Monthly Archives: April 2013

Cake International. London 2013. Part 2.

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Hi everyone,

As I promised in my previous post (check it out if you haven’t!), here are some other works which were exhibited at Cake International in London: cakes, cupcakes, sugarcraft flowers, biscuits… There are many adjectives to describe them and the previous ones: beautiful, lovely, cute, amazing, stunning, awesome, unbelievable, wonderful, impressive, astonishing… They’re “WOW!” works, aren’t they?

Let’s go!

Look at its face! So cute!

Cute evil bear

Fairy cupcake toppers. Great attention to detail! Love them.

Tiny shoes

This is not a cake, but a building made from biscuits. Lovely!

Honeymoon. Passion everywhere!

This cake was really funny. It made me laugh a lot!

Kentucky “Sweet” Chicken. lol

They look so realistic, but both these flowers and the following ones were made from sugar!

WOWWW!

Congratulations to the clever artists who made each one of them.

See you soon!

Sara

Cake International. Excel London 2013

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Hi there,

Last weekend I went to Cake International, a baking show which was celebrated at Excel London (from 12 to 14 April).

Really excited at the entrance

There were different areas inside, such as exhibition stands, baking and sugarcraft supplies, competition area, demonstration rooms… It was brilliant! Latest ideas could be found there!

I was lucky to be accompanied by my partner Álex, my personal photograph that day. He helped me to take some pictures whilst I was contemplating those stunning cakes and sugarcraft flowers. They were absolute master pieces.

There were some popular guests in there, such as Mary Berry, Paul Hollywood, Mich Turner, Xanthe Milton, etc. I was so fortunate to see both Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood’s in a live demonstration. For those people who don’t know them, they’re the presenters of the enjoyable TV show “The Great British Bake Off”.

With regard to the competition, categories consisted of novelty cakes, tiered cakes, junior cakes, cupcakes, cookies, sugarcraft flowers… The best pieces of each class got one of the following awards: BRONZE, SILVER or GOLD.

Here are some of the works I liked the most:

I really loved  these realistic and cute giraffes!  Perfectly made!

It looked like real leather! Absolutely stunning!

I was completely amazed by this cake! Super innovative and creative! Great attention to detail. I think it was my favourite one. Congratulations to its cake designer Amanda Macleod (GOLD award).

Sexy, sexy!

Very beautiful mermaid!

Master piece

I really like the combination of these colours.

So tiny and so cuuuuute!

I’ll show you some other pictures in the next post, since I can’t put them all in this (there are too many!). So stay tuned! : )

As you can guess, I enjoyed a lot in Cake International and I’ll repeat next year, definitely!

Have a nice and sweet week.

Sara

Spring Basket Cookies

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Hi there,

Spring is already here!  But actually, this year we’re not having a spring-like weather at all (few days ago it was snowing!). But hopefully we can enjoy this beautiful season soon.

There are many parks and green areas in London to go out when the sun shines and the weather is warm: Hyde Park, Regent’s Park, Green Park, Sant James Park, Richmond Park, Hampstead Heath, and a long etcetera. People love  laying on the grass while reading books, listening to the music, having a picnic…

This year I made some spring baskets to welcome this idyllic season (it started last March 21st!). It’s an explosion of colour!

Spring Basket Cookies

Spring Basket Cookies

Spring Basket Cookies

They’re flowered and colorful basket cookies. To make them, I used several ingredients, as I had some leftovers which I preferred to use rather than throwing them away! They keep well in an airtight container inside the fridge (royal icing, buttercream) and it’s a pitty not to use them after a couple of days of having been made. That royal icing was made with meringue powder and that buttercream contained no milk, so there was no problem to use them at all.

Spring Basket Cookies

Here are the main ingredients and material that I used to decorate these basic round-shaped cookies which I turned into baskets:

•  Soft peaks royal icing + light brown colouring + tip #2 –> Outline, basket weave pattern and handle.

•  Flood icing + dark brown colouring + tip #4 –> Bottom of the basket.

•  Gum paste + food colouring + modelling tools + cutters –> Ruffles, flowers, butterflies.

•  Stiff buttercream + green colouring + tip #67 –> Leaves.

•  Yellow shimmer pearls –> Center of the flowers.

Spring Basket Cookies

Spring Basket Cookies

TIP:  When you want to attach sugar details to your cookie (in this case, flowers, butterflies, shimmer pearls) you can use royal icing or buttercream instead of edible glue. They also work pretty well!

I’ll keep practicing with Royal icing in order to improve my piping technique when decorating cookies. I love it! It’s completely addictive!

Spring Basket Cookies

I hope you can already feel Spring is here!

See you soon.

Sara