Success!

Wow, that was a week testing baking skills and being organised! I spent most evenings last week making all the sugarpaste decorations for the engagement party cakes so that I was as prepared as possible! I now have lots of tubs of different coloured sugarpaste toppings as I made rather a lot, not really knowing how far sugarpaste stretches yet.

Here's a selection of the toppings I made. I was trying to fit as many colours in as possible but managed to end up making most of the colours match which was quite useful!

I made the following cake flavours: vanilla bean, rich chocolate, maple syrup and pecan, blackberry and vanilla, gingerbread and lemon curd making a batch of 12 or so cakes of each. Some of them had to be tested for consistency so I ended up with 66 cakes to ice and decorate. I made couple of different icing flavours too so I ended up with the following cake and icing combinations:

Vanilla and chocolate

Chocolate and mint

Maple syrup, pecan and vanilla

Lemon and vanilla

Gingerbread and lemon

Blackberry, vanilla and lemon

Here are some of the naked cakes. I'm not sure about the chocolate ones I think the balance of cocoa powder to flour wasn't right so I'll adapt that next time.

The lemon ones weren't quite cooked long enough and were a bit sticky on top but I decided (or rather Phil advised) me to make them more sticky by scooping out the middle and putting in a dollop of lemon curd before putting their lids back on. I think it worked well!

Here's a lovely montage that Phil made for me....

Mum bought me a really nice metal stand to display cupcakes in which will come in handy as I think I have my first paid gig!

And here's the final cakes all of which received a really impressive amount of praise from the testers at the party. But most importantly, Lizzie and David liked them so hopefully I've got a wedding job next May!