Daphne's Birthday Cake - my first time with cake lace

In my family Birthday cake is a sponge cake, maybe vanilla, maybe chocolate (check out mine from this year). Not so, in my husbands family. He thinks that Birthday cake should be fruit cake. Now, I am not going to say too much about my opinion on this, for the sake of marital harmony. Let us just say that I think a darkly spiced fruit cake is for Christmas or maybe a simnel cake at Easter. And also that one of the joys of bringing families together is introducing and combining traditions to make a family's new traditions.

This cake then is for my mother in laws Birthday. At this time of year I think a Birthday cake has to try extra hard not to look Christmassy, which is why I chose this greeny-blue colour palette.

When I am decorating cakes, I love to see the way the different components come together and how the look of the cake changes and develops, so I am going to show you this cake from beginning to end. 

Starting with this six inch fruit cake. Before starting I compared the size of my lace to the height of the cake. I felt that the cake would make more of the lace if the cake was a little taller. To achieve this, I raised the cake up by using a six inch cake drum / board underneath to give it a little extra height.

Covering The Cake

Next comes the marzipan layer. Marzipan is a bit like the cake's underwear, smoothing everything out a little and providing a foundation for the fondant layer. Making it all look a little better. I'm not actually that fond of fruit cake, the marzipan is my favourite bit (and I love the cherries).

Now to add the colour of the fondant layer. I started off by colouring the fondant / sugar paste with Sugarflair's turquoise but, this was bluer that the colour I was looking for. I was after a pale teal or a dark eau de nil type colour, so I added some Sugarflair's Gooseberry to green the colour up a bit. I would say that I used about two parts of turquoise to one of gooseberry.

I should perhaps have spent a little longer smoothing this fondant and getting it perfect, but, as every busy Mum knows, this type of decorating has to be done after inquisitive pokey fingers have gone to bed and so time was a little limited. I have done what I hope is a competent enough job and with all the other additions on this cake, I don't think a few lumps, bumps and creases will be too obvious (I hope not anyway)

Adding the Lace

This is the first time that I have made cake lace. I bought a starter kit from the Cake decorating Company at this year's Cake International and had been looking for an opportunity to try it. More about making cake lace in a future post. The cake lace mat I used for this cake is called Chantilly.

I made the cake lace about a week before I decorated this cake. I stored it carefully laid out on sheets of baking parchment and then wrapped in aluminium foil.

I applied the lace to the cake by using a water pen to lightly brush water all over the back and then pressed it on to the cake, making sure I kept it level and straight. I then used the brush to wet underneath any areas that had not adhered properly.

You may notice that there are some little air bubble holes on these lace pieces. These are barely visible to the naked eye on the actual lace. They show up here because of the type of camera lens I use and possibly the size of screen you are viewing this on.

Flowers on the top

I had a thought to make a beautiful wired mini bouquet of sugar flowers to go on the top of this cake, but with only a few days to go till this cake needed to be gifted and given that I have, well, never actually made a wired bouquet before, I needed a different approach. 

The flowers are coloured with the same colours as the fondant / sugar paste used to cover the cake.

I always start by laying my flowers out on my work board before I start, so that I can get an arrangement that I am happy with before I start attaching the flowers to the cake. This arrangement of sugar flowers has a dogwood flower in the centre, surrounded by the larger flowers which are petunias and the smaller ones which are stephanotis. More about making these in future posts.

You can see that rather than attempting a wired bouquet, I have rested the sugar flowers on a little cushion of the coloured fondant left over from when I covered the cake. Without the height from the fondant cushion, the arrangement doesn't look quite right. You may also notice that when I decorated the cake, I decided to add some more of the small stephanotis flowers to hide more of the fondant cushion and also to make the overall outline of the flowers rounder in shape.

I'm really happy with the way this cake turned out. I'll finish off by saying Happy Birthday to my mother in law,  Daphne. I really hope you like your cake.

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Lemon and Lace Cookies with Butterflies

These little lace cookies, decorated with a sugar butterfly are some more lemon and polenta cookies. You can find my recipe for the lemon and polenta cookies here or see them decorated with a rose and lily of the valley springerle mould here.

Sometimes a simple design can be very beautiful and a number of people have already said that these are their favourite of all the things that I have made. I am rather fond of their simple prettiness too.

I see some sugar crafters who make lovely sets of slightly different and co-ordinating cookies, sometimes I try to do this, but I find it hard as I always like one of the designs a lot more than the others and one of them a lot less. These cookies, for me then are a departure from my norm, because although similar, they are not quite completely identical.

When I set out to do these, I was originally intending to make something like the cookie below, lovely fondant lace with spring time daisies. When I put the combination together though, it just wasn't quite what I wanted.

This is my box of pretty little left over things. I don't know whether you have one of these at home, a little box where you store left over sugar flowers, bits and pieces, experiments, little practice pieces or things that you haven't quite had time to finish yet?  I delved into mine for inspiration of just what should decorate my cookie. In it I found some little white butterflies, tried them and found that they were just the look I wanted.

Much happier with the butterfly.

How to Decorate

The Fondant Lace

I came across this technique from the very amazing and lovely Carina Bentley. This is the first time I have put it into practice. Its actually easier than it looks. 

You must have come across the amazing Carina Bentley by now? If not go over to her Facebook page and also you'll find her picture tutorial on how to achieve what she refers to as The Magic White Lace effect.

It makes such a difference to the look of the fondant lace, plain is lovely

The silicone mat I have used here for embossing the fondant, is Bianca by Crystal Candy.

A little whiter and quite a lot lovelier

The Butterfly

The butterflies are made using a cut and press set from Blossom Sugarart. I made mine using gum paste / sugar florist paste which means that they will dry hard and keep their shape when applied to the cookie.

Start by greasing your work surface with a little vegetable fat (Trex / Criso).  The vegetable fat helps the paste stick to your work surface, making it easier to roll and then helps it not stick when you need to lift it off. Roll your gum paste or sugar florist paste out quite thinly. Not too thin otherwise the butterfly wings will be prone to breaking off. Cut out the butterfly shapes then gently lift the cut-outs on to the press. 

Press the two halves of the butterfly press together to emboss the lovely pattern of the butterfly. 

Lift the butterflies off the butterfly press and place them into a flower former or a piece of cardboard folded into a "V" shape to shape the butterflies. Allow them to dry and harden up. About 24 hours is usually long enough.

Sometimes white gum paste can look a little grey, especially when compared to the super white lace effect, so I took the opportunity to paint them with the left over white paint from the lace effect and then brushed them over with snowflake lustre for that lovely shimmery sparkle.














All that is left to do, is to place the Butterfly on to the cookie using a little edible glue to hold it in place.

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Button Bow Cookies

I was in the mood for making something pretty and deliciously pink, I had just baked a batch of heart shaped vanilla sugar cookies and this decoration just fitted my mood.

The Cookies

To bake the cookies use my basic sugar cookie recipe, but, add a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste, good quality vanilla extract or the seeds from a vanilla pod to the butter and sugar when you cream them together. Alternately you can make vanilla sugar by putting some caster or superfine sugar in a jar with a vanilla pod, leaving the flavour to infuse and giving the jar a good shake every now and then. A week or so should be long enough and when you use some of the sugar, you can replace it with fresh sugar. I cut these out using a heart cutter from the Wilton "From the Heart" set to cut these out.

I love cakes and cupcakes that have been decorated with bows, when I read the instructions about how to make the bows, I feel like I don't quite have the time (or maybe the patience) to be measuring out strips of fondant or making a template to make them. I came across a JEM bow cutter set in my local sugar craft shop and thought that this might be just the time saving ticket.

Decoration

Equipment and materials for decoration

Shell pink sugar paste or fondant (I used a ready coloured one by Regalice)

Pink petal or sugar flower paste. (This one is the Squires Kitchen in Pale Pink)

Small rolling pin with spacers (This one is from Wilton)

Bow Cutter (From JEM Large Set, sized 4 to 6)

Button Mould (First Impressions Button Set 2)

Lustre Dust (This is Pearl white form Sugarflair)

Lace embossing mat (I used this Original Sugarveil mat as an embossing mat).
A little confectioners glaze (optional)

By the way, never buy confectioners glaze without also buying some cleaning solution or dipping solution to clean your brush with.

How to Decorate

Start by making the fondant lace.

Roll out a small amount of the shell pink sugar paste until fairly thin, then place on top of your embossing mat and roll with the spacers on the mat, a little more, until an even thickness

Carefully flip the sugar paste over and then cut out the fondant using the same cutters that you used for cutting your cookies.

Look down the centre of the cookie cutter before you cut to make sure you get a nice even look to your lace.

Carefully lift the cut out fondant and place on top of the cookies. You can use a little edible glue or icing gel to help it stick if necessary. (You can usually get away with nothing or a bit of water if you don't have any)

Next make the bows (Sorry I forgot to take any pictures of this bit)

Take a small handful of the petal paste and knead until it feels pliable and stretchy. If it feels a little dry or powdery, add a pea sized mount of vegetable fat (Trex) and knead this in.

Roll out the pink sugar flower or petal paste thinly. The pink spacers on my Wilton rolling pin gave just about the right thickness for this.

Place the bow cutter over the top (i used the size 4 from the large bow cutter set) and press down to cut. Give the cutter a little wiggle whilst pressing to neaten up the cut edges.

Lift the cutter,  if necessary tidy up the edges with your fingers or a sugar craft ball tool, peel away the excess petal paste and make the cut pieces into a bow shape.

I was lucky and my bow loops stayed nicely rounded and in place. If they look like they want to collapse, then you can support them, whilst they dry, with some scrunched up kitchen towel
Brush the bows with lustre dust to give them a shiny ribbony look.

Finally the buttons

Take a very small amount of the pale pink paste and knead as above. Press firmly into your button mould and rub your finger around the top to get a nice smooth finish.

I painted my buttons with confectioners glaze to get nice shiny button like finish.

What would I do differently next time?

I would probably use a different colour lustre dust as the white looked a bit white in places, I find it hard to find a pale pink luster dust that I like. Most pink luster dusts, that I try are a darker pink than i want.

I might also make try the button a different colour, I wanted more of a contrast in the textures between the button and the bow really.

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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. 

Lavender and Lace Cookies

Whenever I bake a batch of sugar cookies, I always make more that I need, in some different and sometimes random shapes for practising various techniques on. I had had these cookies in mind for a while and my plan was to make fondant lace and then top them with a rose, when I came to do it, I found that I preferred the look of a few (shop bought) sugar pearls instead.

These are lavender flavoured cookies adapted from a basic sugar cookie recipe. The same recipe I used for the Lavender Chrysanthemum cookies find it here.

If you have never tried decorating cookies with fondant, this is a great place to start. I used this beautiful "Amy Lace" mould by Karen Davies who is generous enough with her talent to make many wonderful moulds. If you pop by her shop, bet you can't just buy one!

You can use any lace mould, embossing sheet or rolling pin to get a similair effect.

Decorating

Equipment

Lace mould or embossing sheet

Lavender colour sugar paste or fondant

Small rolling pin

Marzipan spacers (optional)

Small round plain or fluted cutter, (that you have used to cut out your cookies with).
Edible Glue or piping gel (optional)
Sugar pearls 

Method

I remembered to snap some photographs of what I was doing when making these, they are only snapped with my phone, but, I hope that you will appreciate them to illustrate the method.

Roll out your sugar paste to about 1 cm thick, using the marzipan rollers as a guide if you have them.

If your sugar paste is sticky then rub a little vegetable fat (trex) onto the surface.






Place the rolled out sugar paste on to your mould or embossing sheet and roll a little more to impress the pattern from the mould or embossing sheet on to the fondant











Position a cutter over the part of the patterned sugar paste that you want to use and cut out

Carefully lift the sugar paste and place on top of one of your cookies.

You may need to use a little edible glue or piping gel to make it stick






Brush the holes in the lace mould, or anywhere else that you want the sugar pearls to stick with a little edible glue or piping gel and then  place a sugar pearl in position. A pair of clean tweeers can be helpful.




Before you go, please indulge me with one gratuitous china shot, this vintage plate is just too pretty not too show you

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