Stairway to cake heaven

Little Habbibi just turned one, and loves stairs, so I tried to recreate his local set in cake:

Base was Nigella's buttermilk birthday cake made with vanilla, rather than lemon. Cut into various rectangles for stairs, they were sandwiched together with a variation of her blond icing, which made for a very pleasing effect when sliced

 

Mini boy made of fondant icing, plus fondant icing red carpet, on a base of a chocolate fudge type frosting.

 

Plus matchmakers, which I didn't realise were Nestle until too late, for banisters. In hindsight, two per step would have been better. But they held together ok with dabs of melted choccolate.

 

4th birthday Gromit

Big Habbibi is 4! And loves Gromit, so a plan was hatched.


Base is made of Nigella's Storecupboard Chocolate Orange Cake, but using cherry jam rather than marmalade. Sketched Gromit using handy tips from the internet, and cut accordingly:

I hate buttercream with a passion, so had to work out something else. Loads of trial and error here, but the face is essentially an overwhipped white chocolate ganache with some melted milk chocolate added - the effect was essentially a truffle frosting. The ears were again trial and error, but turned out rather like a typical chocolate fudge frosting.

Fondant icing for whites of eyes, with melted chocolate pupils

And a big nose - cut out of melted chocolate with a scone cutter. It worked!

Wedding buffet

No, I did most assuredly not bake this, but this is what our wedding buffet looked like. And very lovely it was too:

Ta Dahh!

Cake went according to plan, even decoratively (which is where a lot of my baking falls down). Will see what little miss thinks when she wakes up. It'll be quite funny carrying this down the road to Toddlers - think baby in backpack is in order.

Habbibi's birthday!

Our lovely little girl is one tomorrow, and I have big plans for cake. Thought I would start new bakery and general food-related blog as I think family would die of boredom if I start posting all this stuff in the usual place.

So - plan is to make a cake suitable for a load of one-year olds. Any cake will keep them happy, but we are all so very middle class that it is unseemly simply to make the Coca-cola cake and watch them all spin off into a caffeine and sugar-fuelled frenzy. So, fruity cake from the Green and Blacks cookbook it is (even though I now find Craig Sams a little odd, and am unhappy about the Cadbury's buy-out. The chocolate and the book are still lovely).

Am to bake cake soon (as soon as Habbibi's daddy has cleared the way in the kitchen), and then have somehow to find time to cover it in topping and artistically arranged fruit before 10am tomorrow. Oh, please nap, little Hab, and also please let me have a good night tonight...

Ha - just back down from the first waking.