Welcome my fellow Sweet toothers!
Hello! Welcome to my all things cake related blog. Whether your a fellow cake professional, keen baker or you just love a bit of cake, I'm going to be taking you on my cake journey with me as I discover new ingredients and tools and most importantly continue to create wonderful cakes for my clients. My first blog entry is just to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about myself. Well, the name is a giveaway so no need for introductions. I'm a 27 year old who happened to fall into cake making. It was never on the cards. I mean, if you look at my working life to date cake making would never be a front runner! Mcdonalds, Insurance, Night Club, Holiday rep, Bar Supervisor, Cake maker. See what I mean. As far as baking goes it all really started in my dear Nan's galley kitchen with me, my brother and sister all fighting for the rolling pin, covered in flour and shaping are excellently (questionable) made biscuits. Usually ending up being covered in runny icing (us and the biscuits) having been flavoured with diluted coffee granules or lemon juice. It was great fun!
As far as my more adult experiences of baking goes though it doesn't really take off until I fell pregnant with my darling daughter, Poppy-Rae in November 2012. At around 6 months pregnant I started to flip through cook books out of sheer boredom. Which was the beginning of my new found sweet tooth... Cookies were my first great achievement. I didn't realise however, that they spread out in the oven and ended up with dinner plate sized cookies. I got laughed at a lot as I was cleaning out over spilled cookie off the bottom of the oven! I then invested in a few piping nozzles and before you knew it, an array of cupcakes began to spring up everywhere. 'What's for dinner vic?' 'Cupcakes?'
And then D day - Due date. The little Lady in my life was born In September 2013. As all new parents know, when you have a child, especially your first, night and day no longer exists it's just light and dark, time becomes a jumble of numbers and doesn't really have any meaning anymore. If I remember rightly I didn't leave the bedroom for two days when we brought Poppy home... in short - baking took a back seat. Once the colic packed it's bags and waved good bye, and the sleepless nights became sleep filled nights things began to feel 'normal' again and luckily for my other half, this was all in time for his birthday. I successfully baked my first chocolate birthday cake covered in ganache. it was 8" in diameter (20 small servings recommended by Your Cake) and only 2 of us were eating it - amazing. We ate cake for a week! The summer months came and the BBQ's happened! Before we knew it we (I) was planning Poppy-Rae's first birthday party. I went on the theme of tea party, and decided that I was going to make all the party food myself! Mary Berry provided me with the most delightful mini, bite size scone recipe. To this day I still use it if we're feeling in the need of a clotted cream transportation unit. yum! I also made mini puff pastry pies - beef and onion, chicken and mushroom and cheese and tomato pizza pie's! We also had a selection of sandwiches and cakes - naturally! The real show stopper though was Poppy-Rae's birthday cake. At the time my little love's face would light up like the sun at the sound of a jingling bell and the sight of the kidney bean shaped head, blue character - Iggle Piggle of course! In the night garden was her alternative to my eastenders! So I thought it only fitting to create (somehow) little characters out of this thing called fondant and somehow attempt a cake to feed 40 people. With a little help from some lovely ladies in my local cake suppliers, and lots of research on the internet, I somehow managed to pull off a themed 2 tier cake. Looking back now as a professional cake maker - I just have to remind myself it was my first cake, but at the time I was proud as punch! Most importantly though it tasted amazing! I remember cutting smaller then usual pieces in order to have some left over! (great host!) From there, my family and friends started one by one putting in their requests for cake and somehow (after a little practice at the basics) it all came naturally to me. So, in May 2015 I bit the bullet and registered with the Council, had my checks, gained my level 2 hygiene certificate, got insured and started to advertise on social media and local selling sites. I am now in a place where I would like to venture into the wedding market - although offering something a little different - like Novelty cakes. I am about to take a course with one of the countries finest wedding cake makers to gain some knowledge and confidence with flowers and techniques I've not yet tried - like working with silver leaf. This year I hope to be in a position to toy with the idea of running some classes myself. Right now though I'm concentrating on my upcoming orders - some of which are fantastic and I'm so excited! Thank you for your continued support, it really does mean the world!
