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CRESCENT CAKES ~ BY KATH

Recipes, photographs and stories about cake decorating and baking




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SUNDAY, 27 NOVEMBER 2016


FOOTBALL MUM


I think Sally, who turned 50 this weekend, deserves a 'Football Mum of the Year'
award!




It takes a certain kind of person to stand on the touchline week in week out
whatever the weather throws at you - and when we both lived in Wales that was
generally very wet stuff! It also takes dedication to take, and later follow,
your offspring around the county or country to the weekly match. Then there is
the never ending pile of muddy kit, if you were very unlucky you used to end up
with the whole teams kit to wash.




I grudgingly took my turn taking our 2 lads and friends to matches but was
secretly pleased when one decided he didn't want to play football any more and
the other got lifts with car driving friends. Sally, who I made this cake for,
has 4 sporty off-spring and has supported them throughout - today they still
play for a range of local and league teams, one even plays for a national team.




There were quite a few elements to incorporate into the design of the cake which
her husband Chris had requested on ordering it - the house Sally loves, her
family and their dog. I added in a few football touches - the rice paper shirts
on the washing line, the scarves and a football. I think she liked it - her
comment on seeing it was 'there were tears'... which is what most of us do when
our beloved teams win or lose! 





Posted by Kath on Sunday, November 27, 2016 2 comments:
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SATURDAY, 15 OCTOBER 2016


BAKING IN BODRUM


 
When Dave and I lived in Bodrum in Turkey in the mid 80's our little flat didn't
have an oven - there's a lot you can do with 2 hob rings and a grill but baking
cakes definitely wasn't one of them. Nowadays thankfully Annie has a pretty
standard oven in her house and she had already made three delicious, differently
flavoured, cakes ready for me to ice and decorate.
 

 
Over the past couple of weeks in the UK I had made a selection of unwired
flowers, petals and leaves which I packaged carefully to carry in my cabin hand
baggage - I really didn't want them confiscated at the airport security checks.
Annie, Esi and I had been sharing a few ideas about the design and I knew my
turntable and trustee palette knife would be needed together with four cake
boards, some wooden dowel rods, ribbon, posy picks and a couple of personalised
wooden cake toppers. Cue some minimalist clothes packing to make space for the
above!



 
Annie and I bought up all the available icing sugar in the local Turkish
supermarkets. It seemed to be much grittier than its UK equivalent and the
butter was much more .... umm .... buttery! Annie thankfully had a sturdy
Kitchen Aid which made light work of knocking up a massive batch of butter
icing.
 

 
The twelve layers were levelled and assembled into three cakes which were filled
with flavoured butter cream before crumb coating and refrigerating. A thicker
layer of butter cream was then applied and a horizontal ribbon effect achieved
by holding the palette knife at an angle and turning each cake carefully on the
turntable.
 

 
Annie decorated the bottom board with olive leaves from the trees in her garden
and I positioned a few simple flowers, petals and leaves around the cake.
 

 
With the temperature in the high 20's the cake stayed inside in a cool room
until after the main meal. It was a real honour to be asked to decorate the cake
for Esi & Celal - what a lovely couple. Tebrik ederiz....
 

 

Jake getting in on the act!




 
 

 
 




Posted by Kath on Saturday, October 15, 2016 12 comments:
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SUNDAY, 17 JULY 2016


ROME WASN'T BUILT IN A DAY....


Rome wasn't built in a day..... and neither was this bespoke 50th Birthday Cake
- a model of the Church Inn Pub at Mobberley, Cheshire! 





One day I'll keep a really accurate record (down to the last minute maybe) of
how much input and time a cake like this takes to create. But for now lets say
it took in excess of 20 hours!! Apart from the Champagne bottle candle every
part of the cake is totally edible.




L - Real Church Inn at Mobberley        R - My sugarpaste recreation

 




 


 


That includes planning, quoting, ordering items, making and cooking the cake
base, carving the shape, levelling the layers, making and applying buttericing,
covering the board, base covering the cake, colouring the fondant icing, making
and 'fixing' the walls, roof and chimneys, applying the rice paper windows and
doors, piping the ivy foilage, making the following - the plants, the hanging
sign, the picnic table, the model (including clothes and hair), the tennis balls
and tennis bag, and FINALLY cutting out and applying the lettering.





Phew.........time for a drink - cheers Amanda!!!




Posted by Kath on Sunday, July 17, 2016 2 comments:
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MONDAY, 28 MARCH 2016


MODERN MARKETING


Market.... 



Noun - 'a regular gathering of people for the purchase and sale of provisions,
livestock and other commodities'


Verb -  'to advertise or promote'.....



Shrewsbury Indoor Market



The last couple of months have been spent marketing my new business and products
in quite diverse ways.



Country Markets Stall



Stepping back in time (to the traditional notion of what a market is) I have
been selling cakes, tarts and biscuits on a co-operative stall within the indoor
market hall in Shrewsbury. The stall is part of the nationwide Country Markets 
network which had it's beginnings as the WI stalls back in 1919. Nearly 100
years on it is interesting to see that whilst the world has moved on this little
stall in a corner of the market retains a feel and clientele of a by-gone age.
The Market Hall itself is buzzing with cafes, art stalls, artisan jewelers,
trendy fabric and wool stalls, a chocolatier, fruit & veg stalls, fishmongers,
butchers, and bakers ... not sure there's a candle maker! See the Youtube Video
below -







The Country Markets stall sells preserves, cakes, breads, pastries, flowers,
plants, cards, knitted items, bird boxes, bunting and numerous other items but
it struggles to attract new customers and new producers. I saw it as an
opportunity to test the 'market' really and wasn't really sure how my style of
cakes would sell. I took over from a retiring producer who had made the Victoria
Sponge Cakes for years, eeeks I thought, the pressure was on to fill some pretty
big traditional cake making shoes there. I have introduced some new items to the
stall - some with success, others not so. Every few weeks I take my turn to help
out on the stall and speaking to the customers I gather useful feedback. 


I prep on a Thursday evening, bake all day Friday and hope it sells on the
Saturday. I haven't had much returned unsold and any that has I have given to
friends and neighbours!



A selection of my produce wrapped and ready for market




Bang up to date I am trying to get up to speed with modern marketing -
using Twitter and Facebook to find new customers as well as creating a website
to showcase my cakes. It's a very different form of marketing and needs careful
planning, time-management and researching to ensure your content is reaching
your market, is interesting, isn't all about selling and you post consistently.
Having blogged for a few years (about our travels and my cakes) the IT side of
it isn't the issue it is just the time required to keep on top of it all.





Having spent years in administration I thought my venture into cake decorating
would be an escape from all that - it's turning out not quite to be as I
envisaged! But I really mustn't complain as my first cake commission has come
through a Twitter retweet ..... get with it Kath!!


  

Posted by Kath on Monday, March 28, 2016 2 comments:
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THURSDAY, 21 JANUARY 2016


A LITTLE RUFFLED AROUND THE EDGES


This is a new technique for me and I'll confess that although it looks quite
difficult it was actually surprisingly easy to master. The ombre look is one
that's been doing the fashion and beauty rounds for a while now - having first
been popular in the early 19th Century and more recently in the 2000's!! Last
year it became a popular cake finish too either in fondant or butter cream. I'm
not sure if I'm too late to this party but it's a lovely effect that can be
adapted to different occasions - wedding, christening, birthday.





Here's my quick guide to achieving this effect but if videos are your thing
there are plenty of good tutorials on Youtube. The kit you will need is
photographed below and includes -
A ball tool
A ribbon cutter (I use an FMM Multi Ribbon Tool)
Cornflour for dusting
A foam board
Small rolling pin
Edible glue (Squires Kitchen)
Paste Colour (I used Squires Kitchen Bluegrass Professional Paste Colour)
Fondant icing




I started with about 100g of white fondant and coloured it to the darkest
colour. My top tip is to use a cocktail stick to dot the paste colour onto the
icing and then throw it away - saves fingers and utensils getting covered in
colour. Cut the ball in half and wrap half to stop it from drying out. Mix the
other half (50g) with an equal amount of white icing so you end up with 100g
again. Blend thoroughly then cut in half - still with me?? Wrap one half then
mix the remaining 50g with another 50g of white icing and keep going until you
have 5 different hue's of the same colour. The last ball will be 100% white -
this isn't shown in the photograph above. Next step is to roll, cut and frill
the ribbon strips.






Starting with the lightest colour (white in my case) roll out a thin strip onto
a clean work surface lightly dusted with cornflour. Using the ribbon cutter cut
out strips about 2cm wide with a straight edge. If you don't have a ribbon
cutter a sharp knife would do the job perfectly well as one edge isn't seen and
the other edge is frilled anyway. Place the ribbon on the foam mat and using the
bone tool frill one edge to achieve the ruffled effect. If you don't have a bone
tool you could try using a tea spoon. I don't think there's a substitute for the
firm foam mat though I'm afraid.





Using edible glue (or water if used sparingly) paint a line around the cake and
attach the first frill to the cake, straight edge onto the cake, frilled edge
sticking out. Gradually build up the layers working down the cake - rolling,
gluing, sticking, positioning. The frills have quite a bit of strength and only
require slight adjustments once stuck onto the side of the cake to ensure there
is no bunching. For the final frill cut the ribbon a little narrower and adjust
the frill so that no white fondant on the side of the cake is showing.





The 'story' behind this cake isn't that I made it for a little boy's christening
but that it was done for a photo-shoot! My son and I are in the final stages of
creating my website and I needed some colourful, attractive cakes, well lit and
presented. After a very long day the last photo's to be taken were of me. I'm
not very comfortable in front of the camera at the best of times but these were
taken with gritted teeth as I was exhausted and a just a little  bit 'ruffled
around the edges' by the time we called it a wrap!











Posted by Kath on Thursday, January 21, 2016 2 comments:
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ABOUT ME

Kath Shrewsbury View my complete profile

As a teenager my first serious attempt at decorating was quite an intricate
design on a royal iced Christmas cake back in the 1980's.

Now, some 35 years on, I still love creating cakes that bring a smile to peoples
faces. I've made many cakes for family, friends and as fund raisers and now, in
my 50's, am seeing if I can turn my passion into a successful business.

I hope you enjoy following my blog featuring current and past creations.





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