clash with the balloons.
I'll have to get some opinions in the morning when people are actually awake. Meanwhile, I better be getting to sleep myself.