Cakes gone by…

One of Beau’s good friends at school is a girl called Ella. When it was her 7th Birthday a few weeks after Beau’s we all got snowed in. Ella lives at the top of a dead end road at the top of a hill and there was no way of getting a car out onto the main road (which was an ice rink with all the ice) so when her mum told me she didn’t have a cake for her I jumped to the challenge.

The cake was needed for the next day so it needed to be really quick and simple to decorate but most importantly easy to carry in a food box, in a bag in, in the snow! (Ella lives a 15 minute walk from our house)

The cake

I decided to make a very quick one bowl chocolate cake with a chocolate buttercream filling and covered it with pink icing. I cut out the ‘Ella’ with these great letter cutters I bought from Muji a few years ago and used a mould to make the ballerina topper from Karen Davies. Beau and Ella used to do to ballet together.

Karen Davies moulds are fantastic. The Moulds are all rubbery. You press marzipan or icing into them and they create flowers, heads, people, etc without any hassle. I met Karen at The Squires Cake decorating show a few years ago and again at Cake International when I was with my mum this year. Both times she was doing demonstrations on how to use her moulds to their best advantage. They are really simple to use and create fantastic results. I bought moulds on both occasions.

I made the ballerina for this cake with white marzipan that I had coloured with paprika food colour gel(that’s the best colour for a peachy skin tone) I then dusted the cheeks with pink lustre and painted the face on with gel food colourings. I always use alcohol to dilute and clean paint brushes when painting faces(and no, I’m not tempted to take a swig whilst doing it!). I then continued to paint the different parts of the ballerina using food colours and lustres. I left her to dry and harden overnight then assembled her and the letters the next morning, attaching them with royal icing. I popped the cake in a big lock and lock box and walked her up to met Ella’s mum midway between our houses.

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This is probably one of the quickest birthday cakes I have ever decorated. I think it works really well because it is so simple. It’s a case of less is more.

EmmaMT

P.S.Have you noticed that it is also my Gravitas picture until I sort out some sort of logo?