Rustic style rainbow wedding cake

I haven't accepted any orders for wedding cakes before, because I never wanted to be under that much stress and pressure.  That's not to say that a birthday cake, or confirmation cake or order isn't stressful, as the cake will always be the centrepiece of the dessert table.  It's just that I've heard too many stories of bridezillas and the like, where the cake maker is under pressure of changed minds and specifications, despite contracts being agreed and whatnot.

So when I was contacted last winter for a wedding cake this summer, we sent many emails back and forth before coming to a mutual agreement of one stunning cake for their centrepiece.  The groom was one of the loveliest young men I've worked with in a long time, wanting to get everything just perfect for his bride.  He was kind, considerate of her feeling and wants, and a pleasure to work with. 

A rainbow cake is fun to make, but quite fiddly and time-consuming.  Then again, all the best things are, aren't they?  And those colours just make me happy!

I really like this shot, showing just a hint of what's underneath.  I had asked the groom to send me along a photo of them cutting the cake, so we could see the interior - but I guess they've got far more important things to remember than me, ha ha.  Like passports for their honeymoon I guess

Wishing Joe and Beth many many years of love and happiness, and a life as happy and colourful as the rainbow cake they chose...

P.S. Here's the update you've all been waiting for - photos of the couple and the cake at the venue...

 Doesn't it look lovely with those pretty pink and green flowers?

 And aww, aren't they just gorgeous!?! 

Every girl loves rainbows, and cookies

The girls get two weeks off school at Christmas-time, and because it's the Holiday season it kind of doesn't feel like they're really off school in the same way as other holiday periods.  I suppose it's because it's not as easy to arrange playdates the way we normally would - as other children are busy with their own families, cousins, grandparents and so on.  Nonetheless I managed to get hold of one friend, M, who enjoys baking too - and we decided upon using up some Smarties to make Rainbow Cookies.

They were very pleased to each get a chance to do some ingredient adding, some dough mixing and some cookie shaping.  As you can see, Mini-2 needed a helping hand to reach the counter-top comfortably.

Mini-1 is really rather tall, so needed no additional help to roll out the cookies and place them on the prepared baking tray.

Equally tall is her classmate M, who also enjoyed deciding just quite how much mix was to go in each precise dollop of dough...

Once baked, we noticed that the colour seemed to have baked right out!  I asked for advice on my Facebook page, and it was suggested that Smarties have mostly  natural colourings, so they lose them faster. I was recommended to try M&M's next time, as they wouldn't fade out in baking...  Of course, the girls didn't mind at all.  They were thrilled to be able to eat their delicious creations immediately, and take some home for the rest of M's family.  Well done girls!

One Direction goes rainbow

Since making the first rainbow cake for ourselves last year, I've been lucky enough to have a few orders for them.  This latest one was for a mad keen One Direction fan.  She wanted to surprise the rest of her family, so it was well hidden under a layer of white, with simple decorations.

I've just heard back from her Mother and it was enjoyed by all - it even scored dix points!  (well, it was Eurovision weekend ;) )

Happy rainbow birthday

A new friend of mine ordered something for her wedding anniversary, after reading about it here on this blog.  Then she said she fancied trying our fabulous-looking, delicious-tasting rainbow cake, after seeing it featured on here.  This made us both happy, her because she planned to surprise her middle child with the cake, and me because I got the chance to make it again.  Luckily, I had no other orders due on the same day, as this is a time-consuming cake.  I make up the batter, then separate and dye each layer's worth before baking it up in the coloured layers.

Then all over again, with a wash in between, as I don't have space to store enough of the same size of cake pan to have to do the job only once.  Nor is my oven big enough for that task.  The keener eyed of those among you may note that there are only 6 coloured tins of batter visible here.  Yes. That's correct.  Six is enough (ooh, that reminds me of a quite old, and probably now very dated, tv show from America called Eight is Enough, about a family with 6 kids.  Don't recall anything else about it, particularly, but there you go. That's how my mind works sometimes).

Anyway, as with the other times I've made this cake, I really like the look of it all white on the outside and then the beautiful surprise of the cutting.  But because this was for a young girl's 6th birthday, I fancied doing some pretty coloured butterflies fluttering around her cake, just to give a hint to the colourful interior.  I have edible glitter in a variety of shades, so was able to match the yellow, orange and red butterflies and make them sparkle.

I was sent an image of the interior by the happy parents, and am pleased with the intensity of colour.  

They were pleased with the whole thing - glittery butterflies, huge white cake and multi-coloured interior, and surprised me with this lovely thank you card and box of chocolates - wow guys, thank you so much.  It was not at all necessary, but very much appreciated.  Happy 6th Birthday Jessica!!

Rainbows for Eid

I was thrilled to be asked to make a rainbow cake again.  The last (only) one I'd done was for our  most recent wedding anniversary which was a few months ago now, so I was excited.  This one too was for a special occasion, Eid, so it had to be just right.

I remember hearing, (perhaps on Grey's Anatomy once?) that in medicine the operations/surgeries were See One, Do One, Teach One.  Now, whilst I'm not by any stretch of the imagination equating cake baking to surgical operations, it feels like it might be similar.  I've made one rainbow cake so I feel confident in making another, or talking someone through what worked for me.  Just saying...

Anyway, back to the matter at hand.  I again had to go next door to borrow her Wilton Sky Blue colouring, because I hadn't got around to buying me one yet.  I did see Dr Oetker's new gel paste colours on offer at my local Sainsbury's supermarket so I picked up a red, ultra violet and a sky blue for next time.  I tried out the red this time actually, and wasn't impressed.  It was red, but far too pale for my needs. 

My go-to brand for food colour is Sugarflair, but last time I needed red colouring I wasn't near a shop that sold it, so bought Wilton Red Red instead.  A touch of this into the pale colour I had for my batter and whoosh, a much deeper colour.  I didn't want to add too much in case it affected the taste, so left it at that.

Once again the cake was pleasingly tall and full, and I covered it in white buttercream icing (though could probably have done with a couple of crumb-coats, and have made a note of this for next time) and picked out one of the colours to make the plaque.  The customer's hubby collected the cake, as she was so busy in her kitchen cooking up the feast, and he was kind enough to ask her to send me a couple of photos once it was cut. 

Thanks to her we have these fun shots of the interior, and you can see what I mean by the not-as-bright-as-last-time red of the first layer.  Still great fun though, and what great light she had in her next photo!

And the best part?  Her family loved the cake she chose for their celebration.  Eid Mubarak everyone.

Rainbows, cake and another anniversary...

Mr Becca and I have been together for a long time.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say a Very Long Time (as per Winnie the Pooh), and most of the time it's great.  We were really young when we met, and talked about growing old together.  It's really happening, gosh.

I'd seen a fabulous rainbow cake on another Facebook baker's page and she was kind enough to give her take on how she'd made the cake.  She made it seem not difficult, and I felt like I wanted to give it a go too.  I thought it'd be a lovely surprise for him for our wedding anniversary today.

I needed to borrow the ice blue from my neighbour but had all the other paste colours to hand.

The yellow and green I had bought specifically, so was quite surprised when the yellow paste came out orange.  But was really happy when it came up sunshine yellow upon mixing, woo hoo!

Aren't the colours great? I had to use 1/4 tsp of the gel per tin, but it was worth it - and didn't affect the taste at all. Because I only have 3 8" tins (all exactly the same, from the same shop) I could only bake 3 colours at once. They only took 16 minutes, but then it was time to wash everything down, ready for tomorrow morning.  Instead, I wanted to cut out the wording for the cake with my new Patchwork Cutter alphabet set.  I didn't have flower paste, or mexican paste - only sugarpaste (also known as ready to roll icing) and tylo/cmc powder.  And no experience.  Which led to tears of frustration!  Mr Becca popped in and out of the kitchen (under my watchful eye, so as not to ruin the surprise) and was surprised at how angry I got at the darn cutters, grrr.  Some helpful Facebook fans gave me many hints and tips, and I eventually managed this...

I did two sets, in case one broke somehow.  The next morning, Mini-2 and I got cracking on the remaining layers required.  She's getting to be a dab hand at cracking eggs, and we always crack them into a small bowl so we can pick out any stray bits of shell that may fall in, before we transfer it to the main mixing bowl.  No shell, woo hoo!

She wanted to add in some of the colour gel paste, so here she is doing the green one.

And here's the next three colours of the rainbow, ready to be baked.  I'm not sure why, but I didn't take a photo of the purple before it was baked, sorry.

Once the batters were all sorted and in the oven, she was in her element - utensil licking, ha ha.

I made multiple batches of my signature buttercream icing, using 1kg of icing sugar - gee whizz that stressed out my poor Kenwood!  I had wanted to try out a new petal icing technique, but after layering the individual coloured cakes and crumb-coating the whole assembled cake it didn't look like I'd have enough, boo hoo.
So I tried to get the final layer of buttercream as smooth as possible, and it looked not too bad I think.  It was sitting in the kitchen overnight, and today Mr Becca came down early enough (he's on annual leave this week) that the girls were still having breakfast.  When he saw the cake he said, 'That's some size of cake!'.  Despite them ruining the surprise and saying, 'It's a rainbow cake Daddy!' I cut into it and he was really surprised to see the rainbow - I think it's okay to say he loved it!

Sadly, the heart cracked as I placed it on the cake (lucky I'm not superstitious, isn't it?) so I know to do the decorations just before they need to be placed so they can mould to the cake shape for next time.

It was a rather large cake - 8" round and a full 5" tall!!  So we shared, a lot.  One of my favourite local photographers, Jill at Aspire2be.creative, enjoyed her slices, eventually! ha ha.