Rainbow Mandala Cake

I am a little bit obsessed with anything to do with henna patterns and the flower design, I never knew what it was called until now, a Mandala. I've seen them in both simple black and full color, I love the vibrancy of the coloured ones so I thought it would make an awesome pattern on top of a cake!

Using Royal icing, some rainbow food colours and my already butter creamed pink vanilla cake.
You can change up the colours and customise it exactly the way you like.
If you'd like to know how I did this cake, watch the video below.
Infite x's and o's

Decorated Cakes I've made this year

This year was quite a year for decorated cakes. I usually love to make someone a cake as their birthday present instead of an actual gift. I'm still planning on doing a Christmasy themed one closer to the middle of December, maybe a christmas present box (ideas?). I thought I would share my cakes of 2014  with you all for inspiration and to just keep you up to date.

I made this cake for my brother's birthday. As you can see, he's a Lord of the rings fan. The base is a dark chocolate mud cake, covered in fondant and the piping is buttercream (if I were to do it again I would use royal icing as it is too thick)

This cake is in the shape of a monster hat which I made for a friend who constantly wears this identical hat. It is a white chocolate base, everything else is fondant except the white piping which is royal icing.

 This cake is my birthday cake, I had a neon lights birthday party, So i thought it suited the theme. Is it sad to make your own birthday cake? Pfffft no. The base is a dark chocolate mud cake, covered in black fondant and drizzled over the top is  royal icing coloured with neon food colours.

For my second brother's birthday this year I made him a glock cake, since he is a police officer. He thought it was pretty funny. The base is a chocolate mud cake and the icing is chocolate ganache coloured black (except for the white, which is white chocolate) 

 For a friend who is a Stargate fanatic I made him a Stargate cake. The base is a chocolate mud. The grey icing is butter cream and the details are fondant and royal icing.

This cake is a simple chocolate mud cake and I have just piped on a henna style pattern with royal icing.

Hopefully this inspired you! I hope you're all having a lovely week and good luck in your own cake decorating endeavours! 

Infinite x's and o's

Elena 

Lord Of The Rings Book Cake

Last week both my older brothers celebrated their birthdays within three days of each-other. 

Last year I made my brother Chris who was at the time working as a mechanic a wrench cake and my other brother who just became a police officer a police shirt cake. I'm definitely not a professional cake decorator but this year I wanted to do something a little bit different and knew that Chris's favourite book is The lord of the Rings (we have that in common). So I thought I would make him what I envisioned the book to look like.

The cake underneath is just a chocolate mud cake and I used marzipan instead of white fondant to give the pages of the book a more aged and a less pure white look.

 I ended up melting some dark chocolate and adding it to the marzipan to create brown.
After I added the chocolate I rolled the marzipan in a lot of cocoa to make it less sticky. When you melt chocolate in anything you have to work quite quickly before it sets and will start to crack

The writing is buttercream icing which I coloured gold. I think the next time I make a cake with this much detail I will definitely use royal icing and paint it on with a paintbrush. I tried my hand at elvish on the bottom of the book, if you can read elvish then you probably won't be able to read that.
The ring is fondant which I shaped and painted with gold colouring. 

Hope you're having an excellent week!

Infinite x's and o's,

Elena

2 minute super moist mocha mug cake!

Yes, yes I did!
I love  mug cakes. They're quick, easy, no need for an oven and tastes great.
 I've made a few mug cakes previously but they have always ended up dry, spongey or eggy and gross.
I decided to try my own recipe and see if I could fix some of the previous problems I had. Not tooting my own horn, but... I fixed it and I fixed it good.
This literally takes 1 minute in the microwave (if your microwave is set to high which mine is, if not 2 minutes)

To make the cake you will need:

-2 tbsp of self-raising flour
-2 tbsp of caster sugar
-1 tbsp cocoa powder
-1 tbsp of butter or oil, melted.(I used half a tablespoon of butter and half coconut oil)
- 1/2 tbsp of sour cream
-1 tbsp milk
-1 tsp vanilla essence
-1 tsp of strongly brewed espresso coffee (or 1 tsp of instant coffee dissolved in a small amount of water)

Combine all the ingredients in a cup and mix until smooth. Then microwave for 1-2 minutes (depending on your microwave setting) the cake should just spring back when touched.

Once the cake has been cooked, prepare the icing (or you could leave it as is, up to you):

-3 1/2 tbsp of icing sugar
-2 tbsp of cream cheese
-1 tsp strongly brewed espresso coffee (or instant)
- 1 tbsp cocoa
- 1 tsp vanilla
- chocolate for decoration (and nums)

Combine all the ingredients in the bowl until thoroughly mixed and there are no lumps. Spoon over the icing onto the cake, dust with some icing sugar then top with your chocolate and done!

If you would like to watch the video version of this recipe, the link is below:

Happy baking and I hope you're having an excellent start to the week!

Infinite x's and o's,

Elena