Stenciling on cakes

It is really easy to stencil on cakes- check out my video!

Halloween competition!

Enter your cakes in our halloween competition!
Just upload a photo to our wall on facebook!

www.facebook.com/cakemasters

Cupcake Classes- October and November

Hello beautiful people!

Our cupcake class in October has one space left, however do not fret- we have more spaces on our November class.  This is what we cover in our classes:

Course:  Cupcake Workshop

Course content:

• Colouring fondant icing with sugarflair colouring
• Different colouring effects
• Using and decorating with dusts
• Making sugar paste suitable for modelling (for items to put on top of cup cakes)
• Stencilling
• Making large roses
• Making mini roses
• Using cutters
• Using moulds
• Sugar paste modelling
• Animal decorations
• Covering cupcakes with patterned sugar paste, embossing
• Piping butter cream using a 1M tip, and using the rose nozzle

We all have so much fun and you do not have to have decorated cakes before- what better way to spend a Saturday morning :) email me at bookings@cakemasters.co.uk for more information of visit our website www.cakemasters.co.uk.

Vintage cupcakes

I entered a competition today which had a vintage theme and cmae third!

When I think of vintage I think of vintage fashion, gorgeous cocktail dresses and ruffles.  Lots of different textures of fabrics, with vintage rustic roses :)

The main centre piece that I made here was the vintage birdcage with floral decorations and a perched dove- one of my best designs to date.

This was my inspirations sketch :

Here are my finished cakes :)

Mehndi Cupcakes

So I have always wanted to learn how to pipe henna designs, as I just love the Indian and Arabic designs that are applied to the hands of brides.  I went to a course a few weeks back to learn the art of henna and how to make shapes, with the ultimate goal of transferring designs onto cupcakes and cakes.

I started off a little wobbly, as you can see my circles were rubbish! ended up producing these fabulous designs.

I was really happy with the final bridal hand that I made on paper (below) and couldn't wait to try similar designs with royal icing!

I had to practice getting the right consistency of royal icing and went through a million different cones to find the right size that would allow me to make similar patterns.

Finally got the hang of it and was able to produce these fabulous piped and lustre dust stencilled toppers :)

The finished cakes :)

Rosie x

Great British Bake Off

Calling all Great British Bake Off fans!

Really enjoyed yesterdays episode of the GBBO and thought that Holly had a close one! I thought it was a shame that Yasmin went as her salt dough basket a few weeks back was just amazing!

I thought it would be nice to post links about the contestants and their twitter/ facebook pages so that you can find out more- who do you want to win? I think Holly is really good overall and hopes that she takes home the prize!


Holly Bell previously trained as a midwife but is now a mum. She tweets as @hollybellmummy and has been writing about family friendly food at Recipes from a Normal Mum since June 2010.

Joanne Wheatley is based in Essex, she tweets as @joannewheatley and started her blog Jo’s Blue Aga in June this year. The Jo’s Blue Aga Facebook page has 881 fans, she comes across as such a lovely person :)

Yasmin Limbert although she was sent home yesterday, has a great blog with lots of different types of recipies, check out her blog here

Janet Basu had a bit of a disaster with her chocolate roulade yesterday but has done really really well. Follow Janet Basu on twitter: @JanetBasu

Mary-Anne Boerman who has created some fantastic numbers on GBBO you can view her blog, Time to Cook Online, at http://timetocookonline.com/ or follow Mary-Anne on twitter: @wotchers

Cake Crawl 2011

I organised a Cake Crawl across London with 12 other crawlers, some of which bake professionally and others who bake on the side and dream of baking full time!
I work in the city and have in the past few years heavily got into cake decorating, sugar paste modelling and sugar crafts.  From what started as a hobby on the side, I now run my own cake decorating classes twice a month at weekends and just love it!

Through classes I have been on and classes I have run I have met some fabulous people who also love to bake and decorate.  We have formed a cake decorating enterprise club, and a group of us meet on a monthly basis to discuss everything and anything to do with cake!

Last Saturday, we had a lot of fun on a Cake Crawl across London which I organised with 12 fellow crawlers. We visited some of the best cake boutiques across London and had the most inspirational and fun filled visit. We started off at 10am in the morning at Jane Asher’s in South Kensington.  We were warmly welcomed with a platter of cupcakes, one each for every crawler.  Unfortunately Jane was not at her shop to meet us, but her manager for over 20 years David, was there to speak to us about Jane’s shop.
Jane’s shop makes fabulous novelty cakes for all occasions and includes a shop which sells sugarcraft and baking supplies.  There were hundreds of things on sale, and really was a cake decorators DREAM!
David was lovely, and spoke to us about how the cakes were baking downstairs and how they expanded the shop so that they also have room for more supplies and more room downstairs to finish the cakes in the fabulous way that Jane’s cakes are finished.  David also shared with us stories of unusual cakes requests they had been asked for and mentioned how they made a 6ft high cake of the Albert Memorial commissioned by English Heritage for the launch of the appeal to restore the Albert Memorial.

Our group were able to ask lots of questions and David was happy to answer all of them.  We were then given complimentary goody bags with Jane Asher cake mix; edible glitter; a large pot of sprinkles; a cake board; blossom tint and best of all a letter from Jane herself.  After buying some supplies our group moved onto the next stop of the Crawl.  Partridges fine food market on Dukes York Square.  There we visited Peggy’s cupcakes stall and Crumbs and Doilies.  Both stalls had fabulous cupcakes, the assistant at Peggy’s was especially nice and talked about the different flavours that were popular.  We purchased the best selling cake which was banana and caramel- it was light and fluffy and above all very yummy!
Crumbs and Doilies had a lovely stall decorated with miniature cupcakes as well as the fairy cake size all cupcakes were beautifully presented on three tier stands and the miniature ones looked especially cute.
The next stop on the stall was Bea’s of Bloomsbury which was one of my favourite stops along the crawl.  We had the Chef’s lounge reserved for us and were warmly welcomed by Elizabeth and Kirsty who form part of the Bea’s management team.  Our seating area was situated right next to the kitchen were got live action of the baking process which was just great!  This was the only stop on the crawl where we were able to get this insight and it was great to see the baking process as well as be offered complimentary flavours of all the cakes produced by Bea's.
The best cupcake had to be their red velvet cake with cream cheese and mascarpone frosting. The cupcake was so moist, and tasted divine- definitely the best red velvet cake that I have tasted hands down!
Elizabeth and Kirsty from Bea's kept bringing out samples for us to try, some of my favourites were the chocolate and raspberry and vanilla and passion fruit.
We were overwhelmed with cupcakes and desserts and left Bea's of Bloomsbury with full tummies!
Our next stop along the way was Cox and Cookies in Soho, this bakery is a joint venture with Patrick Cox and Eric Lanlard, aka Cake Boy.  The bakery also known as the disco bakery was stunning and beautifully illuminated with neon lighting. The displays in the window were particularly cool and consisted of stacked neon cubes.
A few of us in the group had the fabulous opportunity of filming an episode of Eric Lanlard’s upcoming “Baking Mad” TV show which will be shown on Channel 4 in April later this year.  We were given lovely goody bags from Eric which consisted of an apron and some chocolate.
We had two more stops in Covent Garden where we did a whistle stop tour of Candy Cakes and Lorraine Pascale’s lovely bakery.
The whole day was absolutely fabulous, and it was made extra special by Jane Asher, Eric Lanlard and Bea’s of Bloomsbury.
Looking forward to organising the 2012 Crawl already!