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Hello all. It’s a while since I have been on here – getting a lot of house renovating and other stuff done. Now we are in the new year it’s an exciting time. British Sugar Guild exhibition at Telford in May – our branch, Burton Joyce, have all hands on deck producing a design I created for entering a table in the exhibition branch competition… that will be thrilling.
But for the time being I have been thinking of new designs to take with me when I am demonstrating and this one, would you believe it, was inspired by a cushion.
Mainly hand cut flowers and leaves with piped stitching effect
I was just sitting in my living room when I glanced across at a cushion on my chair and thought that would make a lovely cake… then I did nothing with it and 6 months later I finally got around to it. It is not copied exactly like the cushion but I just used it to get my brain in gear.
Pretty Cushion Inspired Cake Detail
To start with I made templates out of watercolour paper for the leaves and large flowers (it’s quite stiff but easy to cut and store templates). Rolling out the modelling paste to about one millimetre I proceeded to use my templates and cut out my pink and blue flowers. This style does not require any thinning on the edges with the ball tool – just cut and use. I then used blossom and forget-me-not cutters on the smaller flowers.
Making the leaves are the same process as the large flowers. When attaching these to the cake they were not glued totally flat – it’s nice to lift the edges off the cake slightly to give it a 3D effect. Then trimmed with a little delicate piping with royal icing to look like stitching.
With the balls around the bottom I made one the size I wanted and then keeping that aside I measured all the others next to it to get roughly the same size throughout. Now there is probably an easier way or a tool to do this but as you know I do not own a lot of tools and the least amount of tools I use the better – it makes you have more creative flair.
This cake design is ideal for any type of celebration cake – pretty cake for a teenagers birthday or it can even be translated into a beautiful wedding cake.
If you’d like me to decorate a cake in a bespoke style or something completely different for your special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area. Please feel free to leave me an email or a message and I will always get back to you as soon as possible.
I will always endeavour to reply to your enquiry within 48 hours. If you have not heard from me in that time it suggests that there is an error with my mailbox or server which I am currently unaware of and I would therefore ask that you try to contact me by phone or text. Thank you.
Nottingham LocalCard have just celebrated their 2nd Anniversary and kindly requested I make them a cake with their logo to celebrate.
I recently added my business to their website www.nottinghamlocalcard.com so this cake will be featured in their January newsletter too! How exciting!
When designing a cake you need some inspiration so the best place to look for it in this case was their website. I needed to see what the membership card looked like, fonts, colours and any other unique feature to them that might make the cake special. Sometimes it can help by doing a very quick sketch.
Creating cakes has been in my life for over 3 years now and I never stop amazing myself at what I can do or new techniques I can teach myself – there is always something new to learn. I still like to be true to myself and produce a pleasing design out of my head rather than someones book or off the internet with as little cutters as possible (all hand-cut and hand-made; the only shop bought cutters used in this design is the flowers on the girls shoulders and a frilled circle cutter for the skirt). I still get thrilled when I am working on a cake and seeing it evolve as every cake is different and beautiful.
I decided on making a rectangle cake that I could place a plaque (credit card shaped) on top. Firstly, I started the membership card by mixing a similar colour referenced to the website colour (you are never going to match exactly) into some white modelling paste, rolled it out thinly and then cut a rectangle with round corners out of it. This was then left for 24 hours to harden.
The next step was to cut out the logo with a scalpel in white and black modelling paste, let them harden and hand paint a keyline in black around the white letters. After that they were attached with edible glue.
I kept cross referencing to the membership card to make sure I was getting the style correct and that the logo was in the right position before hand-painting the rest of the lettering directly onto the plaque in black and white again following the brand. When all this was complete I carefully lifted the finished plaque up and attached it to the top of the cake with more edible glue.
The website features members’ holding their membership cards so this inspired me to make characters doing the same. I created a man and a woman, both holding tiny cards, wearing the same colours to reflect the rest of the cake and make it all coordinated.
The characters were started from the feet upwards. For the girl the feet and legs were made separately then the skirt is attached on top of that. Then it was time for the body then the arms followed by the head. The man was created in the same way but obviously wearing a suit. The finer details such as the painted toe nails, buttons and small membership card were added last. Inside each figure is one plastic dowling which must be removed if the figures are to be eaten but the rest is all edible.
LocalCard loved the cake and took photographs for their newsletter to come out in January. I hope you enjoyed reading about this.
If you’d like me to decorate a cake in a similar bespoke style or something completely different for your special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area. Please feel free to leave me an email or a message and I will always get back to you as soon as possible.
You will probably recognise this cake but notice that its more vibrant in colour than before. I decided to take my first design one step further to show how the design can evolve into this beautiful celebration cake.
All the previous hand-painting made the the gold, turquoise and a hint of silver easy to apply – like a childs colouring-in book.
This design would be wonderful for any type of celebration cake – even a wedding cake with a difference.
If you’d like me to decorate a cake in a similar bespoke style or something completely different for your special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area. Please leave me an email or a message and I will always get back to you as soon as possible.
Well this is the final ‘Painting on Icing’ out of the trio (for the moment). Another one I will hopefully get around to creating a cake for from my designs…the list is getting longer.
Handpainted poppies on sugarpaste used in a BSG demonstration.
Another inspired design from some wallpaper I bought. This was not traced but painted straight on the sugarpaste so the design is only influenced by the wallpaper. Each flower was painted with 2 coates to get the thick colour and the red ones were then painted in edible varnish (which doesn’t show on screen).
The leaves on the wallpaper were totally the wrong shape for poppy leaves so I changed that too.
This would look good and be very effective on a wedding or celebration cake with 3D petal paste poppies on top to finish off.
If you’d like me to decorate a cake in this style for a special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area.
Well here I am again with the second sample for ‘Painting on Icing’ I used at my demo.
I like to have a go at what is on trend but it is nice to come up with something original. It’s amazing all the inspiration that is around you to help you design something different to what everyone else is creating.
I found a pattern I liked but changed it to be my own and the colours I loved so I picked similar colours to the original pattern. Another pattern with different colours on could have been used for the inspiration instead. I started off by painting a watercolour version with my changes on watercolour paper to see if I liked it. Drawing around my cutting tools on the paper to see how the final version would look helped too.
The flower shapes in the middle are different flower shapes to the original pattern – I just looked in my tool box and used a flower and scalloped edged cutter I already had and a piping nozzle was used for the small circles.
My special mixture of edible food colours were made to create a thick paint that dries slowly in the palette but quick on the sugarpaste. The edge of the scallops and the flowers were painted in a dark brown with a very fine artists brush and the swirls were all painted free hand. Also I painted some pretty flower shapes in pearl lustre that show up when they catch the light.
I feel that this was a very attractive, modern and was far different from the original inspired pattern I found and turned into my own design. This unique sample looks amazing and could easily be applied to make a spectacular multiple tiered wedding cake..
If you’d like me to decorate a cake in this style for a special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area.
This is the reverse of the blue pink flowered handbag cake that I created for a demonstration I was giving. As I explained before it is double sided in order for me to have more techniques to show to everyone.
Reverse of the blue pink flower handbag cake
As usual, when I am creating my designs, I like to try something a little different from the norm.
Intricate patterns
When decorating my cakes I like to use as little cutters as possible. Sometimes, when using the cutters, I try to make something out of them that they were not originally intended for.
If you’d like me to decorate a similar cake for a special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area.
This cake is a two sided handbag cake which I made for a British Sugar Guild demonstration in a couple of weeks. It will be used to demonstrate lots of different techniques and hopefully inspire people to experiment with their own cake designs.
Ideal for any celebration!
I painted a pattern in the background to give it some depth. Then flowers made of petal paste were attached over this. The same flower cutter was used to emboss the handbag top and it was finished off using a homemade button mould to create the clasp.
Close up of the detailing on top of the handbag cake
The cake was finished off with tiny piped pale pink dots and silver painted to hightlight the finer detail.
Flower detailing on the handbag cake front
Keep a look out for my next update with details of the reverse side it as it is even better than this one.
If you’d like me to decorate a similar cake for a special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham and delivers to the East Midlands area.
This comission was for an elegant ivory coloured wedding cake covered in edible lace and lace roses delicately placed on top.
Around each tier a delicate edible lace in white was place over the ivory coloured sugarpaste for a subtle and stylish contrast.
Mounted on the cake to finish the design were some beautiful hand made roses created in the same delicate lace.
The cake is pictured displayed on the optional silver wedding cake stand which can be included for an additional charge.
If you’d like me to decorate a similar cake for a special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham.
This is a cake for that someone special in your life on Valentines Day. Its overall heart shape covered in hearts and flowers shows that you love and appreciate them. This design would also work well as a birthday or wedding cake.
A vanilla sponge is covered in gourmet dark chocolate fondant which tastes and looks good.
Handmade hearts and flowers adorn the edge of the cake and then intricate piped dots fall down the edge.
The whole design is finished off with a heart and kisses on top with wording of your choice.
If you’d like me to decorate a similar cake for a special occasion then please feel free to contact me for a quote. Copper Top Cakes is based in Nottingham, UK.
This cake was designed for a lady who loves shoes and handbags (who doesn’t?) and had a surprise when she received her beautiful cake.
The handbag was sculpted out of chocolate sponge cake before being covered in vanilla buttercream and bright pink icing sugar.
The flowers on the front have had edible lace applied onto the petals with tiny piped dots around the edge to give definition.
I imprinted a pattern into a piece of icing sugar and added eible lace onto another and then this was draped around the base like fabric.
The whole appearance was finished off with a delicate handmade shoe and letters with birthday wishes.
I am based in Nottingham so if you’d like me to decorate a similar cake for a Birthday or a Wedding Cake then please feel free to contact me for a quote.
