Quite possibly one of a kind this is a vision mixer cake. This was for Julie's 50th birthday (Mr Chris' sister's, sister-in-law).

This was a tricky one for me. I struggled with the design because a vision mixer is basically a box with hundreds of buttons. The original idea was to make the vision mixer itself but in my opinion, if you're trying to recreate something realistic in cake, the key to it's success is in the detail. Although Julie's husband was kind enough to sneak me some pictures of the one Julie uses at work, I wasn't confident I could do a good enough job of it. I didn't want to let them down but you've got to know your limitations and also know what you can do with the time you have.

So I opted for a miniature model of a vision mixer where the detail wouldn't matter as much. Credit to Mr Chris as it was his idea to cut away half of the top cake to create a desk. I then asked Julies Mum, Jean, what shows Julie had worked on through her career and I got a bunch of them printed on to edible paper to represent TV screens, and personalise the cake.


I have to admit, even though I know Jean and Paul, I was very nervous delivering this cake. I did my best but it didn't quite match the vision I'd had in my head and I just hoped they wouldn't be disappointed with it. Fortunately I'm my biggest critic and their reactions were exactly what I was hoping for. They were really pleased with it and Julie too..

"Well, where do I start? Yet again your cake making skills have blown me away! And this time the cake was for ME! I can't thank you enough! It was amazing Cheryl. You have got the desk spot on and I can only imagine how long it took you to cut out all the buttons, knobs & levers. And I shall never know how you got the icing through the printer to make all the pictures!! Hehe! Again, as per the Minion, I didn't want to cut it up. Eventually we took a huge slice off the back and we all had a piece of scrummy chocolate cake at our dinner party last night."

I'm so glad you liked it Julie. I'm certain cutting all those little buttons must be easier then remembering what they all do!

Again I was given free reign on my nieces Christening cake and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I'd been looking for an excuse to recreate this wonderful woodland cake ever since it popped up on my facebook feed and I fell in love with it.


The original design is by Little Cherry Cake Company. If you haven't heard of them check them out immediately, their cakes are incredible!! 

I love how this cake turned out but it doesn't compare to the pro. I tried my hardest but I just couldn't match those adorable woodland creatures.

Poor Reggie never made it on to the cake but he's found a home in my kitchen :D

And here's the girl of the day with what I like to think is her best fox impression. Or she's wondering when Aunty Chel is going to put a bit of that cake on her plate?

I had two cakes to make in the same week, one for my Nan's birthday, the other for my nieces Christening - so no elaborate carousels this time!

If this cake looks familiar it's because I took inspiration from the middle tier of Ad & Iona's wedding cake.



It's fair to say my cake mojo abandoned me on this one. I'd also created several white roses to fill the top but only one little bud survived. I don't know what I did wrong, the others just fell apart. Frustrating as I was intending to use them to cover the flaws in my fondant - hence the randomly placed petals. 

It's flattering to be asked to make a wedding cake but I usually decline as my baking skills can be a little hit or miss. I made an exception for our friends Ad & Iona because they are lovely and I was confident they wouldn't disown me if it all went horribly wrong and I turned up with a Battenberg.  

Surprisingly I was pretty relaxed on this one (at least that's how I remember it). There were no dramas, no meltdowns and it came together perfectly. Maybe it helped booking a week off work and planning every little detail - or maybe I just got lucky!


I tried my best to give Ad & Iona the wedding cake experience. We talked about ideas, had a cake tasting and I even managed a sketch despite the fact I can't draw. 

So the bottom tier was always going to be a vanilla sponge. The other flavours we tried were coffee, chocolate with a dark chocolate ganache and carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting. My first ever carrot cake!

My smallest tin is a 6 inch round, so I baked a fairly rustic 6 inch cake for each knowing they have plenty of friends and family to share them with. 


With the flavours picked Iona got busy pinning cakes and highlighting what she liked most about each one. I took all those favourite bits and came up with a design (complete with spelling mistakes)...
In Ad's words "exactly like the drawing" - I'm not sure if that's a compliment?!


Chuffed with my sharp edges! Ironically, I was most worried about stencilling the middle tier and this turned out to be the quickest and easiest job. On the other hand the silver leaf should have taken 5 minutes but required a lot of patience. It was McGreevy Cake's tutorial that led me in to a false sense of security. She made it look so easy but no matter what I did the leaf just didn't want to stick. I wouldn't say I mastered it in the end, I just persevered and tiny tiny bits at a time, I eventually got the effect I wanted/settled for. Good thing I was going for a vintage patchy look.

The beautiful cake topper almost didn't make it. It literally turned up as Ad was leaving on the day of the wedding. I'm so glad it did because it completes the cake, although I'm certain the reserve made by Iona's mum would have looked just as lovely.


The bottom tier took several years to complete - at least that's what it felt like it. Those petal ruffles seemed to go on forever but I love how they turned out. Originally I had baked three layers for the bottom tier so I was glad I'd only opted to use two of them by the time I got to those ruffles!

Unfortunately my second ever carrot cake wasn't quite as good as my first. For some reason it didn't rise as much as it did for the taster so I had to bake another and make the top tier 4 layers to get the height I wanted. I also replaced the cream cheese frosting with an orange flavoured buttercream. The more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to risk the cream cheese knowing it would be out of the fridge all day in June weather.

Thanks to Kara Couture Cakes for her wonderful sugar rose tutorial. My petal veiner is a bit rubbish but I was really pleased with how they turned out. The centres were beautifully delicate and spiralled but my fat fingers squashed them as I attached them to the cake. They might have been easier to handle if they were wired but I wanted to avoid poking posy picks in to the cake.


There are no progress pictures for this one because I decided to capture it all in a time lapse video - I thought Ad and Iona might like to see their cake in the making. Despite being an IT bod I had no idea how to go about this. Lucky for me the Go Pro has a time lapse setting and Movie Maker is easy peasy. So here it is, 5 days in 12 minutes!

As Chris was about to turn 30 I was super super busy in my new job (still finding my feet and all) and starting to worry I wouldn't have time to make him a cake. Then out of the blue he said he didn't want one... 

WHAT :O?! 

He said he didn't want me getting stressed and tired because I'd spent hours on a cake, and he'd rather we just spent the day together... awww 😍 ... but who doesn't have cake on their birthday, especially the big 3 0! So I came to a compromise...

My original plan was to have a cake with all of Chris' hobbies around it, but as he is a man of many talents (astronomy, astrophotography, guitar, running, snowboarding, basketball, pro lego builder - just to name a few) this would have taken an age!

So instead I focused on one hobby. I picked astronomy because I thought it'd be fairly straight forward to paint some star constellations on to a black cake. Then I remembered Chris sitting in the garden for hours on a chilly winter night taking pictures of a nebula. Searching for more pictures, I stumbled across this tutorial: http://www.sprinklebakes.com/2016/04/black-velvet-nebula-cake.html.

So mine didn't turn out quite as good but it was really fun to make, armed with a little sea sponge splodging food colour here and there, flicking the paint brush to make lots of little stars, and it took no time at all! I think the trick with this is to step back often and know when to stop. I got a little carried away and it probably looked better several splodges earlier. At least Chris recognised what it was.

Taste wise, this is my favourite cake to date. Almond sponge with amaretto chocolate flavoured buttercream. These are the same flavours I used for Chris' basketball cake but on that occasion the cake was a tad dry. This time it was perfect, even if I do say so myself :)

The sparklers did not live up to their warning label but added a little bit of fun....
                        

The time leading up to my nephews birthday was manic. The organisation I worked for was closing down, I had two job interviews to prep for (both wanting a 10 minute presentation) and a trip to Chicago looming. Nevertheless, Louis had stressed on more then one occasion his desire for a BB8 birthday cake and I didn't want to disappoint, even if it was a couple of weeks late. In the end I only had one day available to make this and I delivered... eventually.



BB8 made his appearance after a tasty Sunday Roast and he was well received... brownie points for Aunty Chel :)

Inside he is a yummy chocolate cake filled with chocolate buttercream icing. I removed his head to slice up his body and Louis wasted no time tucking in! :D