Sunflowers and summer blooms…

 

Matt and Jemimah – Photograph kindly supplied by Ben Photography, Truro

When Matt and Jemimah asked me earlier in the year to make their wedding cake I was over the moon to be given the colour scheme of powder blue and sunflowers especially for an August wedding when the sun should be shining high in the sky. There was something distinctly seasonal about their wedding with the bride choosing to have her bouquet made of only the flowers that would be blooming at this beautiful time of year.  This is perfect for a wedding in Cornwall where we are all proud of the produce and seasonal beauty available here.

Summer Blooms – Image kindly supplied by Ben Photography, Truro

It is particularly lovely when a bride and groom have a few simple asks and then they allow you to create a cake that is unique to their special day and Matt and Jemimah were very much the perfect customers!

Flavour wise a rich, indulgent fruit cake would fill the first two tiers of the cake – matured over several months and happily soaked in delicious spiced rum.  The final tier of the wedding cake; a simple vanilla sponge with vanilla buttercream to please those with more simple tastes in life.

The cake was then decorated with summer blooms and wildflowers in mind – the sunflowers being the centre stage of the design that cascaded around the cake as though a gently breeze had guided the flowers in their path.

I wish the beautiful bride Jemimah and her new husband Matt all the very best for the future!

The cutting of the cake! Image kindly supplied by Ben Photography, Truro

I can sing a rainbow…sing a rainbow….sing along with me!

Its been a while (yet again) since I have blogged and I have been constantly on the go with different styles and types of cake, however when deciding to do a blog post today the one that has stayed in my mind as my favourite of late is the rainbow cake I created for one of my best friends birthdays.

Rainbow cake is one of those surprises that can’t help but make people smile when they cut into the cake and discover the multitude of colour inside! For this blog post instead of just posting pics of the finished cake I decided to take step by step photographs to give you a true idea of the work that goes into a cake like this – soooo much fun though!

I choose Americolor for creating my rainbow colours, you need so little to create a really vibrant hue, the cake itself is a simple vanilla layer cake recipe.  This cake comes out very tall so ensure you have plenty of people about when serving it up!

Step 1 – Create your cake mix using a tried and trusted recipe for vanilla layer cake, once this is done share it out equally between 6 bowls.  Using your americolor (or whatever colourings you prefer) add a couple of drops to each bowl and mix to desired shade.

Step 2 – Pour your cake mix into fully lined 8″ cake tins and bake according to the recipe you are using.

Step 3 – Once they are cooked leave to cool in the tins for about 5 mins and then turn out onto racks and leave to cool completely.

Step 4 – Layer the cakes (make sure you are stacking in the right order, if it helps you can always sing to yourself – but do this while no-one watches!) between each layer add a generous amount of vanilla buttercream – keep this a simple white/ivory colour as it will help set off the rainbow of colours in the cake already.

Step 5 – add a crumb coat of buttercream to the cake layers and leave to set – then add a final thicker layer of buttercream to the cake, I like to take a palette knife and spin the cake on the turntable while the tip of the palette knife touches the buttercream creating a ridged effect.

Step 6 – Now its up to you to decorate the cake how you would like! On this particular occasion the cake was for a keen seamstress so I chose to create lots and lots of sugar buttons in rainbow colours and cascade them down the cake to match the layers inside that when the cake was cut would look oh so pretty….

 

RosyCheeks Bakery is now on Facebook!

Moving forward with the whole social networking thingymebob and the power of the internet I have crumbled to the pressures of creating a facebook page!

You can catch up on the latest, greatest and sweetest news from RosyCheeks Bakery at the following page:

www.facebook.com/rosycheeksbakery

Thanks Claire x

Ombre Buttercream Ruffle Cake

I have recently been addicted to the different effects you can achieve on larger celebration cakes with the various piping nozzles I usually use to decorate cupcakes.

When I was asked to create a retirement cake for a lady who was off to lead the life of leisure after 40yrs of service as a quality and curriculum manager it seemed the perfect opportunity to give it a go!  The ruffles are in various shades of teal – each batch of buttercream slightly darker than the last to give the ombre effect.

If you are having a go at this yourself remember to take it slow and steady with the piping bag, use a turntable and have lots and lots of buttercream on hand!!

I think the final effect was quite pretty and I look forward to experimenting more! Claire x

Choir Themed Birthday Fun!

Its been a while since I have had chance to write a blog post – summer has come and gone and with it lots of new wonderful memories have been had! I thought I would start the month of September off with this blog post about a very musically themed birthday cake!

I was asked to make this cake for a gentleman called Bill who was in the prime of retirement and enjoyed in his spare time singing in an all male choir – so what better way of celebrating this than creating a birthday cake with all his fellow choir ‘boys’ (should I say men?!) singing their hearts out…with happy birthday I am sure!

The cake was a simple vanilla pod sponge with creamy buttercream…simple pleasures in life are sometimes the best.

The Cornwall College STAR awards

Being a college lecturer at that crazy busy time of year, yes, you know when I am talking about…JUNE…students have decided to leave all their work until the final hour and chaos ensues with a constant stream of marking, feedback, and tears.  Sooo it is nice to celebrate the hard work of those who have really put their all into their studies.

The STAR awards are Cornwall College’s celebration of those students efforts and commitments and a sparkling night of evening wear, live music and awards ensues!  I was asked to make 200 cupcakes to sit on the tables and form part of the goodie bags that all staff and students would receive.  The colour theme of the evening was chocolate brown and gold so with very little time (2 days notice!) I opted for a simple yet delicious Vanilla Sponge decorated with a swirl of Chocolate buttercream finished with a sprinkle of beautiful sparkling edible gold stars and glitter.  Each cupcake was wrapped individually and finished with gold ribbon and looked very glamorous on the tables adorning each place setting at the Atlantic Hotel in Newquay.

 

 

 

 

Summer Fete Themed Wedding Cupcakes

Well it’s been an age since I’ve had chance to do a blog post….not that it means I haven’t been busy spreading the Rosy Cheeks Bakery Love!

It being a lovely sunny bank holiday today this particular Wedding Cake seemed ideal to blog about.  The lovely Lorraine of Eclipse Body Art in Newquay went and got herself hitched this year…please see glamorous picture below of the beautiful bride!

Lorraine decided to hold her wedding reception in her very own backyard, and despite the weather trying to put a dampener on this Summer Fete Style Wedding nothing stopped this being an amazing evening in which guests were treated to the likes of hay bales, home-cooked food, camping, and traditional British Fete games – there was even a coconut shy!

With this in mind we decided upon keeping to this theme and creating a mixture of different cupcakes that all worked beautifully together…toadstools, flowers and tiny caterpillars adorned the Wedding Cupcake tower each one secretly filled with delicious caramel that would only be discovered as it was curiously bitten into…anyway enough from me see for yourselves…

Lorraine is an amazing artist and you can check out her work here and while on the subject it would be a perfect time to reveal my cupcake themed tattoo! I gave Lorraine an illustration by one of my favourite artists Kate Wilson.  The illustrations are all based on the idea that birds have secret lives and this is the end result – Lorraine I can’t thank you enough! x

We all *heart* Cupcakes!

This post is short and sweet, well, everything here at RosyCheeks Bakery is sweet but you get the drift…

More Personalised Birthday Cupcakes to brighten your start to the weekend!

Claire x

Secret Garden Cake – Spring is in Bloom!

You may remember me mentioning I was working on a very special cake that remained top secret to ensure the Birthday Girl did not find out – well that cake has now been revealed (and devoured) so I can finally showcase the Secret Garden Cake.  The cake was for a 60th birthday celebration and I wanted to make it extra special as Caroline deserves only the best!

Caroline has an absolutely beautiful garden which blossoms with lots of bright colours and really lets you know when Spring has arrived and Summer is on its way.  With it being an April birthday a Spring Garden themed cake seemed entirely appropriate but I wanted the cake to have that overgrown, enchanted feel about it.  The birdhouse was suspended on the cake using a wooden skewer and then the edible vines entwined their way up on to it finished with beautiful little pink flowers and a carefully piped number 60.  The characters; A Snail, Caterpillar and happy little ladybirds are happily sitting amongst the green buttercream grass and the terracotta plant pots are overspilling with bright spring blooms.

The cake itself was a very rich dark chocolate cake (by rich I mean 12 eggs and over 600g of dark chocolate!) filled with a gooey chocolate fudge buttercream.

There are a lot of photographs of this cake because there are so many details I want you all to see! Enjoy…

Say Happy Easter with Cupcakes!

Easter is a time of indulgence with lots of foods involving the word chocolate, in fact, who am I kidding? not so much lots of foods but more lots of chocolate!

These Easter cupcakes are a little something different – a simple vanilla sponge that is light and delicious with a vanilla buttercream coloured and piped to look like grass, then finished with chocolate mini eggs (tradition is tradition) and beautiful little spring flowers.

Happy Easter Everyone enjoy the long weekend Claire x