Bubble Cake

Dear all,

Quite a while back I made what I will call a 'bubble cake'. It was mostly an experiment and I completely forgot to share it with you, so here it goes anyway. I'm not a fan of the cake pop craze but I bought myself a cake pop machine for this cake.This is what happened mostly. I'm SO not a fan!

Anyway, several attempts later I got something that resembled what I wanted. Because this is what I needed them for:

That's right. Cakepops in a cake. Cake-ception if you will! It turned out pretty cute if you ask me, and as I'll show you later on, a friend and I had quite some fun with the leftover cake pops! First the bubble cake though...


With a little help (or not) from the cake pop machine I first started making the colourful 'bubbles'. They looked more like little Saturn's than nice round cake pops, but I made it work! Next step, adding them to a regular cake mix (supposedly "white cake" but it was rubbish - learnt my lesson there!)


So there you go, cake-ception. Cake in a cake! Now for some decorating! I thought I'd go for colourful decorations for a colourful cake. I made it for a friend's 30th birthday, and a bit of a childish cake for such a 'grown-up' age somehow seemed to fit!


So there you have it, my version of the bubble cake. Yum yum!

xoxo Jennifer

Anniversary Cake

Dear all,

My parents recently celebrated their 30-year wedding anniversary. Wowie! Definitely the right occasion to make a cake. With a little inspiration from my brother this was the result:

Check out how I stumbled into this design (because yes, that's what happened!)


It, of course, always starts with a cake. A red velvet to be exact in this case. Nice bit of cream cheese icing in the middle and butter cream all round to make the fondant stick. That was the easy part.


As this is a wedding anniversary cake I thought it only fitting to make roses. So I just made a whole bunch of roses from fondant in different shades of red/pink. I had a wedding picture of my parents printed on edible paper to personalise the cake. Then I started the creative process of figuring out how to place the roses on the cake...


The base of the decoration was a pristine white fondant covering (wedding cake!). I then added the picture. I tried all sorts to get it to stick to the fondant (butter cream, piping gel... nothing worked!) and ended up pinning it down with the roses actually.


Bit by bit the cake is coming together. I'm just making it up as I go along, and am quite happy with the result. The finishing touch was the number '30', in heart shapes!!


So here it is, the 30 year wedding anniversary cake. An overview from different angles, including the detailing along the side (using a new mold, yay!). And below, a peek into the inside of the cake.

That sure was tasty. My cake baking is starting to go global - a piece of this cake will have by now travelled to Brazil to a fan who insisted on having some of it. Amazing! Haha. (read: my brother went to visit his girlfriend there and she wanted cake).

This was really a fantastic cake to make and I'm so pleased with it! Now I need a bit of a baking break, 3 of these cakes in 1 week (because that is the actual time span of these last three cakes) took quite a bit out of me. By the time you guys get to see this post though (hehe) I'm sure I'll be back at it so you won't have to miss much!

xoxo Jennifer

Snoopy Cake

Dear all,

As promised, my version of the piggy mud cake! I made this for a close friend of mine who really likes Snoopy. I really wanted to try making that cake, and I wanted to do a Snoopy theme for here. This is what happened!

 To see how it's done, keep reading.



Like last week I used a chocolate guinness cake and the damming technique, except this time I used chocolate ganache, as that is what I am going to cover the cake with.

The next step was creating the 'fencing' around the 'mud pool'  with kitkats. Quite a task, as despite the ganache the kit kats had the tendency to fall off again. But I succeeded and secured the lot with a pretty ribbon! The last step was pouring over some warm ganache to get the 'mud' effect. Now on to the decorations:

The most well known picture of Snoopy is the one of Snoopy dozing on top of his doggy house, sometimes with the little yellow bird Woodstock. So I set off to make Snoopy's house.


Next I started putting Snoopy together. Love the result! Check out little Woodstock!

Time to put the whole thing together! True to the piggy version, I made some of Snoopy's cousins playing around in the mud.


Snoopy the one and only had to wait for his mudbath as I had to take the cake on a train and what not. So Snoopy travelled seperately, but here you can see them all together before being transported.


Once they all arrived safely Snoopy joined his cousins. They look happy! And the guests at the party were definitely happy with the cake. I quickly had to take a picture of the inside before it all disappeared. Success!

xoxo Jennifer

Curves Cake

Dear all,

The title of this post might be a bit misleading, if you have never heard of the fitness franchise 'Curves'. That is the gym I go to (highly essential stuff for a cake baker like me!). They just had their 2 year anniversary, so I decided to bake them a cake. A cake for a gym? Yes. Deal with it! This is the end result. So proud!

Interested in the process? Then first you need a cake. I made my favourite cake, the Chocolate Guinness Cake , a recipe by Nigella Lawson. Rather than put the cream on top though, I used it to tort the cake.


I actually learned a new technique: damming. Normally if you put cream in between two cake layers it can squish out. A nifty trick is to pipe a ring of buttercream around the edge, it stops the cream from escaping. Brilliant! The rest of the cake is covered in buttercream as an underlayer to the fondant so it blends in perfectly.


There it is, a buttercreamed cake and purple fondant over it (purple is a Curves colour).  Now for the decorations. I decided to make some of the Curves machines to go on the cake. A bit of a challenge, but they worked out great! See proof below.


Left the basic set up of the three machines I made. On the right the first one is done!


And an overview of the other two machines. If you're thinking, those don't look like gym machines! Then you've never been to a Curves. Their machines are different and my fondant versions are spot on! (and if the bakers out there are thinking: fondant? Yes. I couldn't find any sugar paste!)

Here are all the bits and pieces I made to use on the cake as decoration. You've got the machines, the letters for 'Curves', and '2 jaar' which means '2 years' in Dutch. And sunflowers. The sunflower is a reference to a Curves design used to congratulate members on their 200th workout (200 workouts - 2 years curves. get it?).


And the result! I'm pretty proud of the result. I hadn't done any decorating in a while, I still have 'the touch' so to speak. In fact, someone mentioned my first cake decorating attempt from several years ago. What an improvement! I'm almost embarassed to think of that cake now (I'm not going to tell you which one it is, ha!). Next week: a cake inspired by a picture I found online. This cake has gone global - the piggy mud cake. So check back next week for my version, with a twist!

xoxo Jennifer