filled with good times, wonderful company, great food and even better cake!
I hope to see you all in the New Year for more cakes, cookies and general mayhem. xx
Here is this year’s Christmas cake. He is my newest cake friend ‘Calamity’ the Christmas Cat. If you are wondering why he is called Calamity, check out my facebook page. All is (rather embarrassingly) revealed there.
www.facebook.com/MADEWITHL0VEBYME
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My little boy is turning One this week!! What an amazing year it’s been!
I simply never knew the sheer amount of joy and contentment one tiny person could bring to my life. I’ve also never known exhaustion like it, we’ll gloss over that bit though…
We have taken to calling him ‘little lion’ or ‘lion-heart’ because one of his most favourite games is to storm round our home on hands and knees roaring away to himself or anyone who is within ear shot, so when it came to thinking about his very first birthday cake there seemed only one real option for me, a little lion. A gentle, sleepy, dreamy lion, perfect for a baby’s birthday party.
I’m sure some will say it is over-the-top for a child’s first birthday, i know he won’t remember it. However, I also know i’ve been waiting and hoping for the day when I got to bake my own baby’s first birthday cake for several long, hard years- so for me, this is a very, very big day, a dream come true and very much deserving of an all-out special cake.
Happy birthday gorgeous boy. Love Mumma. xx
You can have all the fun of dressing up as well as indulging your sweet tooth with these edible cookie masks!
These three dimensional, hollow cookies are completely edible and fully wearable!
These ones in particular are created to look like Maneki-neko (Chinese/Japanese lucky cats.) Perfect for children’s parties or adults who like to add a little fun and drama to their dinner parties!
ehhhh? I’d better explain right? Ok..
I was contacted on my Facebook page by a very lovely, very beautiful lady inquiring about a cake for her husband. It turned out she is a professional model and her husband was a professional photographer. I can guess how they met…
Anyway, those that follow this little blog of mine on a regular basis will know I’m quite into my photography and i’ll admit to finding it quite amusing that here I was being asked to create a cake of the very same camera I use to photograph the cakes and cookies I make! It’a a bizarre world sometimes isn’t it!
I studied my camera like never before and baked a flat sheet cake ready to stack and carve. Once cut, stacked, crumb coated and covered i began working in the details and lines of the cake, constantly referring back to my trusty camera that was sat on the kitchen top quietly posing for me.
Once I was happy with the shaping and details out came best friend Dinky my airbrush and I sprayed the cake black first then worked back over with white to add highlights. I finished with a mix of black, white and blue to create the lens glass.
Finally I added an edible image i’d had printed of the lucky birthday boy and his gorgeous wife to replicate the screen on the back of the camera.
Once I was happy with everything I covered it in a light covering of edible ‘gloss’ spray to seal all the colour and prevent it lifting off when eaten.
So, here it is! One Canon 5D mk 11 digital SLR camera cake, vanilla sponge with chocolate buttercream, covered in fondant and airbrushed. Photographed (naturally) by the real canon 5D mk 11 digital SLR camera.
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Fine hand-piping has always been something of a mystery to me. I have seen piping so very fine it makes my eyes hurt, yet whenever I have tried it I get nowhere. My 1 tip clogs constantly, refuses to pipe and generally drives me mad.
Is it an industry secret? I don’t know. Do fine pipers sit there quietly smiling that they can do something that so many of us struggle with? Maybe it’s a right of passage??? Those who can, those who struggle – with no chance the two shall ever meet?
I’ve googled it searching for answers without much success, I’ve sifting my icing sugar to try and get it fine enough not to block. I’ve pounded the royal icing in the mixer, I’ve stuck countless pins and cocktail sticks into the end of the 1 tip in a vain attempt to unclog it, i’ve squeezed the bag so hard it’s split, i’ve beaten the bag against the work top, i’ve tried thinning the royal icing, making it with raw egg white, egg powder, ready-made, shop bought, i’ve tried everything without much luck.
Until now!
I’ve finally figured it out, i’ve found the keys to the magical perfectly-piped kingdom and I am more than happy to share it.
The answer, for me, is not to use a tip at all!
Out of desperation one evening i ditched the tipped bag, grabbed a disposable bag and snipped the tiniest hole I could make. Instantly a wonderful fine line began piping out of the bag.
I was (suspiciously) overjoyed that the solution could be so simple..
I began carefully piping a very fine pattern and my ’1 tip’ bag worked perfectly. At one point about 2/3rds of the way through the design it did clog, yet as there was no tip or coupler to deal with I could just pinch the very end of the bag with my fingernail, pull, and out came the little clot leaving me with a wonderful free-flowing perfectly fine 1 tip line again.
Amazing.
This simple idea has changed my piping work completely, allowing me the freedom I need to create designs as fine and detailed as those who draw in pen. An unlike pen-work, this fine-line work has the added bonus of tasting great!
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I have been busy working up pieces for the upcoming Experimental Food Society spectacular London in November. I am creating a set of giant cookie canvasses using a mix of piping, flooding, airbrush and hand-painting.
The set is entitled ‘Fusion’ and are inspired by oriental artistry.
I have been working on a very top secret idea that i do not believe has been done with cookies before, I have to keep that all hush-hush for now though as I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.
In the mean time, here is a sneak peak of a couple of pieces that will be on show. If you are in London around November i’d love to see you at the show!
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Skulls are iconic (as well as a useful way of stopping up having to carry our brains round.) They have featured heavily in alternative and mainstream arts for the last few years, thanks in part of Damien Hurst and his diamond encrusted skull.
Day of the Dead skulls are a particular favourite of mine, however for this cake I have taken a more literal approach and embedded the chocolate skull into a bigger cake design.
Please meet my new friend – Mr. Grimm. His skull is chocolate, with a cake (victoria sponge) body and fondant spine. He is wrapped in a fondant cloak.
I do hope no one is squeamish as I love my skulls and have lots and lots of ideas to bring to life over the next few months.
Remember – skulls are for life, not just for Halloween!
If you want to know how I made Mr. Grimm, here’s the tutorial.
Share on FacebookBaby shower cakes…
If you hit google images you’ll find all sorts of wonderfully cute, sweet, charming pink and blue cakes to celebrate new babies. From little teddies to big pregnant bellies they all have the ‘awwwwww’ factor. They are all very, very lovely…
they just didn’t quite speak to me personally enough to spark off inspiration.
So, instead of creating a standard baby shower cake I started thinking about the very lovely lady whose shower it was going to be and an image dropped into my head. It was quickly followed by that ‘lightbulb moment’ smile that has my husband rolling his eyes and saying ‘what is it this time?’
This is the image that dropped into my head. (No, there was no alcohol or illicit drugs involved in this thought process, i promise.)
His name is ‘Warpig’ and he is Motorhead’s logo. Motorhead is the soon-to-be knackered, vomit covered, brain melted, run-ragged, totally smitten-on-cloud-9 new mum’s favourite band. And when i say favourite i mean she likes them even more than cake. And she loves cake.
For those who are not familiar with Motorhead, this is ‘Warpig’
You can find the recipe for this cake here: Chocolate and peanut butter cake
I know this is not exactly a traditional baby shower cake, it was however perfect for this ocassion and went down an absolute storm. That’s rock and roll, baby.
Share on FacebookThis is a three-dimensional interactive maple syrup anatomical heart cookie. The top cookie comes off to reveal the inner workings of the heart on the bottom cookie!
I designed this pair of cookies especially for an un-coming event put on by a group of fantastic bakers working under the leadership of Miss Cakehead called Eat Your Heart Out.
The event is in February 2013 so i assure you there will be plenty more anatomical goodies to come in the new year!
Cookies.
Wonderfully yummy blank canvasses that as cookie artists we lovingly decorate- flood, pipe, or paint with royal icing. We can stack them, arrange them in a glorious patterns and even slot them together so they stand up.
They are however, like traditional artist canvasses, completely flat.
Or they were. Until now.
I have been experimenting with ways to bring cookies into their three-dimensional, sculpted future. The options are endless and working like this brings with it all the possibilities that had until now evaded the humble cookie.
The age of the three-dimensional cookie sculpture is upon us! Care to join me in the cookies of tomorrow?
For scale this chinese dragon sculpture is 1 meter square, made up of one giant central hollow sculpted cookie mask and is surrounded by dozens of ‘normal’ flood iced cookies. He is airbrushed, hand-piped and flooded.
I believe he is a totally new concept to the world of cookies.
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