I am sooo proud of this cake! I created it for the Dublin Sugarcraft Competition 2012, and it won a Gold medal in the Wedding Cakes category

It was lovely to be able to design a cake just for myself, and put whatever I liked on it.  I have a soft spot for vintage birdcage cakes, and had bought some cute little bird moulds recently.  I also love the effect of sugarveil icing, and how putting it over coloured sugarpaste makes it looks like real lace.  This competition cake consists of a 12″ bottom tier, 9″ middle tier and the birdcage is 6″ wide.  I piped the bars on the birdcage with royal icing. and made the hydrangea blossoms and yellow roses from flower paste.   I love the pastel colours of this cake – duck egg blue, soft pink and lemon.  A change from all-white wedding cakes!

I made this wedding cake for my cousin Peter and his bride, Michelle.  The wedding colours were purple and silver, and they wanted hearts and little flowers on the cake.  I cut out hearts from gumpaste and painted them with edible silver paint.  I also cut out some purple hearts, and put them on wires to make them “burst” out of the top of the cake.  The flower stems on the sides of the cakes were piped with royal icing and I did some brush embroidery on the leaves.  I then painted the stems and leaves with the edible silver paint too.  It’s lovely to make a wedding cake and be a guest at the reception to see the reaction to it – luckily everyone loved it, and it was gobbled up pretty fast!

The cake itself was a 12″ chocolate biscuit cake, 10″ white chocolate and lime sponge, and 8″ fruit cake.  I have a lovely silver cake stand with cutout hearts, and put some purple material behind it to bring out the detail of the hearts.

Una from Lucan ordered this cake for her son Blain’s 21st birthday party.  He was having quite a big party, so I made a 12″ chocolate biscuit cake as the square base on the bottom.  Blain is a huge Man United fan, so I made a football from a 6″ spherical cake, and hand-carved a football boot from sponge too.  The boot took quite a while to make – it’s important to get all the tiny details just right!  I added a couple of little acoustic guitars at the front as Blain also plays guitar, and a few little footballs around the sides so that it wouldn’t look too bare!

Sandra ordered this cake and matching cupcakes for her daughter Ciara’s 21st birthday party in NV nightclub on Leeson Street in Dublin.  Ciara absolutely adored Tinkerbell and was having a whole Tinkerbell-themed party.  I handmade a little model of Tink for the top of the cake from modelling paste.  To get really delicate wings, I made them out of gelatine a few days in advance and let them dry fully before attaching them to the model.  I placed Tinkerbell on a little cake card in the centre of a flower on top of the cake, so that she could be lifted off easily and kept after the party.

The 2-tier cake is made up of a 6-inch vanilla sponge filled with vanilla buttercream, and an 8-inch chocolate sponge, filled with chocolate buttercream.  I tinted sugarpaste a mint-green colour to cover the cakes with, and then airbrushed them with edible pearlescent paint to give it a beautiful lime-green shimmery finish.  I handmade some small pink flowers to decorate the cake with, and for the tops of the matching cupcakes.

I got a lovely text from Sandra the next day, thanking me for the cake.  Ciara loved it so much that she wouldn’t let anyone cut the main cake yet!!  She did let them eat the cupcakes though…  That’s what I love to hear – customers who are thrilled with my cake creations

Ann from Maynooth ordered this cake for her son Ben.  I actually made Ben’s Christening cake – love my repeat customers!  I made a vanilla sponge with vanilla buttercream, and carved it into the shape of the number 2.  I handmade 4 little characters to go on the cake – Special Agent Oso, Mickey Mouse, Lightning McQueen and a little white West Highland Terrier.  They are all little Ben’s favourites.

I also made a dozen matching cupcakes with the number 2 on them.  A closeup picture of the handmade and completely edible models is below