Father's Day Cupcakes

The components for peas and tomatoes

   My dad recently got a vegetable patch in our garden and he’s quite serious about it so for Father’s Day I thought I’d make him some allotment cupcakes. I rolled out a red, green and a small amount of white fondant. I rolled most of the red fondant into 3 balls for tomatoes. Next I rolled out a thick sausage and pushed some spaghetti inside to give it support.

The finished cakes - with soil!

    


   Then I flattened one end and added a handle to the other end of the spade. I rolled out two green sausages and tapered the ends before adding ridges along the cucumbers. For cabbages, I thinly rolled fondant before cutting into circles and glued them to a centre cone. This gives the cabbages realistic leaves. I made peas in pods by cutting semi-circles of green icing and using edible glue to stick everything together. Lastly, I made spring onions by rolling green fondant around a white icing cone.

Dad with his cakes and allotment books!

   


   To construct the cakes I thickly sieved cocoa powder over vanilla cupcakes and arranged the vegetables on the ‘soil’!

Mum's Birthday Cake

A dense area of flowers

  My mum had pointed out a chocolate and hazelnut cake she would like for her birthday so I chose to make it. Everything went smoothly and it was similar to my usual recipe but it included milk which made the cake more moist inside!  Whilst the cake was in the oven, I cut out 20 small flowers in two different sizes out of white fondant. Using a ball tool I indented the centre of each flower. Then I left them to set. Once the cake had cooled I whisked cream cheese, margarine and chocolate spread before adding icing sugar and crushed hazelnuts for the filling; It was a bit runny though!  Next I

The chocolate cake

took 500g of white fondant and kneaded in some ordinary green food colouring until it was soft to touch and a mint green colour.
Then I rolled it out on a lightly dusted surface until it looked big and thin enough. Then I rolled it around a rolling pin before draping over the cake. I had covered the entire cake with the hazelnut filling and this stuck the fondant to the cake. In hindsight, I probably should have measured the diameter of the cake as I ended up with huge amounts of pale green icing left over! After neatly cutting the fondant I decorated the cake with the pre-made flowers using edible glue, putting them randomly on the top and floating down the sides. To finish I used clear icing gel pen to fill the flowers.

One happy mum!

Lemon Embossed Cakes

  

   After cooling some lemon buns, with zest and rind for extra taste, I used a ‘cupcake-corer’ to remove the middle of the cakes. I don’t go all the way down because otherwise when you take the cake out of the cakes the middle falls out! Next I filled it with lemon curd before covering with a thin layer of cake. I then thinly rolled out some yellow fondant and used a squiggly ruler to embossed lines into the icing. I then cut out circles and put them on the cakes. I brushed a little apricot jam over the top to make them really shiny.

Butterscotch and Chocolate Layer Cake

The finished cake with fudge pieces

   I brought a bottle of butterscotch essence last month and decided to finally open it. Once the sponge had cooled down, I cut each layer of cake in half so I had four thin sponge layers. Next I stacked the cake with chocolate buttercream before topping it with chopped piece of a fudge chocolate bar and chocolate vermacelli.

Anniversary Cake

The roses on the cake

The finished cake

   It was my parents wedding anniversary last month and I made them a cake to celebrate. I made a vanilla cake and lots of lilac icing although it wasn't very purple. Filled and covered the whole cake with the icing and smoothed it out to make it look good. Then I decorated it with white roses that I made earlier. Lastly I put silver dragee balls around the bottom of the cake as a finishing touch.