Secret Cake Project I - the Summer Wedding!

I offered to make a wedding cake for a relative as a wedding present - the wedding was to be very home-made and out of doors, with camping and all sorts of help and contributions from friends and family which all became part of the celebrations!
However, I offered and the bride to be knew exactly what she wanted... which was this:

with apologies to whoever's photoshoot this is from - I was emailed it and I don't have the details and I don't know enough about fashion to know which designer it is... I will be happy to add credits if someone gives me the information!

So... never one to be phased I got to work and did some planning and calculating!  I'll spare you the test shots, and just got to the main event...

I even felt inspired to make bride and groom ginger people!

But the main event was all about the cupcakes:

Rose flavoured ones...

 

Red velvet ones...

















Black bottomed ones with Oreos...
 

Triple chocolate ones with M&Ms cunningly used to make Es and Ws...

 

Lemon drizzle ones...

 







Coca cola ones (which I am NEVER making again as the cola syrup does funny things to the texture or the icing!)...

 






Earl grey flavoured ones (arranged in vintage cups and saucers!)...

 


The gingerbread bride and grooms...

A rare picture of me during the entire day that it took me to ice, decorate and bag all of the cakes!

And NOW!!!!.... CAKES IN A TREE!!!

Crispy Wedding Cakes - I kid you not!

This post was inspired by the researcher that I co-habit an office with on a Friday.  In disbelief at the idea of giant chocolate crispy cakes as a wedding cake I had to Google it and was then inspired to try it out!

This was my first attempt - with crispy cakes made of marshmallows which I will NEVER be attempting again as melting marshmallows was just not fun, nor was mixing them with the Rice Crispies... in the end I gave up.  My husband created the pink mound by just pressing them into the bowl they were mixed in and I *tried* to pretty it up with some mini marshmallows (not - entirely - successful).  However, it does taste ok and he has promised to take it for the delight of his colleagues...

This was the second attempt - which I think is much better!  I stuck to the extreme basic 'melt the chocolate, mix the crispies in' recipe and then pressed the mixture into a greased and lined cake tin.  I left it to set overnight and then turned it out onto a plate (on a doily of course!) and tied a ribbon around the middle.  I was quite pleased with it and am looking forward to having another try, but making one with more than one tier!  Pics will follow!

Rose scented macaroons

I have talked about these before - they are the memory of a friends lovely wedding, and of a day spent in Laduree (!) with friends drinking tea, eating cakes and catching up.  In addition, these are ridiculously easy to make, and are also gluten free! The pink and rose flavour cream are optional, although I personally feel they are essential...

The glass comport was my birthday present from my husband - it is vintage and locally produced and suited us as a piece of social history.  The man we bought it from was also very interesting and was more than happy to discuss the history and the factory, which we found really interesting.  It also happens to look stunning with cakes in it...

Macaroons

These were made to remind me of a friends wedding from last year (and bizarrely I made them on the day of their Wedding Anniversary - although it's a shame they lived too far away to share...). However, they had a large pyramid of the very stylish macaroons from the creme de la creme of macaroon patissiers, Laduree. We had to leave before the pyramid was dis-assembled, however, this gave us the perfect excuse for breakfast and macaroons (and a host of other purchases) in the Laduree concession at the well known large department store in Knightsbridge.

These ones were shared between friends who we went to for dinner, ourselves and my parents. The macaroons were plain almond, but filled with a mixture of double cream and raspberry jam, and I although they were delicious, next time I have a hankering to mix some drops of rosewater in with the mix...