Radley Handbag Cake - This is how I made it.

I have been looking for an excuse to make a handbag cake for a while, so I was delighted when the Radley Collector Facebook page ran a competition to bake them a Birthday cake and set about designing and making this one. In case you haven't heard of them Radley make the most beautiful handbags and the Radley collector page is their fan site. The Radley company was founded by Lowell Harder, an Australian, who first started selling her bags from a stall in Cambden Market, London in 1984. A particular feature of the bags is the leather scottie dog.

I only had a couple of days to make, decorate and photograph the cake before the closing date, so I needed a design that was simple to make but still look effective, so decided to avoid any risky cake carving and took inspiration from the colours and textures of this one of my Radley handbags.

This is how I did it

I started off, by baking an 8 inch round cake, cutting it in half and sandwiching one half on top of the other with some buttercream and jam, then trimmed the edges level and covered the cake with a crumb coat of buttercream and then with pale blue fondant.

Next, I set about making fondant strips for the basket weave effect on the front of the cake. I found that the easiest way was to roll a sausage of fondant, which I then rolled flat and about 2mm thick with a small rolling pin. It was a humid day, in my kitchen, so you will see quite a bit of icing sugar sprinkled about to stop the fondant getting sticky.

Next I used a ribbon butter to cut the strips, about 2cm wide. This ribbon cutter is by FMM.

To add some texture to some of the strips, I used an embossing mat on the ivory coloured fondant. This one is from the Autumn Carpenter Dress Cookie Cutter Texture set. I haven't used that set for ages, must cake some more dress cookies soon. If you want to take a look at the set in action, take a look at my dress cookies, from ages ago, here.

After cutting plenty of ribbons, it was time to start weaving. The colours I have used here are

Blue - Squires Kitchen Bluegrass
Ivory - Sugarflair caramel/ivory
Caramel - Sugarflair caramel/ivory and Sugarflair Autumn Leaf

Now, time to start weaving. I started with a strip across the bottom, then added the vertical strips alternately laying one on top of the bottom strip and one underneath.

Before laying the next horizontal strip, I carefully folded forwards every other vertical strip, placed the horizontal strip across, then folded back the folded forwards strips and folded forwards the ones that weren't. Sounds complicated, but actually not.

I continued to weave the strips until all of the front was covered. I used a pair of clean kitchen scissors to trim the ends around the curve at the top and then squeezed out some long sausages from my sugar shaper to hide the join and added a matching sausage at the back.

I wanted a zip across the top of the bag. As I don't have a zip mould, I used a cutting tool to mark the zip and a stitching tool to add a line of stitching either side. After all, on a quality bag, the zip is carefully concealed under folds of leather.

I cut out a variety of small sugar flowers and arranged these on the front of the bag to be reminiscent of those on the real bag.

I added some handles with more strips of fondant and a little more stitching detail for added realism.

Now, for the all important Radley dog. I didn't have a dog shaped cutter, so this posed a bit of a challenge. After giving the matter some thought, I used one of my actual Radley handbag dogs to make an impression on some sugar paste, then carefully cut around the shape and used a ball tool to gently soften and neaten the edges.

My Radley is a little large for his bag and if I had the time, or access to a photocopier, I would have taken a reduced photocopy and used this as a template. The writing on the dog is, of course, a mirror image, but it is so small, in real life, I don't think you really notice.

I am really happy with the way this bag turned out. Especially for the first handbag cake I have made. I would have preferred to use an oval shaped cake board, but as I didn't have one to hand, a round one had to do.

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In case you are wondering, I didn't win the competition, a cake entered by Melli Peakman won. Congratulations, Melli.

John and Fiona - The Happiest Bride and Groom Ever

You remember a little while ago, I showed you my Wedding Cupcake Preview? Well, this is the cupcake tower that this lovely Bride decided upon. Seven tiers of vanilla cupcakes decorated in shell pink and a soft minty green with hundreds of little pink sugar petunias and the whole tower decorated with fresh flowers. A soft country feel for a beautiful Country Wedding and a lovely opportunity for me to put this together for John and Fiona, friends who live in our village.

Fiona chose a combination of three different cupcakes, one piped with ruffles and covered all over with sugar petunias

This lovely palest pink one, with a soft fondant dome and a butter cream swirl, all to be displayed in these laser cut cupcake wrappers.

And finally topped off with a 5 inch cutting cake. A cutting cake is important to many couples as traditionally cutting the cake is the first thing that the newlyweds do together as man and wife.

And, here it is, the seven tiers of cupcakes in all their glory.

It was an honour and a privilege to create this cupcake tower for such a lovely couple and I wish them many, many more happy decades together. Oh, that's right I haven't mentioned, this lovely couple have already spent three decades together before tying the knot, there were many, many jokes at the reception about the oldest stag in the Forest and the longest engagement in history. Incidentally, the longest engagement in history is usually credited to Octavio Guillen and Adriana Martinez who got engaged at 15 years old in 1902 and eventually married when they were both 82 in 1967.

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Lemon and Polenta Spring Cookies

These lemon and polenta sugar cookies, decorated with fondant using a springerle mould are to herald the arrival of spring.

Springerle moulds are a german tradition and intended to be used to bake biscuits with an embossed design, usually at Christmas time. I sometimes use them for embossed biscuits, but, usually prefer to use them like this.

Spring has been so long coming, this year and whilst we have had welcome sunshine today, temperatures are still hovering just above freezing, just the day before yesterday, returning from a spring break in Cumbria, we were driving through the Lake District, along the Kirkstone Pass between Ullswater and Windermere on a road cut through snow higher than the car. Back in January, when I booked the break, little did I imagine that during said break, snow would fall gently every day and the temperature would still be similar to January.

These cookies are simple to bake and decorate, requiring very few tools in addition to a springerle mould. The cookies themselves, are baked using the same recipe as these cookies. You can also use this recipe to mould the cookies with the springerle mould, have a look at this post to see how.

The cookie below is decorated with plain (unpainted) fondant. I think it looks really beautiful, like this, I was really in two minds whether to paint them or not, though now, I am glad that I did. I think?

Here is the painted version for a little comparing and contrasting.

Here's How

Equipment
Springerle Mould I used Lily of the Valley with Rose from House on the Hill
Small rolling pin
Marzipan spacers
Cookie Cutter that works with the cookie mould

Consumables
Batch of Lemon and Polenta Cookies cut out with cutter that matches the mould you are using
Sugarpaste / fondant coloured pale yellow. I used Bitter Lemon Lime gel colour from Sugarflair
A little vegetable fat or cornflour

As the rose part of the cookie mould is quite deep, you need to start by putting a pea-sized piece of fondant into the rose. Without this, I found that the fondant did not fill the rose part of the mould properly.

Don't you love the way that this mould has all the little indentations and knocks that you would expect to find on a really old cookie mould. These House on The Hill moulds are replicas made using resin, the original moulds were carved out of wood.

Prepare you work surface by smearing a little vegetable fat over to stop the fondant from sticking. (You can also use cornflour, but, I have heard that this can sometimes cause mould to grow if you are keeping the cookies for a while)

Roll out the yellow sugar paste, using marzipan spacers, until it is about half a centimetre thick

The spacers are not essential, they just help to get the fondant a nice even thickness.








Place the cookie mould face down onto the fondant.

Press firmly down.

I put one hand on top of the other and use a circular pressing movement to press down really well

If you have problems with the fondant sticking either rub a little vegetable fat on top before moulding, or leave the fondant in the open air to dry out a little. On a hot day, you may want to pop it in the fridge fro 20 minutes or so first.








Lift the cookie mould off by pushing upwards on the metal ring on the top of the mould C A R E F U L L Y!





















Check that the mould has come out well and that you are happy with it

Carefully position the cookie cutter over the moulded fondant, looking directly over it, to see what you are cutting and cut out the design.

Paint one of your baked cookies with edible glue, piping gel or a small amount of water and carefully lift the fondant on top. Press the fondant gently into place, being careful not to squash the embossed design










The finished cookies.

I painted the one on the left as follows (All dusts are Sugarflair)

Lily of the Valley flowers
White petal dust mixed to a thick paint with a little alcohol and then brushed over with snowflake lustre.

Lily of the Valley leaves
Moss colour petal dust mixed to a paint with a little alcohol and then brushed over with a thin layer of confectioners glaze.

Rose Leaves
Dusted with dry spring green petal dust

Yellow rose flower and buds
Dusted with lemon ice petal dust

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Butterfly Brownie - A new glamorous brownie design

You know, I had no intention of making these, they weren't some long thought out and planned design that I'd had in my head for ages and agonised over getting just right, these just sort of happened on their own, when I was practising making some butterflies and just happened to have a tray of brownies nearby.

After making these butterflies, I decided that they were too small and made some bigger ones and then decided that the bigger ones were too big and reverted to using these ickle bitty ones. The butterflies need to have a day to harden so that their wings can set and it is a good idea to bake the brownies a day before you stamp them out, so that they cut better.

Making and Cutting the Brownies
I always use this recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook for making any brownies that I want to stamp out shapes from. It make a deliciously dark, fudge dense brownie that cuts out easily without too many crumbs. It is best if you leave it for about 24 hours before cutting out the shapes and if you the weather is warm, you may want to put it in the fridge for 30 minutes or so before cutting.

I find i get better result if I turn the slab of brownies brownies upside down before cutting them out. Remember as well, before cutting, to check that the cutter you are going to use is a good size for whatever mould you are using for the fondant. (see below for the equipment I used)

Making the Butterflies

What you need

Butterfly Cutter / Embosser (Patchwork cutters)

Pink petal or gum paste

Sugarcraft cutter or cutting wheel

A little vegetable fat (trex)

Piece of stiff cardboard and greaseproof paper

A little edible glue or piping gel to attach it later

The butterflies are cut out using a butterfly cutter from the Patchwork Cutters Butterflies, Ladubirds and Bees set. When I bought these the man in the shop said to me that these are not cutters - they are embossers and this is partly true. If you roll out your gum paste really thin, the patchwork cutter will cut through the paste, in practice I find my paste is usually part cut, the cutters are good value for money and I like the effect they give, so I think they are worth a little extra effort.



1. Grease your board with a little vegetable fat to  prevent the paste form sticking (Or use cornflour if you prefer)

2. Roll out your petal or gum paste really thin. I use the 9" rolling pin from Wilton with the pink guides attached.

3. Use the patchwork cutter to emboss / cut the sugar paste. This is one of the medium sized butterflies from the kit








4. If the cutter hasn't cut all the way through the sugar paste, use a cutter or cutting wheel to cut out the shape.

5. Gently lift each side of the butterflies wing from the outside inwards to release from board





6. Fold the cardboard into a V shape and line with greaseproof paper.

7. Carefully lift the butterflies and gently lay them onto the V shape. Make a few more that you need, as the chances are, one will break somewhere along the way

Moulding the Fondant

What you need

Purple sugarpaste or fondant (Amethyst Regalice by Renshaws)

Piped roses mould (Karen Davies)

A little trex

A cookie cutter that works with the mould you are using

Moulding is one of those things, where some days your luck is in and other days, not so much. Today was a good day for me and even using plain fondant (rather than modelling or gum paste) these just popped right out of the moulds for me. It was rather cool in my kitchen, so that probably helped. If you are not having such a good day, then check out Karen's moulding video here for some tips. If all else fails and you don't have, or want to use lustre or modelling paste, just pop the mould with the fondant in it into the freezer for about 15 minutes. It is then guaranteed to pop right out, you will though need to leave it for about a day to thaw and dry out a bit afterwards.

1. Make a ball of fondant a bit bigger than a walnut and need it a little till smooth

2. Rub a little vegetable fat between your palms

3. Roll the fondant ball between your palms so that it is lightly coated in the vegetable fat to stop it sticking

4. Turn the mould over and flex the mould to pop the moulded fondant out




5. Use the same cookie cutter you used to cut out the brownies to cut the moulded fondant to the shape.










Finally assemble all your bits together. Start with the brownie bottom side up, spread with a little edible glue or piping gel and gently press the moulded fondant on top. Finally attach the butterfly. You kind of need to push his or her little bottom into the fondant to get then to sit at a nice angle.

Happy Baking and Decorating!

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Espresso Cupcakes

If you are anywhere near as obssessed by interested in cakes and cookies as me, then when I shared my lavender and lace cookies with you, your first thought was, I wonder what that would look like on a cupcake?

Well, we aim to please, so here are some dainty little espresso fairy cakes. Like an espresso I have made them diminutive on size, but big on flavour. The easiest way o add coffee flavouring to a cake is to use instant coffee, you need 1 teaspoon per egg for your recipe. If you want a more subtle coffee flavour use a level teaspoon, for an espresso type flavour use a heaped teaspoon. Just remember to dissolve the instant coffee in a title boiling water before mixing in to your cake mix. (I may have forgotten this part in my excitement at making these little cakes - minor cake disaster averted by the addition of another teaspoon of instant coffee mixed with just boiled water)

Recipe

I used a two egg mix to make about 12 of these fairy cake size cakes. Start by weighing your two eggs in their shells, they will probably weigh about 100 to 150 g or 4 to 6 ounces. Then weigh out the same amount of

Margarine / Softened Butter
Caster / Superfine Sugar
Self Raising Flour

You will also need
Two teaspoons of instant coffee
1 tablespoon just boiled water

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F or 175 C
Pop some cupcake cases into a bun tin

Cream together the margarine or butter together until light and fluffy

Gradually beat in the eggs adding a spoonful of the flour should the mix start to curdle.

Dissolve two teaspoons of instant coffee in about a tablespoon of just boiled water.

Mix in the dissolved coffee

Add the flour and stir until just incorporated

Spoon or pour the cake mix into the cupcake cases
Bake for about 15 minutes.

When cooked the cakes will spring back when lightly prodded

These cakes are decorated in just the same way as these lavender and lace cookies, just using brown fondant and gold coloured pearls.