Diane's cakes

[victoria]

i think that's really nice...i was the only one in my class not to do a red and green christmas cake...i did pale blue...we're doing our first run-outs at college this week, but it isn't a collar, just a small plaque to stick on the top of our mother's day cakes

[julie68]

wow!! the runout is great must have taken you ages!

[britjap]

A cake piped in buttercream - SOOOO much easier than Royal icing, wish I'd tried it before. Wouldn't work too well with blue/mauve/grey tones because of the creamy tint but fine for other colours. Took a very short time to do, partly because mixing up buttercream was so much less hassle than doing icing and partly because less pressure required to pipe it.

[britjap]

Another fire engine cake - for the same little boy (now 6) that I did the first one for last year. He announced in advance his intention of biting the fireman's head off, so made it with no internal supports at all. Hollowed out the head a bit to lighten it. This time I dried the pieces for 24 hrs before assembling, much better legs than on first attempt and less drunk-looking! Got a Marilyn Monroe to do for neighbour this week so as that will be more lifelike in proportion will need to do something inside to hold it up (maybe non-edible support, it is for an adult so no cannibalism expected!).

By the way, I have recently discovered that Debbie Brown has a book with instructions for a fireman Sam engine, so this one was roughly based on hers - could have saved a bit of trial and error had I known about it last year. I found my method of covering all-in-one with the red then adding grey parts afterwards was easier than the book method of cutting sides and top separately with templates - you may wish to consider both options if you make something similar.

[victoria]

i think your firemen are just fab...the pony cake i did was one of debbie brown's and also done in separate sections for the sides, i much prefer the all in one method of covering, much quicker too!

[julie68]

love the fire engine, do you colour your own sugerpaste or buy the coloured stuff?

[britjap]

Sorry to take so long to reply - I use ready-coloured for the red and black, everyone I know says it's impossible to mix them at home to a deep enough colour. I tried to mix red once - several hours and half a tub of Extra Red later I had a mass of sticky, deep rose sugarpaste. Navy blue too is very difficult to mix up yourself, and I think for this cake I used bought yellow for speed although revious ones it was home-coloured. The red and black were Regalice, blue was M&B (from Design-a-cake) but Regalice do one too.

[britjap]

Haven't put up any photos for ages - had a few busy weekends in late spring/early summer, all the birthdays seem to fall together. Here's my Dad's, he loves diving, done in a couple of hours on the same day as the Marilyn Monroe cake (pic to follow) so a bit sketchy on the details but quite effective considering the rush. I had wanted to do 3D fish etc but had to settle for hasty piping.

[britjap]

Cake for a Marilyn Monroe fan. First attempts at modelling fell to bits so tried again with Artista Soft - as my sister said, the one in pink looked more like the famous Miss Piggy outfit than the famous Marilyn Monroe one, but at least they didn't collapse entirely. Very difficult trying to model somebody well-known rather than just a generic fireman/doll/teddy. Also did frills on the cake, something I thought I would never touch with a barge pole design-wise after we had to cover a Christening cake with them at evening class, but it seemed called-for in the context of 1950s kitsch. Must try to get some modelling practice in, so much more difficult than it looks. Anybody got any tips for keeping limbs on?

[britjap]

Next one in date order, I think - Confirmation cake. She wanted a traditional bible type cake but likes modern.......jazzed it up a bit wit glitter. Putting ribbons with the roses was surprisingly easy/effective. I will do that and putting Edable Art disco dust on the leaves on future cakes.

[victoria]

love the marilyn cake, its fab...I did a book cake a couple of weeks ago, I like the idea of the turned up pages...wish I'd done that...

[rach]

wow..e.xcellent the modelling is great..love the colours ont he fish cake and the book one ..really pretty again like the effect of the pages..must try that

[juliebtaurus]

hi your latest cakes look great.i tend to keep limbs on models with raw spagettii sticks(safer) and a bit sugar glue,thingytail sticks work aswell but you have to tell the customer the figures are non edible

[julie68]

All your cakes are great, I use spegehtti too, im finding out now that if you pose the models sitting down they don't need as much support and are much easier to do as their arms can rest on the cake or on their laps. Your roses are fantastic, really realistic