Birthday cakes!

the main thing to think about with making cakes is what colour icing you are going to be using - if it's light coloured.. then chances are any little crumbs will show big time in the icing. plain cakes show less. you can always put them in the fridge or freezer for half an hour or so before decorating and stops them from being so crumbly.

and will hunt out the pics and post em. lots are from when i was a teenager for my neices and nephews etc.

rollerblade


Hi-5


My little pony


carebear


thomas the tank engine


The carebear cake was mega easy.. cos it was all one colour and i just did the dots and filled it all in.. then chucked rainbow m&m's across.

lol my mums one.. but mainly the $2 shop has perfectly good ones for one time useage or to keep. their nozzles are usually enough to do all you need to do.. ie a big and a small star shaped nozzle (like i did the carebear one with) and a normal piping nozzle to do outlines..

the carebears website has a heap of neat pics of carebears.. right click and save as to your comp (they have funshine bear) then just print out, trace over the top to get a simple outline and chuck it through a photocopy machine to make the pic A3 sized.. you can cut out the main bits like pussle pieces so that you just ice the cake white all over, put each piece down gently and toothpick dots around the outside to make an outline.. do this piece by piece removing each one as you go. do the outline darker, then just fill in with star dots of the lighter yellow colour. instead of doing straight rows.. try to make it so that the next rows arent' straight underneath but along a bit.. ie fill in the gaps so you don't see the white icing. that was the quickest and easiest cake i have done in a very long time!

good luck!

Ooh I did have a look at the $2 shop piping sets. They looked a bit flimsy, that's all! Do you have a recipe for the perfect consistency icing to pipe with? I just find mine always seems to be a bit stiff, but I'm afraid to water it down as it might not set

So you didn't buy a Care Bear shaped cake tin?

he he nope never use shaped tins, just find a really kewl pic i like of whatever it is the girls want, something simple and not too detailed.. then enlarge it a little, print and trace over so all i have is a outline.. and photocopy that till it's large enough.. then just cut around it to get the shape, and cut into pieces to make the outlines like i said in the other post.. like a puzzle. Shaped tins can make it mega hard cos you get bits of cake stuck in them sometimes.. plus you still have to follow a templete with them to some degree.

for G&T.. the thomas cake.. Becs bought a set off trade-me.. (same as she did for the winiie the pooh sugarpaste one above) the thomas one just had the track with the little wind-up thomas (was cute went round the track!!)and a kinda picture, but all i did with both was make the cake, cover with white butter icing all over, then bought the ready to roll white icing, coloured it drop by drop with food colouring to get the colours, and rolled it out (making sure the surface was dusted with icing sugar otherwise it gets sticky..) once it was large enough i stuck it on the top of the cake and cut off the excess around the edges. for the rest i just used a new fine paint brush and kinda painted on lightly some green food colouring to make the hill, and then just piped on white icing to make the clouds and flowers and green icing to make the bushes. jaffas around the outside.. stuck on with a line of icing. and the yellow piece around the edge, again is just coloured ready to roll icing, rolled out and cut into long strip then little piped bits of red on it.. blue star icing piped underneath that.    Is involved, takes ages, but isn't hard, just have to be methodical and have a play around first.    you can mould the ready to roll white stuff like playdough, if when you add the food colouring it gets sticky just chuck some icing sugar on just like if you were making a dough.

when i first went to make harmonys winnie cake, i grabbed an xtra packet of the ready roll stuff and just rolled it out and coloured it and played around.. i didn't make a cake to stick it on for the trial run just stuck it over the back of my cake pan so i had some idea. so when i cam eot do it days later i had already kinda got some idea of how to work with it and how i wanted it set out.

janine you should open a cake shop!! those cakes are awesome!

Sophies 4th birthday

Preschool cake

Party cake - the ballerina turns and plays music

I'm not sure if my sis-in-law is pulling my leg or not "white icing paste to turn butter icing white"?!?!?

oooh lou those are awesome i love the number 3 cake and the gingerbread one the bestest, they are just gorgeous all of them. he he i like the teddies idea too!

Man you guys are awesome!
Here's my first attempt at themed cake making, Ella's butterfly cake. She had already ripped out the number 3 candle, hence the hole in the corner!