Category Archive: Aardvark Cakes
Subcategories: Baking Baking with Julia Biscuits Tuesdays with Dorie Cake Recipes Cake Tutorial Cakes Birthday Cake Cake Topper Carrot Cake Celebration Cake Children's Cakes Chocolate Cake Christening Cake Corporate Cake Cupcakes Holy Communion Cake Novelty Cake Wedding cake Gifts
Why I won’t be doing wedding fayres anymore & how to survive them as a stallholder
Over the past 4 years I’ve attended a fair few wedding fayres as a stall holder. I’ve been to good ones, quiet ones and ones that have almost made me want to have nothing to do with the wedding industry ever again. Wedding Fayre season is in full flow at the moment – I’m getting calls several times a week asking me if I want a stall at the latest event. I turn most of them down straightaway due to expense, distance and quite frankly, them being held in a hideous venue. Every now and then, though, one invitation will tickle my fancy and I find myself saying yes. And that’s how I found myself staying up til 2am Saturday night just gone to prepare for a local Wedding Fayre the next day. I decided that week that that was the end of my wedding fayre days and announced it on Facebook. Since then, I’ve been asked several times why I won’t be doing anymore wedding fayres. So here are my reasons: * I’m really lucky to get enough orders through word of mouth, repeat business and website traffic. I don’t depend on wedding cakes solely and feel even more »
Mr & Mrs Easter Chick – Creme Egg Creatures
I’m going retro this Easter with my Easter Chicks. I did this design about 8 years ago and they sold like hot chicks. They were everywhere – up the stairs, on window sills,you name it! I’ll even admit to having the odd conversation with some of them – they were definitely part of the family. 2 more children later and time constraints mean that I won’t be able to make as many this year but if you are quick you can order some of the limited edition chicks for £4.80 As usual, they are made from a Cadbury’s Creme Egg middle and come gift wrapped. don’t forget to say whether you want a Mrs Chick or a Mr Chick. In other news, my Monkey Creme Egg Creatures and Flower Basket Creme Egg Creatures were highlighted in a lovely post by Ruth of the Great British Bake Off fame. Ruth has made her own Creme Egg Chicks too – why not pop over to her place to check them out? Cake of the Week will be back very soon along with news of what I’ve been getting up to. Its been fairly manic (in a good way) – you didn’t think more »
Yellow Tea Roses Cake – Cake of the Week
I’m posting this week’s Cake of the Week on a Tuesday this week not because I forgot but because I’ve only just dropped the cake off in the past half an hour! This is a repeat order for a family I have got to know. One of the Mums was 80 in December and the other Mum is 80 this week. What a healthy long living family they are. My brief for this cake was to be fairly similar to the last cake but this time with yellow tea roses. They still wanted the bling that was on the last cake and I’m never going to argue with that, am I? I really love the fresh spring colours and its such a beautiful day today that it seemed only right to have a happy cheery looking cake. We had a new entry into Cake of the Week last week. Amy joined us from Cooking,Cakes and Children with this fabulous lego cake. I’m desperate to do a funky lego cake but try as I might my girls seem to want other things.
Come Dine With Me Cupcakes
I was given a very secret mission a couple of weeks ago – Come Dine With Me Cupcakes. No, not the actual TV programme but a friend of mine was involved with a group that were doing Come Dine With Me evenings. Now, I don’t know about you but I hear tons of people suggesting we should do Come Dine With Me evenings but they never seem to come off. Sometimes, the logistics are just impossible – we have been trying to thing of a way around doing one with my sister and her husband but they live in Leeds and so do most of their friends. Well, this group of friends have actually managed it and they are taking it VERY seriously, marking it and giving out menus beforehand. My friend, Andrea’s night was on Valentine’s night and she wanted to end the evening by giving her guests a cupcake each with a Come Dine With Me and a Valentines theme. I’m not sure if Andrea came clean and told her guests that she didn’t make the cupcakes – don’t blame her if she didn’t. Her menu sounded gorgeous. Hope she wins!
Pink 50th Birthday Cake – Cake of the Week
I’m just back from a child free weekend! Yes, me! I’ve spent the weekend getting pampered and spending time with 7 other lovely ladies here. The occasion was to celebrate on of my best friend, Sue’s 50th birthday. This weekend was just one of a number of outings we are having this year to celebrate Sue’s milestone age- in fact the year 2012 is to be her birthday year. I fully intend on doing the same in 2013 to celebrate my 40th birthday and invite you all to join me along the way. I made this cake for Sue last week for her big birthday party – her theme was PINK! I love doing these sugar loops and the big polystyrene sparkly 50 seemed perfect to show off her age. Don’t worry, there’s barely a soul in St Helens who hasn’t heard about her significant age. Last week was a brilliant week for Cake of the Week. We had some new members – Kate with a very delicious looking Victoria Sponge and Anjali’s pineapple ice-cream cake (which I MUST make!). Jackie has taken part before but wonderfully says this week, she would like to take part every week – Just more »
A Clutch of Handbag Cakes
It is said that every woman loves handbags and shoes and I’m no different. Where I do differ though is that I love my handbags and shoes to be made out of sugar rather than leather. Some of my favourite commissions have been the selection of handbag cakes that I have done. There has always been the sense of giving me the rough topic and letting me go with the flow. Sometimes I have been asked to do a favourite colour scheme but most of the time the end result is a complete surprise. What I do like about handbag cakes is that they appeal to such a wide range of ages – I have made handbag cakes for 13 year olds to 50+ year olds. You can design them to match the favourite brand or make up a complete new style of bag. I can’t imagine handbag cakes ever going out of fashion or me ever getting bored of making them.
Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake – Cake of the Week
There was no choice to be made about what would be Cake of the Week this week – Baby T is One and this is her cake. A Very Hungry Caterpillar cake. It is an absolute miracle that there is any semblance of a cake as this week has been so busy – Why do I always have my babies during school holidays?? Tara’s birthday isn’t actually until tomorrow so I will save the overly emotional mummy post until then (Just wait until you see the picture lined up for tomorrow’s post though!) We are having Tara’s birthday party later today and once again I may have ‘slightly’ over catered. I even went to the lengths of ordering a Costco cake to be on the safe side – When I saw that they have a caterpillar design I just HAD to get it – I even got Dermot’s name put on there too as it is his 34th birthday tomorrow too. I got help doing the board for the caterpillar cake from Millie and my Mum – Its definitely a cake design that everyone can get involved in! Anyway, hope you like it – I’m off to bed to prepare more »
Tuesdays with Dorie/Baking with Julia – White Loaves
There’s a new baking group in town across the world and it start today. Old readers of mine may remember years ago that I used to join in with the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group. I learnt loads from the few recipes that I joined in with but business and babies meant that I couldn’t keep involved every week. We are starting afresh with a new book – Baking with Julia and we have a new recipe to follow every 2 weeks. I’m going to do my best to stick with this one – there are loads of recipes in the book that I’d like to crack. Some of them seem complicated, some of them a real challenge but all of them look yummy (and a teeny bit fattening too!) Our first challenge seemed like a nice introduction – White Loaves … until I remembered I have NO luck baking bread. I don’t own a bread machine but think after this attempt I need to acquire one. The bread smells and tastes lovely but is as heavy as a wet house brick – It did improve a LOT with toasting and lashings of butter (I seem to have gone all Enid more »
Animal Print Cake – Cake of the Week
Not sure what exactly to call this cake – I’m thinking its animal print icing but is it a zebra or a tiger? I had completely free reign on this cake – I suggested red and black as Vicky’s sister tells me that she isn’t very girly so pink wouldn’t do. We decided on a star explosion but the rest was a surprise. I really wanted to do a funky board so was really pleased how it turned out – obviously it had the obligatory bling with the black stripes being sparkly. I had a really good catch up with Gina, Vicky’s sister who used to look after Vi at nursery – Good job she is used to kids – mine were WILD that morning! Last week’s Cake of the Week had a fabulous response – There was a real cutie from Real Suburban Mummy eating her chocolate cake and an entry from Mary Oxendine introducing us to her recipe blog. There was an amazing Twix cake from Jackie Marum which bowled me over -I hope Jackie doesn’t mind me putting a link to her photo up. So what have you been up to this week – I’ve currently got more »
Cheeky Monkey Creme Egg Creature – Valentine’s Gift
A cheery little fellow and a new addition to the Creme Egg Creatures range. My daughter despairs that you can see the creme egg but I quite like showing what he is made of. We have had several discussions about whether his ears should be on top of his head or at the side – I won with the side. Available giftwrapped for a cheeky Valentines gift!
