Another week, another challenge!

The first of the weeks cakes is now rising nicely in the oven (it's amazing how much more efficient I am with no little starving little people in the house) and I am now pondering how I am going to approach the Harley Davidson topper.  This one is making me really nervous, the photos the customer has sent me are fabulous and really detailed, it certainly is a beautiful bike, I just hope I can do it justice!  Anyway, here goes..

Callum's 21st Bithday Cake

This the cake that I designed for my daughter's boyfriend Callum for his 21st birthday meal tonight.  Have a lovely evening all of you!

Hello!

Yummy Mummy's (Michelle) would like to say a big "hello" to the two latest members following this blog.  I hope you are enjoying it!

Some Time Out Before The Next Challenge!

Everone was back at school today and I decided I needed a little retail therapy and some time out from baking and the smel lof chocolate!  Shopping finished, I have now uploaded the combined 221st/18th birthday cake, made slightly more complicated by the fact it was for a young man named Tom who is 18 and a young lady named Lucy who is 21.   Not sure of the exact dates, but "Happy Birthday" to both of you!

That'sall for now and I'm off back to the kitchen for some more baking and creating x

The First Of This Weeks Cakes!

These are the cakes I have made so far this week, fairly simple, but very pretty none the less.  My next project is almost finished apart from a few tweeks, and I had been hoping for a day off tomorrow but my daughter has other ideas, and I am now making a 21st birthday for C-dog (Callum) who is 21 today.  Happy birthday Callum! 

The Place Where It All Happens!

Having one of those days today, where nothing goes right the first time!  So rather than get bogged down I decided to redo our house sign - just in case any of you need to come and collect a cake, because we are a bit off the beaten track.

I'm sooo... excited!

Two chocolate cakes in the oven so just enough time to tell you about my exciting day yesterday...

Yesterday I had an enquiry for two more cakes, one of which is a wedding cake.  Nothing particularly exciting about that you might be thinking, but the cake that they have chosen is absolutely beautiful and so unusual.  It combines everything that I enjoy doing,  it has beautiful flowers, lots of detail and loads of colour!  The other bonus is that when I looked at the website that the cake from there were so many ideas that I can't wait to start experimenting.

John,Grace and Poppy the naughty puppy (she loves to eat shoes!)

Don't Ever Be Scared Of A Challenge

When I first started out in business as a cake maker it was with a business partner, and it was kind of nice to have someone to bounce ideas off, even down to the most basic of things such as pricing a cake.  And then in December my business partner decided that she would like to go it alone.  At the time I was quite upset and daunted by the prospect of running a business by myself especially as I had no idea how to modify the website. 

I spoke with a lovely man called Alex Tovey who has always carried out any repairs to my PC and he suggested running a blog rather than a website because it was for easier to upload photos to and quite honestly it can be far more captivating.  To cut a long story short this blog that you are reading is the finished result and I have amazed myself by what I have managed to do!

I have spent the last couple of hours making a topper for an 18th birthday cake so that I can get ahead of the game as I have got another really busy week coming up, and I have to keep going back to look at it because I  am so pleased with it.  Lets hope the rest of the week goes as well.

Yesterday I handed over the Lightning McQueen cake and the lady never really enthused at all about it which was rather disappointing after the amount of work that went into it.  Never mind,  on the plus side I picked up 5 more orders yesterday, one as far ahead as August which is pretty exciting, and two of which are wedding cakes (not sure if either of them are for a princess though)!

I need to go now and cook a roast for the troops who sometimes feel that they are very neglected because of my cakes!

Never price a cake without researching it first!!

This is the finished Lightning McQueen cake.  Having only little girls at home now, I haven't actually watched the movie 'Cars'.  So when I was asked to make a Lightning McQueen cake I gave the lady a price and then went away to find pictures.  My first problem was finding pictures that showed all angles of the car.  In the end I resorted to borrowing a toy racing car from a friend in the playground.  The next issue was the amount of detail on the car, there comes a point where you just have to stop!  If I priced this cake again I would add another £15 to it and it would still be worth an awful lot more. Never mind, at least I was happy with the finished cake!

Everyone needs a dream to aspire to!

I have an ambition!  One day I would love to make a cake cake for a real princess, so if anyone knows one that they can point in my direction I would be a very happy bunny.  Until then it seems the current theme remains quite masculine.

I have picked up two more orders today - both for next week!  One of them is going to be my biggest challenge yet I think, so lets  hope that Gracie is on best behaviour and that the chickens start to lay some eggs again.  If not Vicky I might need to buy some form you?  I just can't bring myself to buy eggs from a supermarket.

I took a day out today from cake making and joined my little girl Felicity and the rest of her class for a walk around the village where we live, Almondsbury really is an incredibly lovely place to live and bring up my children.

Look out tomorrow for my latest creation and if you like my cakes please recommend this blog to your friends x

Lots of chickens but no eggs!

I made a start on the next cake this morning, at the expense of my family's ham, egg and chips tonight!  All but two of my chickens and one of my ducks have stopped laying.  I haven't bought an egg for three years, so I think I'm going to have to dig them up some worms and hope that will encourage them to start laying again.

I have a big show to do on the 6th March at Ashton Gate Stadium, called The Baby and Toddler Show.  So at the moment I'm waiting for an order of dummy cakes to turn up so that I can make a start on creating some exciting designs for the show.  I have decided not to make anything to sell on the day, and instead to concentrate on promoting what I am all about.  It's lovely working on dummy cakes because you know the finish is always going to be top notch and of course you don't have to spend an age lining tins and baking cakes. 

I have lots of ideas for what I would like to do, the question is "will I have time to get them all done before the show"? And more importantly, have I got a safe place to store them away form Gracie and her little fingers?
     

This week is all about cars!

Have finally finished the first cake for this week, I hope the reciptent recognises it as a Series 1 land rover.  I think the next project may be a little easier!

OMG My husband is an expert on Land Rovers!

Today I have set about making a cake for a 50th birthday.   I had a phone call Saturday night from a lovely lady asking me if I could make a cake for her partner's 50th birthday.  Apparently he is into cars!  He owns on old Land Rover and a Morgan (lucky man).  So my brief was to make a Land Rover cake which also had to include a male character with blonde greying hair.  Everything fine so far, that is until my husband came home.  I never knew he was an expert on series 1 Land Rovers. Just how much detail do you put into a birthday cake?  The final result will be on tomorrows post, and if you are reading any of my posts I would appreciate feedback.

Breakfast in bed!

It's amazing how tiring cake making can be.  I'm not sure whether it's down to the number of hours work that goes into each cake, all the clearing up after making a cake or just sheer nervous exhaustion form worrying how they will turn out and all the ideas whirling and whirling around in your head at night when you should be asleep!  My husband looked at me last night, half asleep on the sofa and piped up "what you've go to remember darling is that it's only a hobby!"  Only a hobby? 

At least I was awoken this morning by two of my little prodigies who had made breakfast in bed for us.  What a lovely treat!

It was great last night to go online to my Face book page and see all the feedback that was being left.  Stupid really I suppose, but it gives me a  real  high when I log on and a couple more people have pressed the sacred 'like' key.

Today I started work on a cake for Tuesday, it's always better to give yourself a bit of time just in case things don't go to plan.  It's a surprise 50th cake for a gentleman who's very into his cars, so no points for guessing what the theme is!

The last for today!

Happy Birtday Jessica Redman 18 today!

So much for a quiet weekend!

This week I have made four cakes all which were quite different, and I really pleased with the final creations.  Next week was meant to be a quiet week, time to catch up on all those little jobs around the house that I have been ignoring. It was also supposed to be an opportunity to make a start on some dummy cakes for the show I am doing in March at The Baby and Toddler Show.

Things haven't gone quite to plan and I am now really rather busy baking and creating again.  It's really good though to have the chance to add new, exciting cakes to my portfolio.

I can now reveal cake no3 this week which is for a young lady named Emma who had her 18th birthday earlier in the week, but as with all good birthdays the celebrations are going on and on and she had this cake to share with her friends before they all go out for a night on the tiles.

Another day of creating and chaos

I went to bed last night knowing that I wouldn't sleep.  Too many cake ideas swirling around my head.  How was I going to approach toays cake, a Tiffany carrier bag?   Everyone seems to have gone Tiffany mad, not that I mind, it's lovely to really artistic  cakes to work on!  I try to always use my own ideas which means that I never really know if they're going to work until they work!   Sometimes I spend hours trying to perfect something, only to find that if I'd done it another way it would have been far easier.

I'm not sure that you should always stick too rigidly to what the experts  say in the hundreds of cake making books I own.  For instance the other day I made a beautifil flipflopcake based on an idea in the Planet Cake book.  They showed a method for reinforcing the straps that really didn't work for me so I adapted it to suit my cake and hey presto it worked!

I haven't finished todays cake yet and I can't publish the photo on Saturday when it's my good friend Nicki's daughter's 18th birthday (only 2 more sleeps Jess), the flipflop cake above was for her other daughter Lily.

A week of baking and creating!

This is where I live with my husband, three little girls, Bart Simpson's understudy and my dog Poppy (nearly forgot the 26 chickens and 6 ducks!)

My life is running everyone around and baking!  Lots and lots of baking!  I started my cake business in June of this year after encouragement from friends and family.  Now things have kind of gone mad!  This week I have to make one 30th cake and three 18th cakes.  So far it's 2 down and 2 to go.  I am sooo.. proud of this weeks work that I could burst, I am actually quite a nightmare annd constantly bombard my friends and family with photos.  I have never created anything like this before so I hope this works!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/yummy-mummys-cakes/121766187842894?v=wall