Been a bad blogger!

Well as you can probably tell, as it's been about 2 months since my last post, I've been a very busy caker! Lots has happened since my last post, including completing my very first tax return! How exciting! We've had wedding cakes, retirement cakes, rude cakes, birthday cakes and cupcakes galore! Here are a few of my favourites from the last 2 months!

Penguin Cake!

Beatrix Potter - Peter Rabbit Christening Cake

Square baby girl Christening Cake - Lilac and Pink Clothesline theme

Baby Girl Christening Cupcakes

3 Tier White and Purple Draped Wedding Cake

Surprise Skydiver Birthday Cake

Super Mario Cupcakes - LOVED making these beauties!

Round Cherry Blossom and Dove themed cake

Baby Boy 1st Birthday Number 1 Cake

Pretty Quilted & Rose Cupcake

Baby Girl Baby Shower Cupcakes

In The Night Garden Round Cake

7 Tier Wedding Cake (before decoration)

7 Tier White and Pink Wedding Cake - Loveheart & Princess theme

Baby Boy Number 1 Cake

3 Tier Ivory and Burgundy Wedding Cake with Gerberas

2 - 3 Tier Topsy Turvy Cake - This cake was made for a friend who is a massive fan of a series of books by Nalini Singh called the Guild Hunter series. The cake is done in the them of the books including the 2 main characters, red roses, grey & gold marble and white brick.

Emo Cupcakes - Pink and Black, hearts, skulls and bows

Bow topped cupcakes!

Some simple Thank you cupcakes

3 Tier White and Blue Wedding Cake - Roses were all made by hand and dusted with silver.

18th Birthday cake! Drunk boy, lots of lager and half eaten pizza! Such a fun cake!

 More thank you cupcakes

Mixing Decks Cake

In The Night Garden Number 1 Cake

I'm been stocking up on lots of new tools and things too, it's been like Christmas around here. I've invested in (after some time lusting after them) an air brush and an edible ink printer. Unfortunately I just haven't had the time to try them out yet! I've bought some pretty stencils in and am very much looking forward to giving them a try. I had to buy some new fabric for backdrops for my cakes as I'm going to be advertising my wedding cakes soon and am planning on doing a few new styles of cake and of course I needed some lovely new patterns to inspire and display my cakes in the best way. Look at the prettiness!

I even bought some extra to make a curtain out of for my kitchen door. I think it's going to look gorgeous and I can't wait to see the first cake displayed nicely with that beautiful fabric!

I've been trying my hand at figure making too. All of the figures in the cakes above were handmade by me (excluding the topper on the Ivory wedding cake). I even made a cake with 18 different animals on, all were made by hand. Hard work but so fun to do!

I have an exciting couple of weeks coming up. Why? Because I have a very quiet week this week with only 2 customer cakes but 2 birthday cakes for my nearest an dearest, my lovely hubby and my 'baby' girl Ellena! Hubby normally asks for a birthday trifle, he likes cake but as you'd expect there's plenty of cake in my kitchen most of the time so he can have cake anytime; but this year he asked for a cake. I know what theme I'm doing I'm just trying to come up with a design for it! It's going to be coffee and Bailey's flavour (and I'm thinking about making a trifle inspired cake too, yum). Ellena is turning 3, hence 'baby', not technically a baby but she's still my baby! We're having a cake smash photo shoot for her and I'm so looking forward to it! I just know the girls will love being able to get stuck into one of my cakes for a change! Watch this space for some new exciting cakies! Oh and a week off too with the family!

Thanks for reading, it won't be so long next time, I promise!
Sam x

All go!

It's been busy busy here at The Sugarplum Bakehouse! I've finally got a couple of days free so I'm able to do a quick blog entry! I've had some lovely cakes to do just recently, one of which was a beautiful wedding cake for an old school friend. The photographer was there while I set the cake up so I've got some professional shots of the cake, it looks fabulous, I just wish I could have a professional photograph all of my cakes! Here you can see the cake in progress!

What do you think? I personally love this cake. I enjoyed the piping on this cake, it was only my 2nd time piping and I think it turned out well. Most importantly the bride and groom were pleased with the end result!
It's now the new tax year and this is going to be my first whole tax year while in business! The year has started off well, so here's to hoping it stays that way and we stay very busy! I've ordered a lot more stock in as well as a couple of different embossers and a new gigantic 14 inch round tin. I'm very much looking forward to trying them out! It's like Christmas when my Cake-Stuff.com orders arrive!

I've got some exciting cakes coming up in the next month or so, a penguin themed cake, several wedding cakes, a smash cake for a little boys 1st birthday photo shoot, christenings, football shirts and plenty of cupcakes.
I shall leave you with some pictures of recent cakes! Enjoy!

 Mater from Cars!

 2 tier square cake, hand made and edible decorations!

 Hello Kitty Cake

 Vanilla moustache cupcakes for a moustache themed birthday party,

 Chocolate and Carrot cake cupcakes

 Chocolate and Lemon cupcakes with white chocolate sprinkles

Poured ganache covered Mocha Mudcake!
Thanks for looking! See you soon
x

Goodies!

Well it certainly looks like the nice weather has gone for a while. The veggies, flowers and chickens aren't complaining though!
I've had a nice quiet week, just a couple of orders in which was nice after my busy 2 or 3 weeks! I've been doing a bit of shopping to get the stock equipment levels up a bit! All items I desperately needed of course! Check out my new goodies!

Lots of cupcakes boxes, over 1000 cupcakes cases, a skull and crossbones mould for some gothy cupcakes I have coming up, numerous different flower cutters, a foam pad for sugarcraft flowers, a flower veiner, a foam drying pad for my sugarcraft flowers and 3 heart shaped cake tins! Can't wait to use them! I've still got another 2 moulds to arrive yet! there's plenty more I need but I shall behave for a little while before I buy them!
I'm desperate to start practising my sugarcraft and modelling as I'd like to be able to make all my own flowers, wedding cake toppers and figurines! I will post pictures of my practice items as I do them!
Now I shall leave you with pictures of my most recent cakes!
Enjoy!

These cakes were for a reception after a funeral so the customer and I decided to go some simple, elegant cupcakes. Due to the flavours chosen, chocolate, vanilla, lemon and carrot, I decided that using a yellow/gold theme would fit in nicely. I dusted the walnuts atop the carrot cakes with a gold lustre and I think they looked great. The client asked that a message be included with the cakes so I made a gift card to go with them. The recipients were very pleased with them and they brought a bit of happiness into a sad occasion.
Thanks
Sam x

Ahhh rest!

I have a couple of days off baking now. Pure heaven after the manic fortnight or so I've just had! I plan on spending most of my time out in the garden enjoying the beautiful weather we're having! We have a rabbit run being built at the moment so it's just nice to all be out in the garden. We've got chickens too who are laying beautiful eggs! I had hoped to use in my yummy cakes but it looks like you can't use unstamped eggs in baking which is a shame. I always get my eggs direct from a Norfolk farm which are stamped, they're gorgeous eggs to so I'm happy to keep using them, it would just be nice to be able to say that the eggs I use have come from pampered free range pet chickens! Never mind, just means there's more for us to eat instead!
I've done a couple of very pretty cakes this last week, a very girly birthday cake and a spring Wedding cake. I just love doing girly cakes, they're so much fun! This one was a Vanilla Giant Cupcake decorated in plenty of pink and glitter!

Us bakers are having fun at the moment trying to find safe glitters to use as lots of people were using safe 'non-toxic' glitters on their cakes. This meant that although they were completely safe to be eaten, they contain no nutritional value and are not digested, therefore, are now deemed in-edible. There seems to be a lot of confusion with what can be eaten. I've been doing my research and have found a couple of brands who make edible glitters and dusts. I have been making my own glitters using lustre's mixers with caster sugar too. The glitters and confetti I have in stock are all considered safe by the FSA as they are made from modified starches and food additives (E numbers). I make a vast majority of my own decorations for cakes as well and always do so from fondant icing which is completely edible and rather tasty too!

Here's a picture I was sent by a customer to show what design they'd like for their wedding cake (please note I do not own this photo and I did not make the cake pictured)

As you can see it's quite an unusual cake with the divider under the top tier but also quite pretty! The bride wanted to have daffodils on the cake as well as the butterflies.
Now, here's the one I made, before and after the daffodils were added.

What do you think? The bottom tier is chocolate, the middle is vanilla and the top is fruit cake which they wanted so it could be kept. I wanted to get a picture of the cake with and without the daffodils as I think they really change the look and feel of the cake. I decided to go with less decorations than the example picture and went for differently place butterflies. It's a shame you can't appreciate the effect of the butterflies and they delicately glittered and looked gorgeous in the light.

Well I really should be getting on!
Thanks for reading, Sam x