'THE STRESS'

It's been a hell of a few weeks and it's not over yet, but thought I'd better get it all off my chest before I explode.... I have found some premises to turn into a cake design studio and showroom... that's the good news... the bad news is the bank still can't make their mind up whether they are giving me a loan or not.... GRRRRR

About three weeks ago when I was working on a wedding cake and chatting to the bride about a few last minute details, she told me she was vacating the room she rents in Huddersfield where she runs her beauticians... and that it might be suitable for me. I had been looking around for some time but the rents are incredible round here. So the next day I checked the venue out... it's fabulous! Location wise I couldn't ask for more, it's central Huddersfield and above a florist and bridal wear shop :-) The rent is doable and the room just needs redecorating and kitting out with work surfaces etc...

I have spent the last few weeks in a whirlwind of sourcing cupboards, plumbers (am currently on number 4... don't ask!), flooring, a baker and goodness knows what else which I've loved and then the bit I'm struggling with which has taken up the most time and given me the most grey hairs... the bank! To be fair the individuals I've dealt with have been fabulous and really helpful, it's just the system I'm up against, I'm not asking for the world but in today's climate they are really making me jump through hoops and tonight at 4.45 I find out I've got to wait until some point on Monday for an answer :-(

I'm sure it will all be worth it though I'm sooooo excited about this and I know it's the right time/venue etc... so I've just got to keep everything crossed that the bank pulls through. I'll keep you posted.... but for now I'll pop some pictures up of the building itself... Just Darling Cakes will be located above the bridal shop and will also have a ground floor window to display cakes.

The Baker

Personalised cakes are great fun to make and so special for the recipient. I was asked to replicate a cake made last year for an Italian great grandma (see above) but this time it was for the 70th birthday of a lady who bakes pies, who often wears a navy blue fleece and always wears rubber gloves when baking!!! Apparently she also ends up covered in a lot of flour (I with her on that one, I always end up wearing twice as much as goes into the cake).

The pies in question were corned beef ones, so I thought a representation of the ingredients along with a finished pie would look good on the table in front of Irene in her baking gear. I had great fun trying to make the bowl for the mashed up corned beef and the pie dish... you have to get pretty inventive. All in all I'm really pleased with how this turned out, it was a welcome distraction from all the mad stresses this week has brought... but more about that in my next blog with hopefully some good news too!

Musical Notes and Plain but not Simple

Again two very different cakes this week. The first a 40th Birthday cake for a music lover who plays the trombone. I have to admit when I took this order I said to the lady ordering it 'musical notes no problem, what instrument does he play?' and then 'ahhh' when she said trombone and I'm thinking how the hell am I going to do that? I'm fairly pleased with the result, I think it passes a resemblance to a trombone if not completely technically correct :-)

The second is the most plain cake I have ever done and is testimony to how much I've learnt in the last year or two. I know plain sounds simple but it's so not, there is literally nowhere to hide. Every millimetre of icing has to be flawless and smooth... no mean feat, you even hear professionals on the tv talking about how they cover small faults with detail. So although it didn't excite my creative process it made me realise how much I've improved :-)

I need to apologise for the quality of the pictures though, they were taken on my mobile... not that my camera is much better!

Two very different cakes and a very happy cake designer (that's me!)

I have thoroughly enjoyed this week's orders. So different and challenging in different ways but I enjoyed them so much.

The top cake is a four tier cake with two layers of spicy carrot cake and two of chocolate for Lauren and Martin who married at Bagden Hall today. Lauren saw a cake similar to this in a bridal magazine and requested a version for their own wedding. The background is ivory to match Lauren's dress and the accent colour to coordinate with the bridesmaids.

The challenge was two fold with this cake the stacking with separators and the edible images. The stacking turned out to be fairly easy (yep I know the top tier is wonky on this pic but I changed it before I left :-) and very effective, it's definitely something I will look to incorporate into future designs. The edible images were great fun but nearly gave me a heart attack. Murphy's law says that the more fragile something is the more you will shake when handling it. However, I love the finished effect and thanks again to http://www.eatyourphoto.co.uk/ for their great service and speedy turnaround.

The second cake is a version of one of my designs I did for a photo shoot at the beginning of the year. This time though the accent colour was Merlot rather than being entirely white. I'm quite surprised how one colour can change the look of a cake so much, it's definitely more dramatic this way! The merlot colour was a challenge in itself. Icing is white and to colour something this deeply takes an awful lot of colour which is turn makes the icing a sticky mess, even great quantities of tylo made this quite hard to handle. When I first put the drapes on I felt the colour was still too flat, so I applied a coat of burgundy petal dust and snowflake lustre dust mixed with a little vodka to give the effect of the organza in the bridesmaids dresses... I love the way it turned out.

DJ Decks

This was a wedding cake and gift in one, from Rachel to her husband as he's a DJ and she wanted a really cool cake to represent that at their wedding. I love these cakes where it's both a challenge to me and a really special message to the recipient :-)

Everything is edible there are two 10" sponges one vanilla and one chocolate, a 6" chocoate square and two 8" half height round vanilla cakes. All the details are made from sugarpaste strengthened with tylo and the shiny effect comes from spraying with lustre spray in lieu of an airbursh, which sadly remains on my wish list. The lustre spray is lethal, although perfectly food safe and edible it gets EVERYWHERE, my kitchen will never be the same and I was high as a kite for 24 hours after spraying :-)

I used edible images for the Technics discs to get a realistic look. It's the first time I've used them but I'm really pleased with the results and I can't fault the website I got them from http://www.eatyourphoto.co.uk/ their customer service is fabulous... as I found out with my second order this week, definitely a case of nothing being too much trouble so THANK YOU :-)

I'll be posting more pictures tomorrow of this weeks wedding cakes, two very different cakes but both great fun to make.

Buddy's Roses

I'm a huge fan of Buddy Valastro of Cake Boss fame (top picture), despite all the 'created' drama in his shows I find them addictive and it's great when I can pass my addiction off as research by actually learning something from it.

I find rose making fiddly and the results less than satisfying so I thought i'd attempt to teach myself Buddy's way of making roses. He uses a five petal cutter, rather than individual petal cutters (the way I was taught at college). I kind of bodged my way through it and the photos above are first attempt and could definitely do with a little improvement but I like the method :-)

I have put the pictues above so will talk through them in order:

The first picture after Buddy is the flowerpaste on the pad ready to be thinned. You can see the cutter alongside, the letters and numbers on the cutter are guidance for the order to wrap the petals around the flower.

The second is my improvised drying rack. Buddy dries his roses upside down from what I guess are special racks, but I found the tins and cooling rack did the trick, although I would like to source a real one as this wasn't too stable, I'd hate to knock a full one over...

I noticed Buddy uses a thin foam pad under the bud while he attaches the petals, I had to improvise again and the black cup shaped thing is an indent from an apple tray, but it needs to be flexible so will have to try again with some foam. Something is definitely needed to stop the warmth of my hands making the flower paste sticky. The third photo shows one row of petals attached and one flat ready to be attached.

The final photo is the finished rose, it's so far from perfect but on the right track :-) Practice makes perfect and all that!

The Wow Factor

More and more brides come to me asking for something 'simple'... and I'm making an educated guess in thinking it has more to do with the economic climate than personal taste. However, as somebody who is creative I would much rather design a cake with wow factor than recreate a lack lustre chainstore/supermarket design and unless there is some painstaking and particularly time consuming detail the price is not going to shoot up astronomically.

Cake design is very hard to price, it's an expensive product to create if you use the best ingredients, and it's very time consuming, so cake designers generally price the raw ingredients, the utilities/overheads, and then decide how long the cake will take to create and charge an hourly fee. Once I have this price, I'm my own worst enemy in agreeing to do all sorts of extras to give the client the cake of their dreams to the detriment of my profit margin. However, I would much, much rather do this and deliver a cake which goes beyond expectations than give the client a cake that nobody remembers.

So I was incredibly excited by this evening's phonecall asking me to recreate my logo cake above for a 17th Birthday, the client was emphatic that she wanted a cake with real wow factor, something her daughter and her friends can oooh and ahhh over and that everyone will remember. I love it when my clients are really enthusiastic about their cakes and want something really special and different, there is nothing I love better than working on these kind of cakes.

So I guess what I'm saying is be demanding, test me see what you can get for your money Give me your ideas and your budget and see what I can do. I would much rather create the cake of your dreams that the one you assume you can afford.