Name Change

For the keen eyed among you, if anyone is reading this still, you might have noticed the title of this blog has changed from The Cakehole to Super Fancy Fondant.

This name was inspired by the very lovely actress Brittany Ishibashi, one of the team from the TV/Web series Ghostfacers, who I met in November last year. Upon seeing the cake I had made for the event we were at she exclaimed "That's some super super fancy fondant!" and thus my new title was born.

Goodness, doesn't time fly?

Things have been a bit crazy since I last posted, hence the reason it has been several months. I got a new job, which was supposed to be part time, but with the run up to Christmas I have been working full time hours every week. I have still found time to make cakes though, even sending a couple around the country, so I thought it was high time I updated here with my latest endeavours.

After my last post I did a 6 week cake decorating course at my local college. 2 and a half hours a week for 6 weeks resulted in a rather lovely cake, some stunning (well I think so) first attempts at sugar flowers, and some new skills added to my repertoire.


Back in September '09, I mentioned a trial run cake I was going to be doing for a convention. That convention was called Hell Hounds and was all to do with The Ghostfacers from the TV show Supernatural. You can find out more about them at www.ghostfacers.com and also see where the inspiration for this cake came from.

Me and the 4 actors from Ghostfacers with my finished cake

I had just one Christmas cake order this year, which was fine as it was my first time making a fruit cake. The client requested a very simple cake, holly leaves and gold being the theme. You can see how it turned out below. After some hiccups with delivery (3 days before Christmas to Glasgow in the snow) it arrived in one piece and was very well recieved by the client.


Another order came in early January for a colleague's boyfriend's birthday. The Apple computers logo, and the script is in the Apple Garamond font.


I also tried some experimental cupcakes, again for a convention, this one themed around the TV show The Vampire Diaries. Not sure if the convention is actually going ahead now, but at least I have these in my arsenal should something similar arise in future.



My most recent order was for a football cake. I'd seen something in a cake decorating book a few months ago and decided to copy that. The recipient is a fan of Dundee United, so around the simple black and white football shaped cake I wrapped a scarf of Orange and Black fondant. This is a great cake to be able to make, as you can change the colours of the scarf for any team.


I am starting work tomorrow on another cake, this one modelled on the Omnitrix from the children's TV show Ben10. I'll post again when it's complete.

Money at last!

So in the last week I completed my first two paid commissions. The first was the 60th birthday cake I mentioned in my last post. I still have to work on my piping, but hey, everything takes practice right?
And a couple of closer views of my roses.


Next up was a congratulations cake for a colleague. She and her fiancee had gone away on holiday and got married while they were away. Some of the other women at work asked me to make a cake. I would show you more photos, but my camera was being evil and over exposing everything so I only have one rather dreadful picture.


I've also had 3 further commissions from people at work. A Halloween cake, a 19th birthday and an 18th birthday cake so I've got quite a bit going on at the moment. I also start a cake decorating course at college this week, 6 classes on flower work, modelling etc. I'm really excited about it, but a bit daunted by the equipment list they sent out. I guess I shouldn't be since it's all stuff I'm going to need for doing the work in the end.

Well, hopefully will update after my first class and let you all know how it's going.

It's been a while...

No, I haven't given up if any of you are still reading this...

This weekend just past I had a trial run at a cake I'm going to be making for another convention, this one taking place at Halloween. I wanted the cake to be a red velvet cake, and sice I had never made one of those before I gave it a go. The cake was a success, the decorating even more so. However, I'm keeping pictures under wraps until nearer the time, cos I don't want to give too much away to the people who are going to be eating it.

I also got my first, proper, confirmed commission today. I've been asked to make a 60th birthday cake for a lady for next weekend. I've been given pretty much free rein on the decorating too. They've asked for a piped Happy Birthday message, and told me she likes flowers, that's it! So to celebrate, and also to practice, I bought 3 sets of flower petal cutters and I'm off to practice with them. Expect lots of pictures by the weekend as my flower making progresses.

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.

More Supernatural Cake-age

So following the Metallicake's success (but not triumph, I didn't win the contest), I wanted to do something else with a Supernatural theme, but that was going to be a little less time consuming, and a lot less nerve wracking.

In late season 3 of the show, The Winchester Brothers revealed some rather nifty little anti-demonic possession tattoos.

Now, I know you can't really see them very well in that picture, which is another great reason for you to go watch the show if you haven't already, but I decided it would look really cool on a cake.

Cutting the template for the damn thing was a pain in the behind, the pentagram bit in the middle is rather intricate, but I managed, and after that it was quite easy.





I rolled the black icing out between two sheets of cling film so it didn't stick to the board/rolling pin. When I flipped it over on to the cake I noticed that the cling film had wrinkled a bit under the icing, but it had created a rather funky effect on the icing, so rather than smooth it out, I left it. There's a close up here so you can see the wrinkles.