Sugar Flowers - 31/3/11

As the last cake hasn't been eaten yet, I decided to try out some more sugar flowers. Most of these flowers were made following or adapting instructions from Sugarcraft Flowers by Claire Webb. (Some of the instruction pages can be found on the 'look inside' previews of the book's Amazon page.)

First of all, I tried some 'pulled flowers'. These are made without cutters, and are shaped just using cocktail stick, fingers  and a knife to cut the petals. They are quite small so slightly fiddly to shape but quite simple as filler flowers or to represent small flowers such as violas or primroses.

Three 'pulled flowers' drying on an egg box.
The centres are made of pins which also attach them to the egg box.

A 'pulled' daffodil drying on an upturned egg cup.
I spent too long fiddling with this and the petals went funny.

_________________________

This is a small spray carnation. it's quite simple, just three small flower shapes folded and glued to the stamens in the centre.

Carnation drying on a cutter.

Carnation in my hand to show it from a different angle.

Finally, I made a calla lily in the same way as the purple ones I've made previously. This is slightly smaller than the last ones and turned out a bit better:

Calla lily drying in a jug.

I also made some freesias, but they're not joined together so I haven't taken any pictures of those yet.

Another bigger cake, 26/3/11

I haven't done any cakes for a while as i've been busy with other things, but this cake is one I made a while ago (see this post) and froze. It had a day or so to defrost, then I marzipanned it and iced it:

Front view

Rear view showing the join in the ribbon

Experimenting with inlaying and non-purple colours and shapes for a change!
This is a six inch square fruit cake with marzipan and sugarpaste icing to decorate it and a ribbon round the sides.

Icing bigger cake - 5/3/11

I've iced one of the cakes which I baked the other day. Last night I covered it with marzipan.

Six inch square cake covered in marzipan.
This is a smoother base for the icing.

The calla lilies which I made a while ago have been repainted as well.

Before: the colour of the petals is not very bright.

After: Stems painted green, stamens yellow.
Petals gone over with purple to deepen the colour.

This morning I covered the marzipan with white sugarpaste and added other decorations.

Callas are supported by small blobs of sugarpaste. Star is inlaid into the surface.

Back of the cake has two hearts,
the sides have flowers and leaves.

Front of the cake has flower and hearts.
All the small decorations are attached on top of the white not inaid.

This cake is probably a bit too busy, but I was slightly overexcited as I have lots of new cutters and colours to play with!

Bigger cakes - 3/3/11

I've done quite a few smaller cakes now, so I need to start practising icing bigger cakes. I recently got this cake tin to make baking lots of different sized cakes easier.
I've begun with cakes six inches square (15cm) as I can make four of these at once.
Here's the mixture ready for baking:

Mixture ready for baking

 

Empty bowl! I had to make the mixture in two halves.

And, several hours later, the finished cakes:

Hopefully they taste as good as they look and smell!

One will be iced in the next few days, and the rest are in the freezer until I need them.