I've finally gone and set up my own cake business ...

After years of people telling me that I should set up a cake business, the time is finally right and I have taken the plunge - woo hoo!

We live in a relatively long road which has a fantastic Facebook group and after mentioning the idea of setting up my own cake business, I got two orders straight away and I now have one to two cakes ordered for every week until the summer holidays and orders are beginning to come in for September.

I needed to come up with a name for my little cake business and I turned to Sophie for inspiration. After years of seeing me putting my Snowballs brand on the back of my greetings cards, she came up with branding for her own cards and draws a heart balloon with "Little Love" inside on the back of all her cards she makes for her friends. I loved it and so Little Love Cakes was born.

For the branding, I used an image of a cupcake that I painted onto an apron for Sophie's cupcake party last year (see here).

I am so excited about all the fun cakes I am going to get to make. Take a look at my Little Love Cakes Facebook page and watch out for the website which will be following soon. I am very happy to take order from September so e-mail me at littlelovecakeslondon@gmail.com if you would like a quote.

© 2014 Nicola Noble: 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.

Afternoon tea anyone?

It was my niece's 20th birthday this month and I got to make her cake. She wanted a proper tea service for her present and an afternoon tea party celebration, so the cake of course had to follow the theme.

I had lots of fun making a miniature tea service out of fondant and once the pieces had dried, painting them with gold edging and little roses. I was really pleased with the finished cake and my niece loved it. 

I found a really helpful tutorial on how to make the tea set (take a look here) which I followed to make the tea pot and handles on the tea cups. I made the tea cups by rolling out the fondant reasonably thinly and cutting a circle and a rectangle and then forming the rectangle into a tube and fixing it to the circle before adding the handle. 

I filled each of the tea cups with some piping gel that I coloured brown which made it look like black tea/coffee. If I do a similar cake again, I would try to make the tea look milky and to fill the milk jug with "milk" - but that's something to figure out next time. I also filled the sugar bowl with real sugar on the day which worked well.

The finishing touches were a vase with roses in, a celebration cake for the middle of the table and some "jam" sandwiches on each of the plates.

© 2014 Nicola Noble: 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.

Chocolate party - Alpine village cake

Sophie's 8th birthday party was all about chocolate (see my previous post here). The obvious choice for a cake was an all out choco-tastic creation but no cakes I found online inspired me. I have learnt from previous years that if the cake isn't particularly creative I feel cheated and disassisfied with the end product so I needed to come up with something I could really get my creative teeth in to. Cue Alpine village cake.

I don't know where this idea sprang from and I couldn't find any similar cakes to what was in my head so I had to build it as I went along. First piece of inspiration came from the Lakeland's fairy tale village moulds and I used this to make chocolate houses. Using milk, dark and white chocolate, I poured melted chocolate into each part of the moulds for mix and match houses. Sadly I didn't do a very good job of tempering the chocolate and all but the dark chocolate rooves bloomed, but actually it didn't notice once all the other decorations were on and the chocolate still tasted good!

I had also collected a selection of chocolate sprinkles, hearts, jazzies, pebbles and other bits along the way which all got put to good use. I ended up baking one rectangular sponge and two 9" circular ones (chocolate sponges of course) and layering them for a staggered mountain slope sort of effect.

I knew I wanted to a stream across the cake and that idea developed into a babbling mountain stream ending in a lake. I mixed two colours of blue fondant together, but didn't totally mix them so there was some marbling still. This ended up looking fab and I finished off the stream with some sugar sprinkles I had left over from the Octonauts cake I made earlier this year.

I had the mountain stream coming out of a chocolate pebble and I edged the mountain lake with some more of the chocolate pebbles and some of the small chocolate sprinkles. The finishing touch for the lake was some piping gel (something new for me to play with) which I spread across the lake for a water effect. This worked fantastically and I will definitely be playing with this again another time.

The strange indentations on the picture of the plain green covered cake above were deliberate! They turned into a footpath from the top house, linking it to the house on the mid-levels and I added some orange chocolate Matchmakers to provide some steps for the little chocolate people I added right at the end (sadly no photos of the cake with these little guys on) to get down to the lake and their friends in the bottom house!  

The finishing touch was to add literally a hundred plus fondant flowers in lots of bright colours, Sophie's name and a number eight candle placed behind the silver Happy Birthday.

For the first time Sophie had very definite ideas as to how she wanted the cake but I couldn't really understand or translate some of these into reality. Thankfully, she was very happy with the finished cake so all was good in the Snowballs house.

© 2014 Nicola Noble: 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.

Explore, rescue, protect! It's the GUP A ...

Justin had an Octonauts themed birthday party this year. I searched the web for inspiration for his cake and fell in love with a few ideas, especially having a cake with the GUP A on it (you have to know the Octonauts to know what this is!)

I wanted to make some of the characters myself too, rather than use the toys that Justin already had but I wasn't sure if my modelling skills were up to the task but they turned out so cute I fell in love with them! I started with Captain Barnacles and Kwazi but then Justin also asked for Peso and Tunip and, as they fitted really well on to the board, I was happy to oblige.

I baked two 9" round cakes (which I coloured blue) and one 12" rectangular cake (plain coloured). The round cakes sunk a little in the middle (I always wonder if this is because of the colouring?) but it didn't matter as the GUP was sat right on top. I chopped the rectangular cake to make the GUP - it started out a bit small but with some jigsaw-puzzle-type skills, some judicious carving and the glue properties of buttercream, you couldn't tell once it was covered in fondant.

I used three different shades of blue fondant - two ready coloured and one I coloured myself for the board. I decorated the round cake with a strip of wavy fondant in two colours and decorated around the edge with brightly coloured seaweed and corals with some pearl sprinkles to fill in the gaps.

The GUP A was actually quite straightforward to decorate: I did a strip of teal icing around the bottom half and a semi-circle over the top. The join was hidden by a rope of icing around the GUP. The cockpit comprised a small teal semi-circle on the bottom, a black semi-circle behind the characters and a raised strip to the front of the cockpit with some small controls for Barnacles and Kwazi to use. A couple of circles, some eyes and some shiny teal coloured sugar balls all around and it was finished, apart from the dangly bit, fins and propeller. I made these and added some pieced of cocktail stick then left them to dry for a few days so that they would hold their shape. The cocktail sticks were then used to fix the various bits onto the GUP.

© 2014 Nicola Noble: 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.

Explore, rescue, protect! An Octonauts party ...

Justin was five a few weeks ago and he wanted an Octonauts party.

I managed to get the invitations out before Christmas: I found a cute picture of the front of an Octonauts book and fiddled a little to come up with something I was happy with.

I was very late in organising the actual party (for me) and only sat down and planned the games the day before the party, although I had sourced the party bag goodies and party plates before Christmas (as I learnt to do after his very first birthday when I left it until after Christmas and snow meant the things didn't arrive in time!) 

Justin had 10 friends and the party was held at our local community centre (where we've held previous parties). I bought a blue net and some inflatable fish to decorate the room and we made some jelly fish out of plastic food cartons and plastic carrier bags.

We started the party with an Octonauts Creature Hunt. I was "forced" to play some of the Octonauts games on the BBC website to win some creature cards, which I saved and printed out. These were then hidden around the room  and each child was given a creature chart at the start of the games. Once they spotted the creature they then went to Sophie and her friends (the helpful big girls) to get the creature stamped off with a froggy stamp (the closest stamped we had to a sea creature!).

Next game was Fish Egg and Spoon Race. We have a great set of egg and spoons from Early Learning Centre and the children had fun running up and down the hall trying not to drop the eggs!

After that the children played Ball Pool Creature Rescue. I filled a giant bucket with ball pool balls and dropped in selection of sea creature bath toys. The children then had to reach into the bucket and pull out one of the sea creatures (without looking).

The next game was Musical Islands. We laid out large pieces of paper (the packaging saved from a recent Amazon delivery!) - one for each child. The children danced around the islands until the music stopped - they then had to stand on an island. An island was removed after each round and the child not on an island was out of the game. The last one on an island won.

This was followed with Calico Jack’s Treasure Hunt. I have been saving the plastic eggs from Kinder eggs for a very long time and I put a haribo sweet into each egg and hid them around the hall. There were enough for each child to find three eggs and two of these were large ones with a mini-packet of Haribos in.

The final game before the food was served was Octonauts in the Sea (this was a variation of fishes in the sea). The proper game works like this: set up a circle of chairs facing outwards and each child sits on a seat and is named either Captain Barnacles, Kwazi or Peso. A caller calls out one of the names and the children with that name get up and walk around the outside of the circle. The caller then calls different things:
- the sea is getting rough = the children start running
- tide turn = the children change direction
- shark coming = the children run back to their chair.
The last child to return to their chair is out and turns the chair facing inwards; they can play a version in the middle of the circle for fun.

In reality this proved a bit too tricky for 4/5 year olds and Mr Snowballs just got them all up at the same time and got them to run or change direction or return to their seats as per the game rules. They all had lots of fun.

I also set up a table with some Octonauts colouring as a quiet activity for those children who didn't want to take part in every game.

The party bags were just simple paper bags with a label for each child in the Octonauts logo. I found a font that is similar to the Octonauts font and used this (see here). They each got an inflatable fish, a magic fortune teller fish (remember those from your childhood?), an Octonauts colouring book (I saved the images from the BBC website and then printed them four to a page and stapled them into a booklet), and some sweeties.

Mr Snowballs excelled himself this year with running the games and all the children had a fantastic time - even the shy ones were joining in by the end of the party. And with all the help I got from my family (who are amazing) the party was a real pleasure to organise and run.

Next up, the cake ...

© 2014 Nicola Noble: 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.

Mr Snowballs wanted a Star Wars Death Star cake

It was recently that time of year again when Mr Snowballs put in his request for his birthday cake with clear instructions that he wanted a Star Wars Death Star cake. I always argue that the sort of cake he wants should be reserved for "special" birthdays (such as my niece's 18th, mum's 70th, sister's 50th, best friend's 40th) or for our children's birthdays. As 40 something is neither, I always try to persuade him to be happy with a "norrmal" cake but it never works. So Star Wars Death Star is was ...

I didn't have the courage to make the whole cake into the Death Star but opted instead for a round cake with the Death Star on top. Mr Snowball informed me that if I wasn't going to do a "full size" Death Star then he also expected an Imperial Star Destroyer - he doesn't ask for much really!!

I have to admit that I had great fun making this cake and I was really pleased with how it came out.

The bottom sponge was gluten-free Victoria sponge with a mashed banana to help add moisture (gluten-free cakes are always so dry!). I covered the cake board in turquoise fondant and the cake in black fondant over Betty Crocker chocolate fudge icing (I seem to have an aversion to making buttercream after the gallons I had to make for Sophie's birthday). Then came the fun part.

I moulded the Death Star out of rice krispie treats (RKT); I have never used these before for my cakes but thought it would be easier than trying to bake a large cake ball. It was very quick and easy to do - I made the RKT before the school run one morning and by the time I came back it had set enough for me to start making the Death Star. Justin has some Lego Star Wars planets and I used one of these to mould the ball, greasing each half liberally before squashing the RKT in them. I read in a few recipes that it is a good idea to crush the rice krispies before mixing with the marshmallows and butter and I will definitely do this next time as there were quite a lot of divots on the outside of the ball. Also next time I will try to leave it longer to harden up, although the ball shape didn't distort too much.

I pushed the two halves of the soon-to-be Death Star together, emphasised the death ray hollow a bit more with my thumbs and then covered the ball in light grey fondant. I did this by cutting two circles of the grey fondant and placing over the RKT (I got the right size by using the Lego Star Wars planet as a guide), joining them across the middle of the ball. I then rolled out dark grey fondant and cut various shapes out of it: I cut circles to fit into the death ray hollow bit (marking it with the back of a knife before I put it on); a long strip to go around the middle of the Death Star; a circle cut into pieces of pie for the top; and almost-square shapes to go around the outside. I worked out that the squares needed to have angled sides to fit onto the ball. Once they were all on, I added random markings with the tip of a #2 icing nozzle and a knife and added tiny non-pareils (which was very fiddly!).

I made the Imperial Star Destroyer by stacking various cut and rolled pieces of fondant together, some white balls of fondant at the back with some silver balls and marking it with a knife. I also added a tiny Tie Fighter.

The finishing touches were Mr Snowballs' name in Star Wars style font in the turquoise fondant and copious amounts of sparkle to brighten the whole black/grey thing.

And the verdict? For someone who has high expectations, Mr Snowballs seemed suitably pleased with his cake and I had fun making it. Maybe next time I will be brave enough to tackle a whole Death Star cake ...

My biggest cake to date aka THE handbag

My lovely (and quite a bit older!) sister turned a significant age this week. I planned to make her birthday cake and somewhere along the way came up with the idea of making it in the shape of the Mulberry handbag that she has been lusting after for a number of years!

So enlisting the help of my amazing mum and talented niece, we created a full size replica in cake and fondant! And it came out quite well ...

The actual bag is 36cm wide, 16.5cm deep and 26cm high - that is a lot of cake. My mum and I agreed to bake half the cakes each: I baked four victoria sponges in a rectangular tin using a 3 egg recipe and realised that another four of this size was not going to give us anywhere near the height we needed, so my mum baked two using 4 eggs and two using 5 eggs. She also make a "gallon" of butter icing which by scraping the bowl of every last bit was just enough to fill alternate layers and crumb coat the carved cake.

We started layering the sponges (alternating buttercream and strawberry jam filling), cutting each layer to an approximate width until we had the right height. Then we needed to add another 6cm to the end of the cake (the cake tins were only 30cm) so stacked these and "glued" them to the main body of the cake with buttercream. We ended up with nine layers of cake for the main part and 10 for the extra bit on the end! We then carved the bag shape out of the cake, with the top layer being about 5cm wide and the bottom being 16.5cm wide. I then carved a wedge shape out of each side of the cake, so that the finished cake would have the effect of the leather folding in, starting about 5cm down and ending about 8cm from the bottom (see photos below for a better image of this). Once carved, we put a couple of wooden skewers into the layers to help keep them together.

I've included the tall jam jar in the photo to give a sense of size!

I had found a tutorial on how to make the Mulberry bag cake (here) and this proved very helpful in all but the handles (more on those later).

We started off by covering the whole cake with a layer of fondant (we used Renshaw Regal Ice in Teddy Bear brown colour) - the sides individually and a single layer over the front and back of the cake.

The next layers of fondant we textured with a leather texture mat (bought from here). I was slightly disappointed with it but we just couldn't find anything else that could get close to recreating the leather effect we wanted so it did the job: it worked out expensive with the postage and you had to really press very hard to get the texture to show on the fondant.

We covered the sides first and then the front and the back with individual pieces that we carefully smoothed together at the top. We then cut another piece of fondant to fit across the top as the flap on the bag: see the images below to see how far down this came, although on the real handbag it is about 2cm higher than we had it. Before putting this over the top, we cut out two rectangles on one side where the handle straps would go on the front.

We then cut slits in the sides and used a stitching tool to create the stitching effect around the edges of the main flap, across the sides of the bag and around the slits in the side. We then cut a rectangle of fondant, "stitched" the edges and added buckle holes before gently pushing into the slits that we had just made on the sides.

Next step was the straps on the front and back of the cake. These went from the bottom of the bag to the edge of the flap (front and back) with stitching along the vertical edges. We also added a thin roll of fondant (using an extruder) along the edge of the bag, where the front met the sides.

Then we tackled the handles!!! The tutorial we were following used aquatic plastic tubing covered in fondant but this proved to be a disaster ... the tubing was just not strong enough to support the fondant and even with support (see kitchen rolls below) they collapsed and cracked.

So after a sleepless night trying to work out what to do, we came up with the solution of using some heavy duty mains cable as the insert (thankfully my dad was an electrical engineer and has lots of useful things lying around!). Once sterilised, this proved perfect as it was easily bent into the right shape of the handle and once bent didn't move. I also mixed some gum tragacanth into the fondant the night before which made it more pliable and less likely to crack. We then covered the bent cable with the fondant, ran the stitching tool along the inner edge and pushed it into the cake. Just to be sure they didn't sink into the cake further, we put wooden skewers cut to the right size into the cake to support the handles. Also by this time (which was about my fourth attempt at covering the handles) I made sure I only glued the edges of the fondant that I was sticking together and left enough un-glued to attach the handle neatly to the bag. And it looked perfect.

Finishing touches to the bag, to make it a Mulberry bag, where the gold clasp and padlock. My talented niece created the oval and key with the tiny screws and Mulberry logo, which we then painted gold (the key is attached to a piece of spaghetti as per the bag tutorial we were following).

The whole bag was then gently rubbed with Trex (a white vegetable fat) to give it a soft sheen and then we used brown lustre dust to darken the colour of the fondant to bring it more in line with the real bag. I used a clean paint brush, dipped in the lustre and then worked in circles across the whole bag.

The finishing touches were the writing in white fondant, the gold fountain candles pushed into small brown blocks of fondant and a gold ribbon around the board. The board had got slightly "mucky" so I used the brown lustre dust to add a sepia tone to the edges of the white board and in the white spaces. This worked well, toning down the white to blend in with the whole bag.

And here is the finished cake with the real handbag that my parents gave my sister for her birthday. So a very happy girl all round!

© 2013 Nicola Noble: 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.