Homemade Christmas – Part 1

For the past few years I have tried to make as many things as I can at Christmas time. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, I love crafting and Christmas is a great time to try making lots of different things. Secondly, I like the fact that a lot of thought, effort and love has gone into creating each item, and I think my family appreciate it too. Thirdly, as I am lucky enough to stay at home and look after my children, we have to live off one salary so we’re always watching the pennies.

Last year I made hampers for everyone, which included a variety of baked goods, homemade jams and chutneys, sweets and flavoured oils. I also always make calendars with photos of the girls from throughout the year and decorate them with different papers and embellishments. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos last year to share!

Grace started school this September so I had to send in a Christmas gift with her for each of her teachers/teaching assistants. A lot of the other parents clubbed together to buy the teachers vouchers – a great idea but I think it is a bit impersonal (although I should imagine they loved it!). So, of course, I decided to make them a gift box of cupcakes each! I think they liked them.

Like me, Grace loves to make things and can usually be found with a felt tip in her hand ready to colour in a picture! I decided to do some sewing with her, something she hadn’t tried before, and together we made some Christmas tree decorations. Considering she hadn’t done any sewing before, she did quite well.

Obviously, I also have a family to run around after and a new business to attend to so I have bought quite a few bits this year too. I try, where possible, to buy handmade from sites such as Etsy and Folksy, but there are a few mass produced items that have entered my shopping basket this year!

However, we’ve still got lots that we have made and more we need to make so I’ll be back soon with Handmade Christmas – Part 2!!

Classes and tutorials

I mentioned in one of my previous posts about starting to think about running cake decorating classes in the new year, so I thought I’d get your views. Firstly, do you think they are a good idea? Would you/your friends/relatives etc be interested in attending a class? Secondly, what type of thing would you be interested in learning? I have a few ideas but I’d love to hear what you would find most useful:

• making cupcakes
• decorating with buttercream
• covering large cakes with fondant
• making sugar roses
• piping with royal icing – writing and simple decoration
• piping royal icing flowers
• parent and child cupcake decorating classes
• decorating cookies

There was also some interest when I mentioned about putting some tutorials up on my blog. Again, I’d love to hear ideas of what you’d like to see. Thank you!

Random post

Please ignore this random post. I have been hearing about Technorati on twitter so, like the nosey cow that I am, decided to sign up! Apparently I have to post a code for them to verify me. So here it is MACRTR4UZYWW I’m assuming I can remove this post once they’ve verified I do actually write this blog!

Tunic top

My blog has been slightly hijacked by my cakey pictures recently and as it was not my intention to promote my cakes when I started it, I thought I’d write about a tunic top I made for Grace recently.

Actually, if I am honest, I was actually aiming to make a top for Faith, but due to my lack of sewing skills, it ended up fitting Grace better!

I made the top using a pattern by the wonderful Amanda at Kitschy Coo and it was really simple to follow. She is also on hand via twitter or email to answer questions about her patterns and offer advice. However, the pattern was so well written that I did it all by myself, and both Grace and I are pretty chuffed with it

Now I am going to make another one and this time it will fit Faith!

Recipes

Over the past few months I have had a lot people leave comments on my blog asking me to send them my recipes, especially for the giant cupcake (even though the tin comes with a recipe). This has been a tough one for me. I don’t like to disappoint but this is my business, it’s how I earn my living now. I put the question out to my twitter followers who overwhelmingly responded that I should not share my recipes. Some suggested that maybe I could do some mini tutorials or maybe offer to sell recipe sheets. Some even suggested I write a book – maybe one for the future!

Anyway, I hope this doesn’t make me seem mean and unapproachable, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. I will put together some small tutorials in the new year for those of you who are interested and I am also looking into starting my own classes too.

In the meantime, I am happy to offer a tip to those of you who like baking. A lot of my basic sponge mixes are based on weighing the eggs before you start and using the same weight in each of butter, self raising flour and caster sugar. This always produces a lovely sponge cake or cupcakes. You can add a little baking powder too for a light, fluffy sponge cake.

Cumbria Flood Recovery Fund Auction

I’m sure that many of you, like me, looked in horror at the emerging photos of the dreadful floods in Cumbria. I was especially worried as I have family who live in the Lake District who, thankfully, were not severely affected. Our thoughts are with those whose homes and businesses have been devastated by the floods.

A week or so ago, Kat over at Housewife Confidential came up with a fantastic idea to raise money for the Cumbria Flood Recovery Fund by holding an online charity auction and raffle. Many bloggers got behind her and helped put the word out, managing to gather together many fantastic items to be sold or raffled.

Natalie at Bambino Goodies is hosting the auction on her site and you can read more about it here or go straight to the auction and place your bids. The raffle will be online later in the week. You have until 6pm on Sunday 6th December to get your bids in and bag some great products – just make sure you don’t bid on anything I want!

I’m sure you’ll join me in saying a huge thank you to Kat for organising, Natalie for hosting and all the bloggers and twitterers who have been spreading the word.

DIY cake

DIY cake, originally uploaded by cupcake_cook.

This is a cake I made for my brother-in-law’s birthday back in October. He is currently renovating their house so we thought this would be a fitting theme! I sent this cake via courier and it actually travelled very well and arrived in the same state as when it left me.

I’m still struggling with courier costs though – I just wish that I could find a cheaper reliable option as I have had to turn down a lot of potential customers recently. I just can’t 100% guarantee that cakes will arrive safe and in one piece. If you’ve got any suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Christmas cupcakes

Are you fed up with taking the same hostess gifts each year to parties? Everyone takes the usual, flowers, chocolates and wine, so why not give something a bit different? I have been working on some fun Christmas cupcakes and am now taking orders for these and also for Christmas cakes.

Cupcakes start from £1.50 and Christmas cakes from £15.

Drop me a line at cakeshopcorner@googlemail.com for more details and a price list or to order your cakes.

Shoe birthday cake

When a friend ordered a birthday cake for his fiancée giving the brief that it should be girly and maybe involve shoes, I was very excited! Firstly, most of the cakes and cupcakes I have decorated recently have been for men. Whilst they have been fun, I craved doing something girly for a change. Secondly, I had my eye on a design I’d seen in Peggy Porschen’s Pretty Party Cakes, which I was given for my birthday.

I love the way Peggy Porschen does candy stripes down the sides of her cakes so I thought I’d have a go at this (the dark pink lines were more successful as I got the consistency of the royal icing better than for the light pink). I also wanted to practise my piped royal icing flowers as I haven’t done any for a few months. So the perfect inspiration for me was Peggy’s Valentine’s Heart.

I also needed to include a shoe in the design so I made one out of gumpaste. I was really pleased with how it turned out and loved the shimmer effect I got when I dusted it with shimmering pale pink lustre. I embossed the inside of the shoe and the bow using an embossing plate.

I think this has to be one of my favourite cakes that I have made so far as it was such fun to make. The feedback I had was good so I hope Su enjoyed her birthday cake

Karmic Koala Cake

Karmic Koala Cake, originally uploaded by cupcake_cook.

I made this cake to celebrate the release of Karmic Koala and it got quite a lot of internet attention from Ubuntu fans! The original picture I posted to Twitter was viewed over 1500 times and it was retweeted over 40 times! What a famous little koala he was!

I sent the cake into work with my husband the following day and giggled as I saw pictures on Twitter of the little koala minus his legs (I ran out of edible glue so they were just resting against him!). Hope they all enjoyed the cake – an empty plate came home at the end of the day!