Heartstoppingly Good

Last year I made this evil cake for my friend Nick'y birthday party.

There are several kilograms of 70% cocoa Lindt chocolate in the icing alone.

Not a cake for those watching their weight I am afraid. The flowers were from our garden.

Rainbow Surprise Cake

This enormous cake has a secret.

I have seen these on the Internet and decided one rainy Sunday morning to give it a go.

Surprise!

There is enough food colouring in this cake to make children go crazy by just being in its immediate vicinity.

It took several hours but it was good fun to make. I was very pleased with how it turned out and I understand a few people where sent to the naughty chair after eating it at my husband's work :)

Betting on the Geegees

My friend, Nicky, had a racing party. She had a dvd of horse races we watched and all placed beats on.

I made some of the desserts for the party.

It was a fabulous night. This is a banana cake with cream cheese icing I decorated with strawberries.

Rocketship

My son had a Space Party for his ninth birthday. I put sparklers in the end of the rocket to make it look as if it were blasting off. Unfortunately they burnt holes in my tablecloth; oh well, live and learn. 

Spotty Dotty Pink Cake

My youngest requested a 'spotty pink cake' for her birthday dinner.

Her wish is my command ;P

Strawberry Shortcake

There was alot of deliberating by my youngest daughter about what theme birthday party to have. When the decision was finally made and Strawberry Shortcake was settled upon I was so pleased as we have a large Strawberry Shortcake doll and I envisioned making her into a dolly varden style princess Strawberry Shortcake.

Do you think I could find that doll?

Of course not!

Fortunately she was just as happy with a large strawberry with Strawberry Shortcake sitting on top.

With a few strawberry cupcakes thrown in for good measure.

The doll turned up four weeks after the party - typical :)

Pink Princess Party

A friend of mine held a Pink Princess Party for all the daughter's of her friends. It was strictly girls only; no boys allowed.

There was nail painting, hair styling, cake munching and I ran the bracelet making. Even a couple of the older Princesses had a turn :)

Surf's Up

The principal at my children's school was celebrating a BIG birthday and I was asked to make a cake of Vazon Bay. He loves surfing so I was given the surfing penguin as a cake topper (even though there are no penguins in Guernsey - but this is the only surfer themed item they could find).

I used icing gel over the buttercream ocean to give it that bit of extra sparkle.

Big Kids Day

My children's school held a cake stall to raise money for Big Kids Day. I made these cupcakes with white and orange buttercream to compliment the Big Kids Day colour theme.

Pink Poodle

I made this cake to enter in the North Show here in Guernsey. I didn't win but I did have a lady contact me about making her daughter's birthday cake.

At the time I declined as I had even considered making cakes as a business. This one phone call started me thinking that perhaps I could make cakes from home as a business.

Sometimes all it takes is an idea (and a bit of self belief).

An End of Year Menagerie

Kitty Cats

To celebrate the end of another school year I made these animal cupcakes.

Pink Pigs

I had to make sure that there was enough for the entire class plus the teachers and teaching assistants.

Measles Bears (so christened by my children)

I have three children so that equaled rather alot of cupcakes.

Ladybugs

They were very well received; so well in fact that I am constantly asked when I will be baking again by kids in my children's classes.

Goldfish

My kids felt really special to take these in to share with their friends which makes the hours of decorating worthwhile :)

Fun Fair

These cakes are for another PTA summer BBQ. The theme in this year was 'The Fun Fair'.

All three cakes were chocolate with vanilla buttercream. The event was a great sucess with over 170 people attending.

Chocolate Slab Cake

My husband asked for a cake for work for morning tea; as there are over forty people in the office it had to be BIG!

Octopus Eight

For as long as I can remember my son has wanted this particular cake for his eighth birthday. I was able to find a variety of sweets that would have fit the bill as the octopus's legs but as green is his favourite colour the choice was obvious. I used green coconut for his face and white marshmallows cut in half for his enormous teeth. His eyes are made of a white marshmallow cut through the centre. I use them sticky side out as the smarty with stick on very securely. The octopus's mouth is outlined in black liquorice and his smile is a large variety of liquorice.

This is a very easy cake to make as you just need to ring cakes of the same size.

Numbers - 100s and 1000s Four

I made this cake for my daughter to take along to share with her kindy class. I simply made a stencil of the number four and then gently pressed the 100s and 100s into the cut out shape, taking extra care not to get any on the rest of the cake.

I had intended to cover the entire side of the cake in more 100s and 1000s but I ran out so it is a little patchy at best!

Note to self: one can never own enough 100s and 1000s 

Spotty Crocodile

Up until this birthday party I had always been an 'at home party' purist. This jungle themed party for my daughter's fourth birthday was held at a venue in Guernsey called the Jungle House. The Jungle House is an indoor playland and as my daughter's birthday falls during the winter months an indoor party is essential.

I saw the basis shape for this cake in an Australian Women's Weekly cookbook but I didn't like the decorations they had used so I improvised.

The party was a wonderful success and there was plenty of cake for the guests to take home to share with their family as I avoid huge amounts of leftover cake being in our house at all costs; it is not good for my waistline :)



Princess cake

What six year old doesn't want a princess cake? Many cakes of this type call for poor old Barbie's legs to be ripped off but as I wanted my little princess to have her to keep I cut a tube out of the middle of the cake, wrapped her legs in plastic (now where have I heard that before?) and proceeded to dress her for the party.

The icing roses on this cake are getting better but still not the correct nozzle. I was very please with how this cake turned out except for the shade of the purple icing. If anyone can recommend a food colouring which can produce a soft pastel purple I would love to have the name of it please.

Halloween Ghost Cupcakes

I made these spooky fellows for a friend's Halloween Party. I had originally iced some of the cupcakes in purple but I did not like the colour they turned out so I used these ones for the ghosts - problem solved.

Orange, green and purple seem to be the colours of Halloween but I don't often make a purple icing I like the colour of so in future I will stick to green and orange I think.

The ghosts are so simple and so effective. I stuck a lollypop into the middle of each cupcake for the 'body' of the ghost. I cut out circles of white fondant and pinned the edges of the circle to give the ghosts a more floaty appearance. Be very careful when you place the fondant over the lollypop that you do not get any icing on the fondant or it will ruin the final effect. The ghost's eyes are dots of black icing gel.

Numbers - 60th Birthday

I was asked to bake a joint 60th birthday cake for two of the teachers as my children's school. I only had one tray that was big enough to hold both numbers, unfortunately this meant I had to make the top of the six a little shorter than I would have liked.

If you are new to cake making number are a very easy and simple cakes to make. There are plenty of helpful hints on the Internet and in cake books.

Practice Makes Perfect

I was asked by my husband to make a cake for him to take to work so I saw it as a good opportunity to get some piping practice and to get a feel for some new food colouring gels I had bought.

As you can see, I was a little heavy handed with the gels. I had only ever used liquid food colours before and the two products vary greatly in colour strength.

Rosy Cupcakes

These were just a bit of fun one Sunday afternoon. I am still using the incorrect nozzle at this point. I have watched people who have attend some of those Wilton classes in America on Youtube and they are truly amazing.

I am going to invest in a full set of Wilton nozzles one day soon. I just wish I could go to the classes as well :(

The Non-wedding Wedding cake

 I was asked to make a Retirement cake for on of the teachers from my children's school. The bottom tier is a white chocolate mudcake and the top tier is carrot cake. I iced it in white chocolate ganache and made buttercream roses.

I had never made buttercream roses before so why I decide to make them for a cake for anyone other than my family is beyond me. As you can see Guernsey butter is very, very yellow. I didn't have the 'correct' piping nozzle so I just made do with the ones I had to hand.

The teacher retiring enjoyed gardening so I thought the roses were appropriate, unfortunately I didn't give enough forethought to the colours scheme and it ended up looking like a wedding cake. It all got eaten so I guess they didn't mind.

Red, White and Blue

 Each year my children's school holds a summer BBQ which is put on by the PTA. In this year the theme was the 4th of July as that was the actual day the BBQ was held.

I made these three cakes for the BBQ. I know there are a few too many stars and not enough stripes but it was for a BBQ in a country on the other side of the planet and everyone who looked at them knew what they were supposed to be.

Apologies to any readers from the USA :)

Skull and Crossbones

This Skull and Crossbones cake was for my son's Pirate Party for his seventh birthday. It was very difficult to ice as the ends of the bones are balls of cake and they were rather delicate so each time I tried to ice them they fell apart.

In the end I crumb coated the cake and let it set before adding the final layer. I still did not manage to get a perfect finish but all pirates are a bit rough around the edges aren't they.

The eyeballs are actually an eyeball sweet. They come in a domed hard plastic wrapper and were tricky to open. When I did manage to get one open the strong smell of the sweet made me wished I hadn't. Maybe you need to be seven year old to truly appreciate them!

Rainbow Bowtie Teddy

This little fellow was for a Rainbow themed birthday party. I didn't want to do an actual rainbow shaped cake so this is what I came up with.

His tie match in well and all the kids loved the chcolate icing.

Rainbow Heart

I made this cake for my youngest daughter's third birthday. Our family tradition is to have a party with friends on the weekend closest to their birthday and a family dinner on the actual night of their birthday. I made this cake for her family dinner.

I counted out the smarties first to ensure that I had enough for each different colour layer as it would have been very frustrating to get to the end of a layer and be two or three smarties short.

I covered the side edge of the cake with pairs of smarties which follow the same colour order as the pattern on top of the cake.

Mermaid cake

This is a Mermaid cake I made for my daughter's fifth birthday. In the book she had a green tail made of spearmint leaf sweets but as these are an Australian sweet and not available in Guernsey I had to improvise.

I bought strawberry sugar covered jubes and sliced them in half which allowed for some shiny and some sparkly Mermaid scales.

I was a bit heavy handed on the liquorice eyeliner :)

Welcome

Hello and welcome to Periwinkle Blue. This blog is the beginnings of my cake decorating business. In my first few posts I will show photos of some of my early cake creations made for friends and family.

Why is my business named Periwinkle Blue and what does that have to do cakes and baking? Well absolutely nothing of course!

Firstly my favourite colour is blue and I currently live in Guernsey in the Channel Islands where periwinkles are commonly found on the beaches.

Secondly, 'And she's terribly partial to periwinkle blue boys.'

;)