Coco & Eve recently presented me with a new challenge when they asked me to make a cake that closely resembled a jar of their gorgeous coconut and fig hair masque. They wanted to use the cake in a photo shoot to celebrate the product’s first birthday, and needed to be a good likeness, whilst still looking like a cake. I ended up making three cakes, after the first one was deemed to be a success. All were used in the photo shoot; although one or two were smashed rather than eaten!

I was sent photographs, along with product dimensions and an actual jar, to help me get the shape right. This was the first challenge, and involved a little more maths than I would have liked. Luckily I have a husband who is useful when a mathematical brain is required. The jar is almost as tall as it is wide, so I baked two 20cm cakes to fill and carve the final cake from. After quite a lot of adjustment I was happy with the basic shape. I gave it a buttercream crumb coat, wrapped it in cling film and left it overnight to set.

The next challenge was to get the colour right. I am often a little heavy handed with colour, so had to be careful adding pink to my white sugarpaste. Working in day light was also important for this stage. I so often work late at night, that I had to remember to get this done early in the day. The green was easier to replicate than I thought it would be. I did this by adding a jade green food colour to a green sugarpaste I already had.

I was worried about getting a neat finish along the bottom edge of the cake, as I couldn’t add any kind of trim to hide imperfections. Thankfully I got around this by turning the cake upside down to cover with the pink sugarpaste. I then got the ruler out and marked a line where the pink should end and the green lid begin. It was vital to get a neat finish here as well. After letting the pink dry out a little I flipped the cake and added the green lid. It was a relief to get this bit done with no problems.

On the first cake I hand painted the tree image on top of the lid with white food colouring. I felt happy with the image I painted, but it didn’t stand out as well as I would have liked. On the second and third cakes I made an edible print instead, and cut this out using a craft knife. This was fiddly but did give a better finish.

The lettering on the side of the cake was all hand painted, which required a steady hand. I was determined not to mess it up having got to this stage of the process with no disasters.

It was much easier making this cake for the second and third time, having worked the process out on the trial run. It was definitely a challenge, but I was really pleased with the end result, as were Coco & Eve. Of course I loved seeing these final pictures from the photo shoot.

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Today is St Piran’s Day, named after the patron saint of both Cornwall and tin miners. I thought I’d celebrate with a spot of Cornish baking, and spent the morning experimenting with Cornish fairings.

For hundreds of years, many edible treats sold at fairs around the country were known as fairings, but the Cornish version traditionally took the form of a spiced ginger biscuit. Ginger biscuits are very popular in our house, so I thought these would go down well as an after school treat. They are so easy to make that I think we may be celebrating St Piran again soon.

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Cornish Fairings

Lightly spiced, crunchy ginger biscuits with a cracked texture. A quick and easy recipe.

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 16 biscuits

Ingredients

• 75 g golden syrup, warmed
• 250 g plain flour, sifted
• 100 g butter, diced
• 100 g caster sugar
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp cinnamon powder
• 3 tsp ginger powder

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 190°C/170°C fan/gas 5.
• Place the tin or bottle of golden syrup into a pan of hot water, to warm the syrup through.
• Place the flour and butter into a food processor and mix until the butter resembles breadcrumbs. The pulse setting works well here.
• Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix.
• Add the golden syrup and mix until the dough comes together. The mixture may appear quite dry, but will combine. You may need to finish it by hand. 
• Divide the mixture into 16 balls and place on lined baking trays, with space for the dough to spread.
• Bake for 12 mins, then swap the trays around in the oven and bake for another 3-4 minutes for crisper biscuits, making sure that they don't burn.
• Leave to cool on the trays for a few minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

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I love some of the recent cake trends that have been filling my Pinterest feed, and have been waiting for a chance to have a go at some. So when I was given free reign on a birthday cake recently, I took my opportunity to try out two popular themes.

Geometric patterns have been a fashionable choice on both wedding and birthday cakes in recent months, as has combining different sugarpaste colours to create a marbled effect. I wanted to utilise both of these elements in my design. The cake was covered in white sugarpaste, and I marbled another batch using shades of grey, yellow and pink. Using this, I cut hexagon shapes to decorate the sides of the cake. I varied the quantities of the colours I was using, as well as the size of the pieces I put together to create the marbled effect. By choosing to keep each piece fairly small, I was able to make the pattern more detailed, with plenty of veins of colour in the marbling.

To add some highlighted accents to the design, a few of my hexagons were painted gold, using Rolkem lustre dust, which is my new favourite thing. I also used it to paint the cake board as well as the centres of the sugarpaste flowers I added to the top of the cake.

The cake was finished off with a topper from Leanne’s Little Gift Company, who I have ordered from a few times now, and found her to be fabulously helpful and reliable each time.

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Packed with seasonal apples and spices, this spiced apple cake is perfect for the colder days of autumn. It is a super easy bake and was a big hit with my kids, especially when still slightly warm.

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Spiced Apple Cake

Delicious served warm or cold, this is a moist, autumnal tea time treat.

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes

Servings 10 slices

Author Lucy Lovell

Ingredients

• 250 g light brown sugar
• 250 g softened butter
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 250 g self raising flour
• 6 apples eating, not cooking
• 1 tbsp demerara sugar for sprinkling on top

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 160°c (fan oven), and grease and line a 20cm dia round cake tin.
• Cream together the sugar and butter in a large bowl, until light and fuffy.
  
• Slowly add the beaten egg, a little at a time. If the mixture begins to curdle, add a tablespoon of the self raising flour. 
• Sift the spices, baking powder and remaining flour into the bowl, and fold into the mixture until combined.
• Peel and core the apples, chopping four in to chunks of approximately 1cm. Slice the other two apples thinly.  
• Fold the chunks of apple into the mixture and pour in to the cake tin. The apple slices should be arranged on top, with the demerera sugar sprinkled over them.
• Bake for 50-60 minutes. Test the cake by inserting a thin skewer or cake tester into the middle. It is ready when the skewer comes out clean.

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I remember my sister playing with My Little Ponies more than 20 years ago, and they are still going strong. I was a bit worried about making these from sugarpaste, but I’m really pleased with how they turned out. Introducing Twilight Sparkle and Rarity:

The post My Little Pony cake appeared first on Vanilla Frost Cakes.

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Gingerbread Skeletons

Servings 10 Large cookies

Ingredients

• 125 g butter
• 50 g light brown sugar
• 50 g dark brown muscovado sugar
• 2 tbs golden syrup
• 1 tbsp treacle
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 300 g plain flour

Instructions

• Sieve the ginger, bicarbonate of soda and flour into a large bowl.
• Melt the butter, sugars, syrup and treacle in a saucepan, then stir into the dry ingredients.
• When the mixture has come together, roll out between two sheets of baking parchment, to about 5mm thick.  Place on a baking tray and leave in the fridge to chill for approximately 20 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan. Use a large gingerbread man cutter to cut approximately ten cookies. Place the cookies on a lined baking tray and bake for 12 minutes, or until the edges are just starting to darken.
• Once the cookies have cooled, pipe royal icing bones and faces on the cookies, and allow to set.

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Chocolate Ghost Cupcakes

Servings 10 Large cupcakes

Ingredients

For the cupcakes:

• 115 g unsalted butter softened
• 115 g caster sugar
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 100 g self raising flour
• 20 g cocoa powder
• 2 large eggs beaten
• For the buttercream:
• 85 g butter softened
• 35 g cocoa powder
• 250 g icing sugar
• 40 ml milk

To decorate:

• white sugarpaste/fondant icing
• 10 x lollipops

Instructions

For the cupcakes:

• Preheat oven to 180C/160 fan/gas 4. Line a muffin tin with 10 paper muffin cases.
• Cream together the softened butter and caster sugar, along with the vanilla extract, until pale and fluffy.
• Sift in the flour and cocoa powder. Add the two beaten eggs and mix well, taking care to stop once all of the dry ingredients are incorporated.
• Divide the mixture evenly between  the cupcake cases, and bake for 22-25 minutes.
• For the buttercream: Rub the softened butter into the sieved icing sugar and cocoa powder using the back of a wooden spoon. Add the milk. Once the icing sugar has been incorporated, whisk with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.

To decorate:

• Pipe the chocolate buttercream on top of each cupcake and insert a lollipop into the middle.
• Cut 10 x 10cm dia circles of sugarpaste and place on top of each lollipop, using your fingers to shape into a ghost. Pipe eyes onto the ghosts using black royal icing or a little of the chocolate buttercream.

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Pom Pom the panda is a gorgeous character created by the very talented Sophy Henn. She writes and illustrates beautiful books for pre-school children, published by Puffin Books. Last week the latest Pom Pom book was published, and I made a cake for Sophy and Penguin to celebrate.

The post ‘Pom Pom is Super’ – a cake to celebrate publication day appeared first on Vanilla Frost Cakes.

This weekend I made a very special birthday cake for a little boy celebrating his first birthday. His mum had designed some beautiful party invites in rich, Bollywood style colours, and wanted these to be used on the cake as well. She also asked if I could model some of her son’s favourite toys, and sit them in a little hamper, to look like his toy basket at home. One toy in particular, Cassie the Cat, was very important to him, as it had been given to him when he was very poorly. Therefore, Cassie got to sit in the middle, in charge of all the other toys.

I also made some iced cookies to match the cake, using the same lovely colours, and some piped royal icing patterns, painted gold.

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A couple of weeks ago we were bathed in glorious sunshine here in West London, though it seems hard to believe now. It was on a lovely Saturday afternoon that I went to the Duke of Kent pub to set up a big naked cake for a wedding party.

As the reception was in the garden we had to be a bit careful about keeping the cake out of the heat of the sun, so it was set up quite late in the day, when the reception was in full swing. This meant that all the wedding guests were watching me work, and several were taking pictures. This was the first time I had worked under such scrutiny, but everyone was very complimentary and so I didn’t feel the pressure too much, especially with such a lovely atmosphere. There were a few little girls in their very best dresses, all dying to know when they would be allowed to eat the cake, but being very patient. I gather there wasn’t much cake left at the end, so I think everyone got stuck in.

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It’s almost February already! It’s been a while since my last blog post, and I have lots of news and cake pictures to share. It’s been a very busy time in the kitchen, with plenty of corporate orders for Christmas keeping me busy throughout December, as well as my regular work for the two lovely cafes I supply in Hammersmith. January has been a busy time for birthday cakes, and I have been working with a new partner at their beautiful party venue in Ealing. More news on this to follow in my next post!

For now, here are some of my cakes from the last few weeks:

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