Hufflepuff Badger Birthday Cake!

Every year I love taking on the challenge of baking my own Birthday cake! Every year I learn something new about decorating cakes, normally related to their structural integrity!! I really had narrowed my cake this year down to a few simple options, but I couldn't choose between them. This led to my husband brain storminig with me and erm... a brand new slightly more complex idea took shape.

I'm a big Harry Potter fan, and a proud Hufflepuff. Obviously the animal associated with Hufflepuff is the adorable badger, and when I saw this image I just knew I had to make it out of cake!

The cake itself is Whisk Kid's chocolate cake, as it stays moist, but it's also quite firm for carving into shape. I stacked it with chocolate buttercream, added the back foot, tail and ears shaped from fondant, and crumb-coated the cake. The fur is created with royal icing which I'd coloured in various shades of grey, and applied using flat teaspoon handles - it created the fur texture quite nicely! I made the eyes and nose out of fondant, and piped the mouth on. I gave him a scarf in Hufflepuff colours, and a wee Hufflepuff badge - complete with mini badger! He tasted good...

Pocket Watch Cake

Let me share a secret with you about my creativity... I decide I want to make a project, and then make it happen. I tend not to research how to do something until after I have tried to figure it out for myself. I learn from my mistakes and it helps me to ensure I don't do it again. Whilst I accept a few projects are out of my range just now (a wedding cake covered in piped royal icing, for example!) I like to just dive in head first and see what happens.

My husband is never too fussed what he wants for his Birthday cake, but when I suggested a cake based on his new pocket watch, he liked the sound of it! Somehow I managed to make this cake whilst more ill than usual, but a good set up and doing a little bit at a time helped me manage it!

The base is my favourite Whisk Kid's chocolate cake. It is a reliable, long-lasting, moist cake which is dense enough to handle a bit of carving. The coffee deepens the flavour but does not overwhelm, and weaker coffee can be used if making it for children.

I hollowed out the centre of the cake for the mechanism - a layer of dark fondant (it's just off black, made with a combination of Sugarflair's Liquorice, Dark Brown, Navy, Christmas Red and Melon gels) and a layer of gold fondant (Sugarflair's Dark Brown, Melon and Christmas Red). I worked into the gold fondant with cookie cutters, making indentations to look like cogs. I used edible gold lustre dust to help it look metallic. Then I have another layer of the dark fondant, with painted white lines and hand formed Roman Numerals. I added clock hands from white fondant, adding texture with more cutters, and set them to the time 4:04. This is a bit of a geeky joke, in this case interpreted as "age not found"! 

Wondering how I made it look glassy in the centre? A layer of acetate placed between the dark layer and the silver layer! The silver fondant is mainly made with Sugarflair's Liquorice, but with a touch of the other colours too. I wrapped the edge first and then laid the top on for a cleaner finish, and modeled the elements for the winding mechanism from fondant. I marked the patterns in using my sugar tools, and finished it all off with Antique Silver edible lustre dust! 

It may not be perfect but I am very proud of this cake :)

Bunny Rabbit Birthday Cake - Smudge

It was my Birthday last month! For me, this means a chance to bake something way too over the top to justify at any other time :) This year, I decided on a 3D rabbit... The cake is chocolate, and made using Whisk Kid's amazing recipe. The head was baked in a bowl, the body is three round layers (carved), and the feet and tail are cupcakes. Standard chocolate buttercream and fondant icing... The arms and ears were shaped using "cake truffle", that is a mix of cake crumbs and ganache, as if making cake pops (it tastes AMAZING). The tail is covered in mini marshmallows, and I attached the fondant in pieces so it looks like a stitched teddy. I used my sewing tracing wheel to get the effect! And I merged some coloured fondants to add interest to the paws and ears, using plunger cutters. The whiskers are spaghetti (!), and like Uncle Bulgaria I included a mini cake for candle celebrations, complete with a carrot - well, he is a bunny! And because every rabbit must have a name, he's called Smudge. Lessons learned? Use a fondant smoother - the body looks lumpy; sterilise cake dowels before use so they don't introduce bacteria - d'oh! But, he was very sturdy structurally, and the fondant was easier to work with when I didn't roll it too thin!! The adventures in baking continue...