Birthdays 2016

So much to catch up on with all sorts of different things made over the last year. I'll start with the kids birthdays from 2016.

They were each told they could have 2 friends and choose an activity. Chloe went with roller skating and Alex went with indoor rock climbing. Naturally their invitations had to reflect this.

Roller skates for the girls

Mini climbing walls for the boys

The cakes were a different theme though - Pokemon! Alex is obsessed and Chloe likes the cute ones so each child chose a different one for their cake.

Alex chose Latias.
This was just done with a black icing outline and flooded with royal icing.

The base cake of Igglybuff.
The body was made in a 6 inch/15cm tin as we didn't need a big cake.

Chloe chose Igglybuff to match a toy she was given after a trip to Japan

Cakes

I have a few cakes to catch up on here. The first is from over a year ago with my daughters 6th birthday cake. I hired a tin from a cake shop called The Girl on the Swing. I used the star tip for the top and went for a ribbon effect on the sides. the green was left over from my sons dinosaur cake so was a bit more vivid than I would have like.

Edible glitter upped the girly factor

The next was for my mums 60th birthday. I had to make 2 to trial it first as it was my first time doing a layer cake. The top layer was white chocolate, the middle was caramel and the bottom milk chocolate. I chose to mirror this with ganache on the outside. The trial one went to husbands work to some surprised workmates, the second one went just as well and the cake was really quite yummy.

This was the trial cake

Finally we have the birthday cakes from 2015. Chloe wanted a pool cake and Alex finally settled on spiderman. I made a few swimmers and pool items from fondant. The fence was large blocks of  KitKat (which does not break up or cut up well). Chloe made a couple of things to add to the pool too. Her cake was a white chocolate mud cake.

swimmers, beach balls and a towel

Chloe made the flowers and butterflies for around the outside. The white balls were bubbles.

Alex's spiderman cake wasn't too tricky. I purchased the red icing to get a good colour, but I didn't really like the consistency. The web was done with a tube of black icing that I could draw straight onto the cake with. The spider was chocolate melted into a teaspoon and a dessert spoon for the body, and the legs were done freehand onto baking paper. His cake was a dark chocolate cake.

Leftovers!