Going back a bit ....

So I decided to go back and have a look at some of the stuff I've done in the past. This post is dedicated to some of the stuff from 2012. I apologise in advance for any "k*k" photo's and any spelling mistakes.

Cupcake Order

One of my best buddies was moving to East London :(  But a year later she came back .. Yay! It was my first attempt at a car sculptured cake and I have to admit, it's not as easy as it looks on the youtube videos.

Simple wedding cake.  The groom was Chinese, so the Bride wanted the cherry tree with Red and Gold blossems for good fortune.

One of the cake classes I attended held by Grace Stevens (Cupcakes By Design). It was so much fun and I learned a lot and made a bunch of great friends! I would recommend her classes when she's up in JHB.  Currently she does a show on TV too!

Just some pretty cupcakes for a party.

Spiderman figurine Cake.

  

This was a first birthday cake for my niece.  My Skoon-sis sent me pics of her favourite toy ... her sheep and asked me to make one as a topper for the cake.  When we took a photo of the toy and topper together ... I was quite impressed with the outcome.

A birthday cake for a friends mom.

My first attempt at a pirate ship cake.  I forgot to take a pic once I put the Capt Jack on top ... silly me.

Finding Nemo cake toppers I made for an order

The rest of the Tank crew.  I was chuffed with my little "squirt"

My daddy turned 75 and had a great party.  I got my incredibly talented Sister-in-law (Skoonie no. 2) to create the picture and I then had it printed out on edible paper.  I had to laugh at the party when a few of my dad's friends tried to open the "book".

This was a cake for a friend of mines grandchilds birth.  The cow was to represent her daughter, whom she calls Moo, the bear was to represent their surname "von bier"and the dragon was to follow through on their babys room decoration theme and that it was the year of the dragon.

Tie-dyed flower cake

A cake for a little boy who loves aliens and space ships.

An order for a "Smurf cake" 

Man United Fan birthday cake.

A globe cake that I made for a company party. Thank you Fiona Mclean for teaching me how to make a globe!!

My son's PS3 birthday cake.  Yes, the controller is fondant.

A sweet 16th birthday for a friends daughter

A 40th cake for my cousin's friend who loves Dorothy from Wizard of Oz

My first attempt at a hand painted cake

Baby smurf cake topper order.

A first birthday cake for a little girl Megan who loves her parents Ipad and anything apple :)

A simple birthday cake

A Holy Communion Cake for a friends daughter.  

A Holy Communion cake for my daughter. Her and her friend made their Holy Communion on the same day, so I was rushing with two cakes to make.  They both wanted the same colours.  I will however think twice, and maybe a third and forth time before making a cross shaped cake again.  It was very difficult to cover in one piece of fondant.

Ok, so the story behind this very bright and unusual cake was ... a 21st birthday.  The theme was Lumo, she wanted a peace sign and a meditating spongebob square pants ... I have no idea why and emoticons.

A 7th birthday cake for a swimming party

First birthday - Minnie Mouse theme

I did a workshop with Fiona Mclean (the Chairlady from the Randburg Branch of the South African Cake Decorators Guild) on making Gingerbread Houses and decided to make a bunch for Christmas gifts and fill them with choccies.  A very expensive exercise and a lot of work, but still fun to make.

I did got a few Craftsy classes for my birthday and wanted to try out what I learned.  The flowers and "icing cage" were from a class by Colette Peters and the clever frill border at the top was from Joshua John Russells class. Yeah I know, I suck at piping.

A baby shower cake for my husband's cousin.

Some babyshower cupcakes.

A baby shower Bear cake.  My first attempt at a bear.  Boy am I glad I decided to use buttercream and not fondant to ice it

Another "baby shower" cake.  This was a very clever idea I thought. Instead of a baby shower they had a "big sister" shower so the sister was included and didn't feel left out.

My birdcage class I took with Grace Stevens - was very cuffed with the outcome.

My son's cake from 2011

A fairy birthday cake ... I was starting figurines and they aren't the best, but still sorta cute I think.

Father's day patchwork cake

Pamper party cupcakes

My daughter's birthday cake.  She "designed" it and had very definite ideas about how she wanted it.  It had to have a minecraft horse on top because she loves minecraft and horses. She then wanted a blue layer with her name on it, a purple layer with pink flowers and finally a rainbow coloured tier at the bottom - Go Sandy!

A Noah's ark cake

Puppy dog cupcakes

Racing car cake.  The car took 3 tries (fondant) before I got it looking like a car.

So those were a few of the things from 2012....

Hope you enjoyed!

And so time flies ....

And so time flies away again and here I am only blogging again 7 months later ... FAIL!  Oh well such is life.  Working half day, doing to kiddie runs and the normal ups and downs of life happen, so I'm not going to feel too guilty about it ... not much anyway.  ok, so maybe I'll just agree to disagree with myself about feeling guilty about it :).

So whats been happening in the meantime.  I've been busy ... but not making a huge amount of cakes unfortunately.  I joined the South African Cake Decorators Guild about 2 years ago and go to monthly meetings.  It's really a great way to get in touch with like-minded people and the women are really wonderful.  They are always full of ideas, tips, tricks, recipes and hold wonderful Dem days and workshops.  The branch I belong to meets on the 3rd Saturday of the month and there is normally a Dem of some description that takes place and if we are really lucky ... a workshop!  I love workshops. Unfortunately as many of you know, doing cake workshops are normally really costly.  Through the the various branches of the SACDG they are really reasonable and affordable.  The Guild also has various Exhibition days in the various regions throughout the year.

I had previously only entered once before at the National Show in 2013 - the theme was masks and I got a silver for my entry. I was quite proud of it.

The next entry I was disappointed when I only got a bronze for my floral entry. The event was tied to a Garden show in PTA and the entry needed to be a sugarpaste version of a hand-held wedding bouquet. I lost points on the base being the wrong colour and I had a fair amount of difficulty due to the weather suddenly turning very wet and having rain for 2 weeks solid. The flowers didn't dry properly, the paste was very sticky so it was difficult to try to roll it very thin and dusting was a nightmare as everything was wet ... not something I'm used to dealing with in JHB.

In March this year, the Bloemfontein branch had a show day with an African theme. Now I'm a novice still (you need to get 3 gold certificates in any one section in order to move up a section).  I was really surprised and very chuffed when I got my first gold, and won "First Gold" which means I won the section.

Last week (8th Sept 2014) was the Orchid Show at the Sandton Convention Center and I decided to be ambitious and enter twice. (In show days there are normally two options per section - a fondant creation and a cake)  I entered the sugarpaste section as well as the cake section.  I was sad to get only an bronze for my Orchids and a Silver for the cake. For the Orchid stem (second picture) I must have made over 50 orchids before I got some that looked realistic and didn't break when I wired them together.

Anyway, that's it for me for now. 

Love

S

Some of the things I made on my Learn to Craft - How to cover a cake in fondant course

So these are some of the things I learned to make on the first "Learn to Craft" course I did. The first (sidways - sorry) picture showed us how to make mini cala lilys and how to marble fondant. (You may notice the "Let them eat cake", which is what I originally wanted to call my business, but unfortunately I found there was already a company in Johannesburg with that name, so after much brainstorming on Facebook with all my buddies, we decided on Angelic Cakes By Sarah)

The course also taught how to make modelling chocolate roses and leaves.

And finally how to use a cutter (that cuts and veins in one) to make flowers and leaves, how to stack and dowel a cake with bubble straws.