Ombre Naked Cake with Red Roses and Diamonds

A couple, whom I respect and love, celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary last week! I was given the great privilege of making their cake for the party on Saturday. Between my problematic right arm and their dislike of too much icing, we decided that a naked cake was in order, decorated simply with roses (I can still make these, though they take 3 to 4 times as long).

I included many edible gems, since the 60th Anniversary is also the Diamond Anniversary.

I decided that I wanted the cake to be ombre, graduating from vanilla at the top to dark chocolate at the bottom. I did careful calculations to get my ratios correct and my batters came out looking good.

Unfortunately the crusts came out too dark, so the ombre is very subtle. A bit more experimentation will be required. I used clear plastic collars when sandwiching the cakes, both to keep the icing layers tidy and as support in transport. The cake was then assembled on site.

We had to keep a fan on the cake all evening as the weather was so hot, we were afraid it would melt. As it turns out, we we right to be afraid. Once the cake was moved away from the fan for cutting, it didn't take long for the icing to start melting.

The ombre looked much better on the inside.

Baby Blessing Cake

So you may have noticed that there have not been very many decorated cakes on my blog lately. This is because I am having some problems with my right arm (shoulder and neck issues) which also happens to be my dominant arm. As a result, I can barely use my arm or hand and have had to cancel all of my cake orders. But there was one cake I just had to make - my friend's baby's blessing cake. Only, I didn't actually make the cake, my friend did, under my direction. Doesn't it look amazing? And she has never done anything like this before either!

The cake is a chocolate/vanilla chequerboard cake, all stuck together with ganache.

Then covered in buttercream - just look at those straight lines.

And then the white fondant (I love The Mat by Sweetwise).

She was so amazed and happy that it worked!

Well done my friend!

Articles of Faith {printable}

We have recently moved into our beautiful new home, and I had a blank wall in the family room that was begging for something bright and cheerful to fill it. I came across some beautifully composed and colourful Articles of Faith printables (by It's Always Autumn) via Pinterest. As soon as I saw them I knew that they were what I wanted on my wall.

For those who don't know, we are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The Articles of Faith are 13 statements which summarise the basic points of belief of the members of our church. We are encouraged, from childhood, to be very familiar with these statements, and even memorise them.

I have a thing about symmetry and am not a fan of prime numbers above 5, so the idea of hanging 13 frames on the wall was quite unappealing. So I designed two more pictures to match the set, one of Jesus Christ, and one of a temple, to make it a set of 15. If you would like to download either of these images, please click on the pictures below. 

Just to add a bit of baking to this post - here are the desserts made for our house warming party. They include lemon meringue pie, trifle, chocolate pie, vanilla bundt cake, chocolate fudge cake, rocky road brownies, chic-chip cookies, New York cheese cake and gingerbread houses. Now our house is really a home!

But, there's no such thing as a Gruffalo!

Thanks to a lovely new friend, we have been getting to know all our local parks (we moved home very recently.) One of our favourites has to be the deep, dark wood, where we happened upon the Gruffalo!

I just had to share this photo of my beautiful doggie too!