to the beach!

This mini cake was inspired by 'my cake decorating' magazine and it's perfect to get you in the holiday mood!

What you need before you start?

• your ready made cake / muffin(s), ideally taller than it is wide
• red and blue ready to roll out icing
• digestive biscuits
• edible glue & clean paintbrush
• butter icing
• white chocolate star fish and shells (optional)

Firstly apply crumb coat to the cake, this will keep in the moisture and keep all the pesky little crumbs staying in place (and not sticking to your icing!)

Allow a few hours for the crumb coat to set, ideally this needs to be done in the fridge. I usually do this the night before I plan on decorating my cake.

Using your red icing, separate it into 2 balls. One large and one small. Roll the large ball into a rectangle big enough to wrap around the sides of your cake.to give the cake a neat seam along the back, use a sharp knife to cut along when the icing will meet at the back.

Using the small ball of red icing roll out a long ribbon of icing. This will provide the rim you usually see on buckets. Using a sharp knife, cut the edges so that the rim looks tidy. Use edible glue to attach this to your cake.

Crush the digestives until fine crumbs. Apply a thick layer of butter icing to the top of the bucket and dust with the crumbs. This will create sand.

Roll a small ball of blue icing in the palm of your and using your finger tips until it becomes a long 'worm' shape. Attach this to either side of the bucket with edible glue to create your handle.

Place the starfish and shells on top of your cake

If you have more time, or want to personalize the cake for a family member or friend, you can change the colour of the bucket, add a cartoon character... The possibilities are endless!

If you don't like digestive biscuits, why not try rich tea or shortbread?

Love,

Melissa 
xx

P.s. if you want to check out the magazine mentioned go to... http://www.mycakedecorating.co.uk/

Hey Everyone :)

Just thought I'd do a quick blog to update you on what to expect soon and what I've been up to recently!

As you all know it was fathers last Sunday so I have a brilliant recipe for chocolate cake, and although the decoration is not what I usually do, it looks delicious! I will do a blog with the recipe too because I know how hard it is to get the perfectly moist chocolate cake.

... I didn't stop there for Father's day though!! I have also given modelling a go and made a icing model of my dad!! It looks awesome and I couldn't stop giggling when I made him. I will also pop a blog on here how I made this little model which can be tweaked to be how you want your characters to look.

Taking inspirations from "My Cake Decorating" magazine, I also made my bucket cake. I love how simple and effective some of the techniques used to decorate this cake are! 

Also, I am preparing myself to do a special birthday cake.. A Game of Thrones cake! I can't wait to show you the results of this cake!

Please follow me on Twitter to keep up to date with how I am doing and when new blogs are out; @melissa_CAKE! ( https://twitter.com/melissa_CAKE )

Much Love!

Melissa 

xx

Lavender Blossom Cake.

Hi Everyone!

My recent cake is the 'Lavender Blossom Cake', named this because of it's little pink and lilac flowers. I want to apologise now - it is not perfect. I made it a little bit last minute so there is loads of room for improvement (it could definitely have used another crumb coat to smooth out the bumps!). But I want to show you how I did it because it is a striking cake and is really simple to decorate. Also it can be adapted to use other colours and flowers quite easily.

I first placed my cake onto the cake board and using butter icing I added my crumb coat. A crumb coat is a thin layer of butter icing which seals in the loose crumbs, keeps moisture in the cake and smooths out any lumps or bumps. If you have time (and have a cake which isn't smooth like mine) you can add another layer of butter icing after your initial crumb coat has been left to harden. Adding more layers of butter icing will add more flavour, however too much butter icing will make the cake slightly harder to decorate as it will be softer underneath. 

I then added my white icing. I used ready to roll out icing to do this. I didn't use anything to stick the icing to the cake as the crumb coat will hold it in place.

Next I cut out the flowers, I used 2 different sized flower cutters with different petals to add variety to the cake, however you can use whatever cutters you have available. If you are making larger flowers, I would suggest having a few smaller ones to break it up and also add more colour and texture. 

My pink flowers, or blossom, have been made using a small star shaped cutter (which has rounded edges). I pressed my finger slightly in the middle to give them a more realistic look and stuck red, white and blue balls in the centre for more colour and definition. I used edible glue to stick the balls in the centre as it dries clear and adds no flavour, unlike icing sugar.

The purple flowers, or lavender, are made using a small flower shaped plunger cutter. This added a little bit of definition to the flowers and because of their size, I left them as they were.

The leaves and stalks are made using a leave plunger cutter and I made the stalks by rolling icing into a strip and pressing slightly harder at one end to make it more narrow and have a point.

I placed the parts onto the cake where I wanted them to be and, using edible glue and a clean fine paintbrush, I stuck the parts in place.

To finish my cake I added a dark blue ribbon which I got from my local craft shop. Adding a ribbon is a really easy way of adding colour and covering up a messy edge cheaply and quickly. Most craft shops sell ribbon from 10p per metre, depending on its thickness and pattern. I have found using a simple mix of icing and water is best to hold the ribbon in place as edible glue just seems to seep through the material rather than stick it to the cake.

I hope this helps and, if you do make one yourself, please tweet me a picture!

Love 

Melissa xx