Thursday 26 January 2012

Cake Therapy

Cake decorating is fast becoming one of my favourite forms of therapy.  In fact, I may even enjoy baking cakes more than eating them (gasp, well, I did say I wanted to get healthy this year)!

Last year, I purchased Planet Cake, by Paris Cutler, an amazing book for beginners (like me), which steps you through all of the basics you need to know about decorating cakes with fondant.   I'm afraid I've spent more time ogling the pictures in this book than baking, but because I have a liking for cupcakes, I have attempted a few of the techniques and designs.  If you've never used cake fondant before, I would say it's a little like playdough for grown ups, so much fun to work with, but tastes alot better.



I've wanted to try making these baby cupcakes for ages..

What do you think?  Too cute to eat right?  I couldn't bring myself to eat one, aside from those cute little faces looking up at me,  I am one focussed lady right now, my health is a priority this year, but that's a whole other post!

So for now, I'm enjoying cooking up sweet things for anyone who's not watching their waistline.

P.S. I also added a page to my blog which includes a gallery of the cakes I bake, in case you're interested in some eye candy.   I plan on adding to this gallery regularly, and hope there'll be plenty of opportunities to bake special things throughout the year.

Do you find cake decorating relaxing or just hard work?

Joining in again with ourcreativespaces, why not pop over to see what others are creating?
xSam

4 comments:

Teresa said...

Sam, those cakes are spectacular! Did you make them?! I wish I had seen this a few days ago, I just hosted a baby shower for my cousin and would have loved to have attempted something like them.

I'm now about to embark on my first attempt to use fondant (to make a dolly varden - eek!) and I am *very* afraid but feel a bit better thinking about it like play dough.

Any tips for young players?!

Sam said...

Hi Teresa, yes I did make those cupcakes, thankyou. I hope I didn't make it sound too easy, it's actually quite difficult to work with fondant normally, particularly when covering a full cake (cupcakes are easier). I would suggest allowing two days for a fondant covered cake, one for baking, shaping or cutting into layers, and to make the ganache or buttercream to go underneath the fondant (which needs to set before fondant is applied). Second day to apply the fondant and decorate the cake. Beware: fondant does not like humidity, heat or too much handling, you have to work quickly with it at a cool temperature! I would also suggest a trial run & strongly suggest looking at a video tutorial on the net for applying fondant to a cake. One particular thing to note (I learned the hard way) is that when smoothing fondant down the side of your cake, lift the bottom edge of the fondant up off the board away from the cake as you go, otherwise the fondant just thins out at the top and ends up a thick mess at the bottom. The good thing about a dolly vardon cake is that you can cover up any flaws with decorations! Hope this helps, good luck with your cake, I would love to see it, I have yet to attempt a dolly vardon myself!:)

Sally said...

These are SO fantastic. I am going to have to learn more about this fondant stuff.. amazing. You are so talented. I hope I sound like I'm raving because they really are so so so awesome. Brilliant. I am in cupcake love!!!

Unknown said...

hey there! I got your site address from FatMumSLims link up for March, and decided to browse a bit. Your cupcakes are AWESOMEEEEE - totally a new follower :)

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