My baby turns One!!!

So just a quick note to say i've been offline since November as we finally moved house! So i have 3 months of things to catch up on!! I'll try to get it all done quickly so hopefully will be bang up to date soon(ish)!
Anyway so my beautiful baby girl turned 1 in October. I can still hardly believe she is already over a year old, its scary how fast time flys when you are a parent. I really would like time to slow down slightly so i can savour these wonderful years of her growing and developing and where me and her Dad are the centre of her universe!!
So we had to mark her first birthday with a little party. We hired a hall in Bradley Stoke and also hired some soft play equipment from a wonderful company called Tots of Fun. This soft play equipment really added to the party and Miley and her little friends had sooo much fun because of it.

As you may expect i had to have a go at making some home made decorations for the party. I didn't really know where to start but i was so glad i tried as it was so much fun and the decorations looked great on the day. I made a banner with a photo of Miley from each month of her first year. And i also made a Happy Birthday Miley banner which i used at the party and then again at home on her actual birthday.

The other thing i really wanted to do was make Miley a first birthday cake and for some reason i thought it was a good idea to make a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Cake. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is the only cartoon Miley watches and she loves it so i didn't feel like i had any other option, but i knew it would be a big undertaking!
I searched through hundreds of images online of different cakes trying to find one i felt i could make and one that i liked also. I finally decided on a two tier cake covered with fondant. I bought the figures from the Disney Store which was so helpful and Miley loves playing with them now.
The cake took a long time to make, i baked the cakes on the Friday and then spent nearly all day saturday decorating the cakes. Then on Sunday i took them to the party and stacked them once at the venue and also added the figures using green buttercream piped from a bag to look like grass.
All in all i was really pleased with the way the cake turned out. A couple of people at the party didn't believe that i had made it myself which is a great compliment i think to the final product (not so much to me!)

We had a wonderful party and Miley had lots of fun and was suitably exhausted at the end of it!
On her actual birthday a few days later we took her to Jump softplay in Bristol and then went to Harvester for lunch. We had a lovely day just the three of us and we both just enjoyed spending the day with our beautiful daughter who was now 1 year old.

Challenge extended.....challenge accepted....make a Stormtrooper cake

My husbands birthday was approaching and my belly was growing (i was 8 months pregnant....and eating for 2 of course!) and my maternity leave had started.......so it was cake challenge time!
My husband is a bit of a geek, he would admit this, so i knew it had to be something either superhero or star wars related. I spent a lot of time on google looking at images, trying to decide what i could have a go at making. In the end i chose the Stormtrooper.....my husband always roots for the bad guys....no hans solo or luke skywalker for him......Darth Vader and Stormtroopers all the way........don't even mention the Ewoks!!! :-)
So subject picked, supplies purchased from Hobbycraft at the last minute!
**note** i try not to buy supplies from hobbycraft as they are soooo expensive, but when its last minute i do head there. But i prefer to purchase online, normally through ebay.
So as i said my maternity leave had started and so i had a whole day to make the cake whilst my husband was at work. Which meant i could make as much mess as i liked.....whoop! And a mess i did make! Baking with a pregnant belly is really not that easy and i didn't think about the logistics beforehand, but i got there in the end.
It took me all day carving and shaping the cake, making the buttercream and then putting it all together. I loosely followed the guide on the following blog, which was really helpful as a starting point.
http://www.workmanrumpus.com/blog/35-making-a-stormtrooper-cake
Then onto the decoration which was super fun and it was when the cake really started to take shape and i started to feel like i was getting somewhere. After almost a whole day on my feet, carving, chaping, mixing, sticking, decorating etc i was really pleased with the end result.
Considering this is only the 2nd novelty cake i had ever made i thought it was great, at the end of the day it looked like a stormtrooper and that was all i asked for!
What do you guys think? Success?


next challenge........having a baby and becoming a Mum!! Yikes!! Cakes took a backseat for quite some time.

Rainbow Layer Cake.....lets give it a shot

So i love baking cakes and decorating them, i am not particularly skilled in this area, but i think i could get an A for effort at least.
The last cake i made was for my husbands birthday in September 2011, one month before our daughter Miley was born. That was a stormtrooper cake which i will post a picture of another time.
So as my husbands next birthday approached i decided now was the time to dust of my cake tins and get to work again.
I found a picture online a while back of an amazing Rainbow Layer Cake! It was a stunner! And i was so eager to try it out myself. The first time i tried a few years back it didn't work as i used liquid colouring......big mistake!
So i thought Simons birthday was the time to give it another go. So i bought the good quality gel colours and set to work. I only made 5 layers as i mistakingly bought 2 orange food colours.......doh!
Here is my cake mixture, coloured and all set to go.....

So into the oven they went in two batches. I was very excited and couldn't wait to finish the cake. I followed the original design which i saw online and covered the cake in plain buttercream icing so that from the outside it looks unassuming. Then when you cut into it.......bam.........colour explosion!
Now i must note that it didn't turn out as well as i had hoped but that was down to me purchasing the wrong shade of red and blue food colouring. But i live and learn and will know for next time. But despite that i still think it looks awesome.
For anyone who is interested the colours i used were:
Claret
Blue
Party Green
Primrose
Tangerine
Here is the cake, the outside and then the inside.


Doesn't it look cool! I think i will have to restrain myself from colouring every cake i ever make now!
I think this would be so cool inside a kids birthday cake if it was a surprise for them.
Anyway, it was really easy to make and i think it has a huge impact. The buttercream was quite thick so it held it all together really well so i didn't need any supports for it despite it being 5 layers.
Now when can i make my next cake...........