Valentines Day fun!

I had a lot of fun with valentines day this year!  Two of my orders were really lovely and finally I can share them without ruining anyone's surprise! :)
Thank you to Chris for giving me such a lovely cake to make for Milly!...  A cake that is also a box of chocolates... with a sugar crafted orchid spray on the top.  He put a lot of thought into it and I really enjoyed making it and had never made an orchid before!  I was thinking of doing the orchid in brush embroidery, but I really love orchids and decided to give it a go in sugar paste.  I put it in a spray with rose buds and some blossom fillers and ivy leaves. I got the orchid cutter from Sugarart of Lincoln and researched how to put one together online.  Here is the finished product!...

Orchid spray

I was organised with the spray and had it finished in plenty of time, however, I was on a course the day I needed to be decorating the cakes so I didn't get started until gone 6pm!  It wasn't too bad, I think I was in bed and asleep by 2am...but it is a good thing I love what I do! :)

I made the cake by cutting a circle out from the top layer and laying the roll-out icing on top, moulding it into the hole.

We bought chocolates...  who can resist Milk Tray???

I iced each chocolate so that they wouldn't move about.




Chris asked me to make the top tier (the chocolate box lid!) red...  and it was too late to order ready-made red icing so I decided to die it myself and ended up with very red hands...they are still red now! 

 This is one of the hazards of the job!  Infact, the other day someone asked me if my hands are permanently died because of the colourings I use in the cakes... the answer is that no, they are not, they are only died for a few days.  By the time the die from one has gone, it is time to make another!  I could use gloves, but then it makes it difficult to work... so when you see me with multi-coloured hands, please don't judge me, haha!  Remember what I do :)

And this is a photo of the finished cake!  I was really chuffed with how it turned out and I think the red behind the orchid looks stunning.  For the sponge I used my usual buttermillk recipe that I posted not long ago and a genache-style frosting with dairy milk and double cream - yum!!!  I hope Milly enjoyed it!

I also had a lovely cupcake project to do - a series of 6 cupcakes that was a timeline of their relationship....very sweet, don't you think?  He gave me a list of what he wanted and I was really excited to get started!  This is what I came up with...

relationship timeline cupcakes

In all the chaos (organised chaos ofcourse!) I was also baking an 18th birthday cake...for some reason I was convinced it was a chocolate sponge....and didn't realise that she had ordered a vanilla sponge!  DOH! So my family scored!  They enjoyed the chocolate cake very much...

especially my brother...

nom nom!

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