birthday baking

 It's daughter's 13th birthday tomorrow and she's having her friend round for tea and to go ice-skating at the local rink before tea.  So I've baked a few cookies.

 She didn't want a big cake so I've baked some muffins, I'll ice them quickly in the morning

I've borrowed a cake stand from my friend and as luck would have it, if I take off the bottom tier it has space for 13 cakes, I've put it on this nice cake plate.  I'm going to serve the muffins like this with a few candles stuck into the top cake.

Then on Saturday we're having a family tea party so I'll be doing loads more baking.

100th Birthday Cake - Finished

 Here's the finished two tier cake

And a closer picture of the top tier, complete with ribbons and roses.

Icing Tier 1

 With just under a week to go 'til the big party, I had to ice Tier 1 (fruit) of the cake otherwise I simply won't have time to do everything this week.  It's not ideal as I fear the cake will dry out too much but it's the way it has to be.

After searching widely for pictures of birthday cakes on the Internet, I looked into a book I have and was inspired to create this.  It's also very fitting as my nan actually gave me the book about 14 years ago when I first started making birthday cakes for my children.  (It's very nostalgic looking back through it to see which cakes I have tried to create versions of over the years...)

 Enough nostalgia and back to the cake.  Daughter thought lilac would be a good colour my nan's cake.  Lot's of the cakes on the Internet were pink, but I do agree that lilac or peach are better colour's for my nan. So lilac was the main colour for the icing on the first tier and the edge of the board is covered with lilac ribbon.  Then I created drapes round each corner out of semi-circles of white rolling icing and made roses out of the same rolling icing.  I'm not very good at piping icing but I am quite reasonable at modelling! For an added special touch I had bought some edible glitter and dipped each rose in that before attaching to the cake

This picture shows how the cake pillars will fit onto the large circle on the top of the cake, with the Chocolate cake (Tier 2) on top. 

Cake continues

 Slowly but surely the special occasion cake is making progress.  Daughter made the round chocolate top tier yesterday.  I've wrapped it up carefully and put it in the freezer ready to ice nearer to the day.  I've done this many times in the past with Birthday cakes and it does save a last minute panic.

And I put the marzipan on the bottom fruit cake layer.  After preparing the cake board by covering it with white ready roll icing.

Bake me a cake

Thanks for the comments to the last blog on cake recipes.  I asked at work as well as there is a fantastic lady who specialises in baking and icing cakes.  Every one seems to agree that the Delia Smith Christmas cake recipe is a good one.

Here's my version of it.  It seems to have come out well and I certainly hope it tastes good as it's going to be the bottom tier of the 100th birthday cake.  

I'm going to be amazingly busy for the next few weeks what with the cake and the preparation for Christmas. I've started on my dress for the party, which is a rather smart red day dress with a gathered and ruffled front, and next weekend I'm making the Christmas pud.  Then there's the chocolate top tier of the cake to bake and both cakes to ice by which time Christmas will be well and truly upon us.