Tuesday 18 September 2012

Pow, Zap, Kaboom!

Last week I entered the world of fantasy and put my superhuman baking powers to the test!   I was asked to produce an Incredible Hulk cake....stumped, I enquired if the birthday boy was a fan of any other superheros which I could incorporate into the cake.  Luckily Spiderman and Batman were right up there with the Hulk so I set to work on creating my superhero masterpiece!      

My superhuman powers were pushed to the limits considering I received the order quite last minute. I donned my cape apron and working faster than a speeding bullet and leaping tall buildings in a single bound (holding the cake on my lap while my husband negotiated sharp corners kinda comes close!) I managed it...just in the nick of time!


POW!
 




 Of course every 4 year old needs their own superhero cakepop to take home with them!

KABOOM!





The Party was at the Play Factore the new addition to the Chill Factore complex, I have to say it was phenomenal, the best indoor play centre I have ever seen even though you may need a superhuman budget to take your child there! There is so much for the kids to do and the grown ups it would seem (it took me 15 minutes to realise my husband and the 'party dad' had sneaked off to play laser quest, with our 5 year old in tow just so they didn't look out of place! Yes Graham I know you are the reining champion of the Darwin laser quest league if there is such a thing!

Party room and party food also top notch

Happy Birthday James


Make mine a cake saves the day (just can't help myself!)


Saturday 15 September 2012

Lavender Barn Baker!


 I was holding off on the Pony Party blog until I could confirm some other very exciting news…but first things first. If you read my previous blog you’ll remember I provided cakes for a pony party at the Lavender Barn, Dunham last weekend for my lovely friend and ‘regular customer’ Lorraine.  I handmade 15 sugar paste ponies to don pink vanilla cupcakes, displayed as a cupcake tower with the top cupcake being awarded with a rosette; especially for Millie the birthday girl.

Of course no party bag is complete without a cakepop!

It was a glorious day and I was amazed that I had not come across the Lavender Barn before.  You get a real sense of being in the country, surrounded by fields with horses and a duck pond, there’s even a rabbit!  There is a lovely tea room with seating inside and out and all the tea is served in traditional china cups and teapots.  Jude particularly liked the hot chocolate! It is very child friendly (we returned the next day and the kids had great fun searching high and low for 10 hidden gnomes, giving us chance to have a quiet cup of tea without interruption!)


Whilst I was there I was approached by the owner who was looking for a baker to expand their lavender brand of home made scones, shortbread and more.  It really was a case of ‘serendipity’ so, for four hours a week I will be getting stuck in to making traditional bakes and exploring the world of lavender!  I am so excited to be taking Make Mine a Cake on this new journey (and blogging about it along the way!)     

Another good great week!

I have also been busy this week with a 'superhero' party with the challenge of incorporating the Incredible Hulk! Blog to follow..  

Happy weekend everybody x 


   

Monday 10 September 2012

Raining cupcakes!


It doesn’t rain but it pours!

Make Mine a Cake has had a very busy week.  Whilst the school holidays ticked along nicely, last week I was inundated with orders.  It was probably not a good time to be two weeks into a no sugar diet (with the intention of doing 30 days no sugar; apparently if you make it through that then your body doesn’t crave it anymore?)  During a first batch of 50 cupcakes I was very restrained and not a smidgen of sugar passed my lips. The 2nd batch of 50 proved challenging considering the client wanted some new flavours which I had to tweak to perfection.  Adopting a wine tasting approach of taste and spit doesn’t quite work for cake tasting!

I managed to enlist some chief tasters one of them being my husband who I can rely upon for his brutal honesty and the other one being my friend’s husband who I can rely upon for a very detailed complimentary report (a good balance!) Thank you to both the Graham/Graeme’s who have had to step up their fitness regimes to counteract the calorie overload!

Whilst I enjoyed getting stuck in and delivering to order I now realise how much I would appreciate a helping hand from Father Christmas this year, so if you’re reading this Santa; here’s some helpful hints..




either/or I'm not fussy!

If you wish to sample my bakes then for this week only pop along to the CircleBar 360 Champagne Bar in the Trafford Centre, just £5.95 for a cupcake and a glass of champagne  













From cupcakes to Pony Parties, my regular customer Lorraine asked me to provide cakes and cake pops for her daughter Millie's 6th Birthday (blog to follow) It was held at the Lavender Barn in Dunham on a perfect sunny day.  I managed to bask in the lunchtime sun while the kids played ponies and I had a well earned cup of Lavender tea!



Bliss!

Sunday 2 September 2012

Lego Loopy!



Apologies for the late blog for Jude’s birthday…with school hols and a great visit to Norfolk (blog to follow) It has been pretty hectic.  As promised here are all the Technicolor details (sun glasses are advisable for safe viewing!)

When Jude decided he wanted a Lego themed party it meant I had so much scope to work with and man did I go Lego loopy!  I started by ordering some great printables through etsy.com and using a theme of primary colours Red, Blue and yellow (with a bit of green thrown in for good measure!) I created, banners, bunting, signage, treat toppers even water bottle labels which were particularly impressive!

I managed to find some great Caroline Gardner (love her) red and white spotty gift paper which was reduced in John Lewis! This worked really well as a contrasting backdrop for the display table. Ebay came to my rescue with various lego paraphernalia including some great Lego moulds which I used to make coloured chocolate mini-figures for the treat bags and cupcakes and fondant icing Lego bricks (used on the main cake)


I made Lego head cake pops by attaching a smartie to the top of the cylinder shape pop before dipping them in the yellow candy melts.  I found a great Perspex bathroom set from IKEA (in the bargain corner…so proud of myself!) which I filled with small Lego bricks and used to display the cake pops. 







I used the larger containers to display matching ‘candy’ of strawberry pencils and M&M’s (thank you Caroline for the M&M donation!) I painstakingly picked out the themed colours, which has consequently left me with a mountain of brown and orange M&M’s! (Hmmm what to do with those?)

The cake:  I used a large Lego board (eBay bargain) as the cake board. This was great as it allowed me to use mini-figures which could be attached to the cake board.  The main cake was a rich chocolate sponge covered in yellow fondant with 3 large vanilla sponge bricks which I built on top of the cake ensuring that there was a four stud brick for the four candles to sit on! 




I managed to have Lego bricks personalised to display ‘Happy birthday Jude’ as the centre piece (also EBay) The kids were delighted when they realised all the small bricks were made out of fondant icing and as soon as Jude had blown out his candles we allowed them to dive in and eat the Lego bricks (blink and they were gone!)

To complete the Lego theme I had a T-shirt made for Jude from stardust kids.   Fantastic quality 


Games:
We are normally lucky with the weather on Jude’s birthday and a 10ft inflatable slide has kept the kids entertained in the past.  This year the weather was not in our favour so it was down to me to entertain 13 kids for two hours (the joy!) as well as the usual pass the parcels I managed to theme a lot of the games.  Pin the mini-figure, build and race a Lego car and my favourite the Lego brick race game…the children had to get into pairs and each pair were given a cup of small Lego bricks and an empty cup.  They then had to race against time to pass the bricks through the hose to their partner at the other end.  The quickest pair was the winner.  This was a big hit and you could use smaller tubing for older children but for 4 year olds this kept them very occupied!



I made my own party bags using a 2inch round cutter and some foam sticky pads to make studs to stick on yellow rectangular bags.  Voila Lego brick party bags (Blue Peter eat your heart out!) I got a great Lego party box kit from the Lego store website half price (very pleased with my bargain hunting!) which included these great mini-figure birthday builder packs.  Here is what I put inside the bags:

That’s all folks! I must confess it was great fun to bring it all together but wouldn’t want to do it all again in a hurry!