1 October 2012

Cake Commission

Hello lovelies!

I hope you had a fun weekend, and your Monday hasn't been too miserable! 

I mentioned last week I was planning to spend the majority of this weekend in the kitchen baking up a storm, and that's exactly what I did. A friend asked me to bake a Peppa Pig cake for her little boy's second birthday this week, and a batch of assorted cupcakes for the grown-ups.


ingredients
Just a small selection of the many, many ingredients - including FIVE blocks of butter. Mmmm....
Yesterday morning I baked three huge trays of Victoria sponge, twelve Better Than Sex Chocolate Cupcakes, eight chocolate orange cupcakes and nine of my signature lemon meringue cupcakes. The last two flavours are from Susannah Blake's "Cupcakes"- although I added some Curaçao to the orange cupcakes; they are for the grown-ups, after all. It was a bit like being on Cupcake Wars; except I was wearing a Batman Apron instead of a t-shirt emblazoned with my bakery name. Although, now I think about it, if I started my own cake shop I'd totally call it Batman Bakes. 
The un-iced cakes. Cupcakes (l-r) lemon meringue, better-than-sex chocolate and chocolate orange
Then I started what I thought would be the fun bit- icing them all! Icing the cupcakes was fun, actually, but Peppa Pig... Oh my. There were several points where I was this close to crying. But tears do not solve problems with stupid icing sticking to the stupid counter no matter HOW much icing sugar you sprinkle underneath, nor do they solve ripped icing with jam coming through the holes like Peppa Pig is haemorrhaging to death

So, I soldiered on and (finally!) after nine hours of baking and decorating, I was finished. Yes, there is something a little weird and lumpy going on with the bottom of Peppa Pig's dress but, as Tom said, if anyone is looking up her dress they're a pervert and don't deserve cake anyway. He always knows the nicest things to say :p


Shark-infested chocolate orange cupcake. Nom nom nom
They're not quite better than sex, but they do taste like a chocolate brownie and a cupcake made a very delicious baby. Which I think we can all agree would be the best possible result of sex, ever.
Whilst part of me now hates Peppa Pig and everything she stands for, I'm really pleased I got the cake done and looking vaguely like her. And I finally got to use my food colourings in something other than my breakfast

I'm actually proudest of the chocolate orange cupcakes, purely from a design perspective, because I came up with the idea of making shark-infested cakes with slices of a Terry's chocolate orange :p I covered the top half of each slice in purple icing, and then attached the fin by stabbing the bottom half of the orange slice straight into the cupcake. 


My original sketch for the shark-infested cupcakes. I ended up making orange-infused chocolate cupcakes for the base instead. 
Have you made any recent commissions (edible or otherwise) you're particularly proud of?

Katie xxx

P.S I'm linking this post up to Lakota's suitably scrummy Ta Dah Tuesday :)

10 comments:

  1. LOVE THIS!! whenever I decide to ice a birthday cake I ALWAYS regret it and wish I had just bought one!!!

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    1. Thank you :) I told Tom our children will now have shop-bought birthday cakes and I'll just show them a picture of this one. I can't believe how maddening sugar and water can be! Think it will be worth it to see his little face light up though :)

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  2. That is an awesome amount of baking! I made peanut butter cookies but they pale in comparison to your mammoth effort :)

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    1. I think there's a tipping point with baking where it stops being so fun; probably around the six hour mark :p Peanut butter cookies sound yummy!

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  3. Oh God, if I'm not at nervous breakdown point at some time during the birthday cake making process then something is very wrong. I only continue to do it because they're my own children. I don't know how I'd cope if it was for someone else's child. It's one of the major things preventing me from having a third.

    Peppa looks awesome anyway, and I love the sound of shark infested cakes. Thanks for linking up!

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    1. Thank you :)

      I accepted partly for the personal challenge (baking marathon is definitely still preferable to actual marathon :p) but mostly because he's the most charming man I know; last time I saw him, he gave me a handful of smooshed-up daisies he'd picked(/crushed) with his tiny toddler hands - how could I say no?! :)

      When it's the turn of my own children I think I'll ask "Granny" to bake their cakes :p x

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  4. Oh wow! what an achievement and congrats for successfully making peppa pig's cake! those cupcakes look delicious, though i love doing the icing for cupcakes but always ended up horrible and weird and now what i envisioned they would be! ooh lemon meringue is my fave!

    i'm blog hopping from ta dah tuesday over at lakota's

    susan (http://tea-diary.blogspot.co.uk)

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  5. You are amazing!!! What an amazing amount of hard work you put in- well done!!! Love your shark idea- so fun and original! My boyfriend has the Susanna Blake cupcake book- he's made quite a few of them- I've only made the ones with the blueberries and strawberries on! Pepper is amazing, how you had the patience I don't know! My niece loves Pepper and she'd adore this! Nice to meet you via Lakota's linkie!

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  6. Oh my gosh, you made so much! It all sounds so delicious and it looks really good! I actually have a commission for 50 cupcakes and 50 cookies this week for a breast cancer awareness day. I'm nervous...

    And I love the name 'Batman Bakes'. Do it!

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    1. Thank you for the compliments and the encouragement :) Part of me would love to set up a bakery; but I'd end up eating all my profits! :p That sounds like a brilliant commission- what flavours are you going to do? xx

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