The Accidental Baker

earlier this year, mummy was tasked with finding a cake maker for her friend's baby shower. she found someone she loves and agreed on a cake. unfortunately a week to the shower, mummy found out there had been a miscommunication which meant she now had to find a new cake maker. she couldn't find anyone at such short notice! she had to make the cake. enter Youtube! Mummy watched every video on how to make ruffle cakes and bought the necessary gadgets. By the day of the shower, a zombie-mode mummy clutched her handiwork and delivered it in one piece to the venue. she had never been so proud of herself!







having triumphed at ruffles, mummy now felt invincible. she decided to bake my birthday cake! as it was a fairy party, it was only fitting that she should bake a fairy princess cake! back to youtube university she went and with some keen guidance & on-the-day help from my aunty Tsungi, (herself a baker), this was the cake she made!







having begun to garner a neat little reputation for herself from sharing the above cakes enthusiastically on her facebook profile, mummy was asked to bake another baby shower cake. she couldn't say no to this request! she already had very clear ideas of the kind of cake she wanted to make. her inspiration was as below:



 




on the day, all the cakes were baked & ready to be iced & decorated. it was a blissfully hot day and mummy hummed away to herself as she rolled out the fondant icing. she placed the icing onto the cake the way a seasoned professional would & began to smooth it. the fondant was having none of it & began to....wrinkle up.... for lack of a better word. mummy removed it & started again. same thing happened. then she thought, ok - it has to be ruffles then. happily she rolled out the fondant and cut out her strips. she stuck them on and they flopped about - a bit like an orangutan's boobs. she knew what to do & held them up with cocktail sticks. but soon, the cake resembled a hedgehog & as she removed the sticks, visible holes remained. back to square one. mummy finally cottoned on to the fact that fondant & heat are lifelong enemies and a fan was brought in. she started again and finally the cake below was the result of that steep learning curve!






the good thing is that no deaths were reported as a result of anyone eating these cakes. mummy feels she's well on her way to martha stewart status (minus jail term) - and is now attempting an even more challenging 4th bake! we are looking forward to seeing how this goes. it'll be fondant iced, lets hope this indian summer doesn't last till christmas!

**images of the 3 inspiration cakes are from pinterest & google searches. the work is not my mummy's own.**