Birthday Party/Baby Shower combo

One of my closest friends is expecting her first baby in about a month's time.
Yesterday was her birthday so her mother and sisters organised a surprise combination Birthday Party/Baby Shower for her. I volunteered to bring cake and thought I'd try and do something a bit different.

The basic idea was toy blocks, so I started out with a simple chocolate sponge, and cut it into 4 equal squares. Each one was cut in half, filled with buttercream, and then crumb coated.


These were then left to set for several hours while I went off to work, ready for me to come back and finish them off before the party.

When I got back from work I started off by covering each block in another layer of buttercream to smooth them out. This was nearly a total disaster as haflway through covering the last block I slipped and knocked it upside down onto the counter top. I was able to rescue it though, and the damage was, thankfully, not irreparable.


And then I worked on the piping. This was my first attempt, so yeah, it's a bit messy. Please god though, don't send it into Cake Wrecks!



The birthday girl/mum-to-be loved the cake, and all the other guests were very impressed too, it certainly got eaten pretty quickly, I only just had time to get this picture.

Going for Gold

As well as making cakes, my other hobby is Archery. Been doing it for a couple of years now and I really enjoy it. 2 weekends ago my club held their annual family fun shoot. A lovely afternoon was had by all (in between huge rain showers) and after we finished shooting and were having our picnics, talk turned to the club's annual tournament, which was to be held the next weekend. I volunteered to make a cake for the refreshments table and they said that would be great, so I went off home to decide on what to do.

I settled on something relatively simple, a round cake with black, blue, red and gold rings, representing a target. Like so...

I went and picked up a lovely little box of paste colours from Lakeland plastics, 8 colours for about £15, which seemed like a bargain to me and then worked out what I could use as templates for the rings.

I assembled all my equipment and got started

Now, here's the thing. I'm really regretting this now, but I didn't take any photos as I went along. I got so focussed on getting the ruddy thing finished in time that I just cracked on with it. I finished up the basic cake and was pretty pleased with it over all. The black ring was a little too grey for my liking, but I think it still looks good.


So after I had completed that, it was time to craft my arrows! using some chocolate covered biscuit sticks found in a local asian supermarket and some leftover coloured icing for fletchings I (k)nocked* up 6 arrows and them got everything ready to take to the tournament. Once there, I stuck the arrows into the cake and left it on the refreshments table for a bit while I had to sort something else out. When I returned I was asked if they could please use my cake as a raffle prize. I was a little shocked, but I said yes, and I'm glad I did. It sat on display during the afternoon and was won by one of our club's junior members.

I spent the afternoon chatting to one of the other women in the refreshment tent and ended up having her ask me to quote for making her daughter's birthday cake for this coming weekend. The plan is ready, I have my basic ingredients, now all I am waiting for is the go ahead to make it. So watch this space.

*please excuse the awful archery pun.