A day or two at the beach ...

Over the summer I had orders for two beach themed cakes. The first was for a lady's 50th birthday and the brief was a beach theme with beach huts and lots of pink. The second was for a man's 40th birthday and anything beachy was fine. The resulting cakes show how two similar sounding orders can turn out very differently with a little imagination ...

My initial idea for the beach hut cake was to have three huts side by side on the top of the cake but when it came to putting it all together, I soon realised that three huts just weren't going to work with the beach themed accessories that the customer also wanted - they would have all ended up being very small and hardly noticeable. So a redesign later and the three became one, incorporating lots of pink and some other bright colours to help stop it being too, too girly.

The accessories included a beach mat, a pair of flip flops, a beach towel, a beach bag, a beach ball, a sun hat and a bucket and spade.

The beach hut was also cake and I added a wood effect door and pink window shutters. I cut out the window shape and placed a piece of striped fondant inside to match the beach towel, then added window bars and some piping gel to give a glass-effect.

The sand was created by drying the cake off-cuts in the oven on a low temperature for about 30 minutes then blitzing them into crumbs. I then glued this onto a piece of fondant on top of the cake that I had mixed to a similar colour (pale yellow and teddy bear brown ready coloured fondant in about a 2:1 ratio). There was enough sand for my second beach cake the following week, which I stored in an air tight container until I need it.

The second cake was for a man's 40th birthday. The brief was to have number cakes and a beach theme. Knowing the birthday boy was an Australian, I decided to have a little fun with this cake ...

I created the numbers by baking a circle for the 0 and a rectangular cake for the 4, which I then cut into shape using a template I had made from greaseproof paper. The bottom of the cakes were decorated with a darker blue fondant "ribbon" with waves. I topped each cake with the sand coloured fondant and the cake crumbs.

The 0 was made by cutting a circle out of the middle of the top layer of the round cake which I then covered with the turquoise icing and filled with piping gel and a shark's fin. I also added a surf board (I was so pleased with my unique design and the birthday boy's name worked really well on it, don't you think?).

Other beach decorations included a beach towel, a pair of thongs (flip flops), a bucket and spade, some sandcastles and a selection of fondant shells.

I really like the way the beach towel rolled up and I added a couple of rows of stitching along the edge.

So each cake with a beach theme and some similar elements came out very differently and both recipients were very happy with their cakes.

I wonder what cakes Autumn will bring ...

Little Love Cakes creates high quality and bespoke cakes for any celebration in the Twickenham/ Teddington/ Richmond area. Visit us on Facebook at littlelovecakeslondon.

Each cake is baked and decorated using high quality ingredients and is decorated with care and great attention to detail - we know it's the little things that make a cake special and unique. 

© 2014 Nicola Noble & Little Love Cakes: Please observe the rules of copyright and blog etiquette. If you use my ideas or images, please link back to my blog. And do let me know - I'd love to take a look.