Beetle Drive

Unfortunately I have been unable to access this blog due to a small registering-my-email-address-incorrectly-type-error and meanwhile my little cooking experiments have been stacking up, including lavender cakes and honeycomb. However, in response to the last comment I feel I should post a picture of the cake which Liz incorrectly describes as a Mini. 

Any fool can see it is a Beetle. Made for mine and the twin’s 18^th it was obviously made many moons ago and my icing looks decidedly shaky. I can’t help feeling it is rather like a combination of left over advertising brainstorming ideas for female car insurance and sanitary towels embodied in cake form. That said, digestives as wheels are always a winner and I was very young...

You can't beat a pet giraffe

I recently ran a princess-and-monster painting competition in aid of the Alzheimer's Society to coincide with the Royal Wedding. I think you'll agree that the winning artist (6 years and 2 days) incorporated everything you'd want including a fantastic pet giraffe.

The picture reminded me of one of my very early cakes made for a cousin who is now grown-up and I even managed to find a photo.

Her favourite an animal was a giraffe. I decided the only way I could make one was to have it lying down.  The icing was butter icing with spots made from chocolate buttons. I remember being particularly proud of the chocolate-flake eye lashes and flake & smartie horns.

In the Night Garden

My two year old nephew was reported to be a fan of "in the night garden" and so I settled down to watch it with him in advance of making his birthday cake. For those of you that haven't seen it, it is wildly psychedelic with odd sequences of changing perspectives and a story line involving characters loosing their trousers on a mystery train tour. It must be one the reasons children can't buy mind altering drugs because they clearly don't need them with entertainment like this.

Anyhow based on the characters I made these cupcakes. The colours of the characters are rather muted which was due to me colouring the sugar paste with liquid food colouring. If there was a next time I'd buy ready-coloured icing to give a good bright colour, that way the figures would match the crazy story-lines.