A "1980s movies" themed buffet table.

Firstly, an apology as this post has absolutely nothing to do with wedding cakes, or even weddings. However it does include some cupcakes, and also a lot of...urm...creativity with food. It is in fact a bit of a public service post. When I decided to have a 1980s movie themed New Years Eve party, complete with themed buffet table, I obviously thought the internet would give me all the ideas I needed. Imagine my surprise when I could find NO blog posts about 80s movies themed buffet tables? So I'm posting mine as a service to all of you out there, for the sake of internet completeness.

Before I go on, an apology for the crumby photography. I was dressed as Madonna in Desperatly Seeking Susan, and it is VERY hard to take decent photographs when you're wearing white lace gloves. How Madonna achieved so much, whilst wearing such impractical gloves, I don't know. 

This buffet table was actually the first round of a quiz (we know how to party).  So the challenge was: examine the buffet table, and find the 22 movies hidden within it. Then eat.

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Because the photography is SO bad, here's what you are looking at:

1. A bowl of roast chicken with a can of coke.
2. A bowl of sausages, with some signage saying "Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago"
3. Dips in monkey-skull shaped bowls (which I made from air-drying clay, if you are interested, although you can buy 'proper' ones on line.)
4. Carrots for dipping. Labelled "Camberwell Carrots".
5. Celery for dipping. Labelled "Kryptonite".
6. Pate and toast. I had to reassure my guests that the pate not foie gras. No geese were harmed in the making of the pate. In this particular instance, goose hasn't died. Yes, that is a clue.
7. Cheese board Stonehenge. Not real size.
8. On the cheese, between two chopsticks, a small fly made of a raisin and flaked almonds. 
9. A trail of M&Ms... 
10. Chocolates, in shape of someone dramatically handsome, frozen in carbonite. You can buy the moulds for these on line.
11. A pile of chocolate money and other pirate gold, watched over by a skull with one eye.
12. A mountain of mince pies, with the sign "tri-county Pie Eat - barf-o-rama"
13. A chocolate fondue. Which we're calling a Fire Swamp.
14. Marshmallows for fondue-dipping. In the shape of the the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
15. Iced cookies, in the shape of fish. In a fish bowl. Ready to be eaten. Alive.
16. A display of cream eggs, slightly mutilated to look more alien.
17. A bowl of popcorn, with some monster-y fingers holding the bowl and (probably) chucking it around the room.
18. Jelly, made up to look like cocktails.
19. Cupcakes, with a dangerous looking pot plant on the top.
20. After eight mints. Wafer thin.
21. Novelty bank note serviettes.
22. A watermelon.

*faints*

Feed me...

barf--o-rama

Don't call me stupid

We came, we saw, we kicked its ass.

They mostly come at night....mostly...

Stone'enge

At some point in your life, you WILL need this blog post. Book mark it for later.

Answers....below. Scroll down and let me know how you scored!

1. The Blues Brothers. "4 fried chickens and a coke"

2. Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ferris tells the doorman at the fancy restaurant that he is Abe Froman, sausage king of Chicago.

3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

4. Withnail and I.

5. Superman II. The 2 is important. I will not accept Superman as your answer, this is a 1980s film quiz, people.

6. Top Gun. (Tenuous. Roll with the goose explanation).

7. This Is Spinal Tap.

8. Karate Kid. Not The Fly. The chopsticks are there for a reason!

9. ET

10. Empire Strikes Back and/or Return of the Jedi. I will not accept Star Wars, as it's the wrong answer.

11. The Goonies

12. Stand by Me

13. Pricess Bride

14. Ghostbusters

15. A Fish Called Wanda

16. Aliens. Not Alien. Refer to 5.

17. Gremlins

18. Cocktail

19. Littel Shop of Horrors

20. Monty Python's Meaning of Life

21. I'll give you a point for the Colour of Money and/or Wall Street.

22. Dirty Dancing.

Naked Cakes

The new year always brings with it a flurry of enquiries and this year is no exception! As usual I'm getting lots of enquiries about one design more than any other - I call it "Lady Godiva", but the cake world calls them naked cakes.

Loads of cake, loads of fruit - delicious.

This naked cake looks beautiful with just sprigs of rosemary and fresh roses.

Doing away with the flowers and adding some greenery with sprigs of mint amongst the fruit.

Whilst most naked cakes are round, I think square works just as well.

Go crazy with florals!

I love naked cakes made with chocolate cake and a lighter coloured buttercream (salted caramel, peanut butter, orange, white chocolate....mmmm)

It's fine to have different flavours of cake.

Naked cakes are as popular as ever, and it's not hard to see why. All your guests will be love it: the ones that love eating cake, the ones that like cake to look like cake, and the ones that want to see something really different. They are quirky AND traditional, all at the same time, and they look soooo delicious!

Lots of people don't want iced cakes. They've been put off sugarpaste (aka 'fondant', the smooth icing most cake makers use) by those supermarket birthday cakes with a thick wodge of sugarpaste on the top. These naked cakes are perfect for you, sugarpaste haters. However, in defence of icing, I usually tell clients that my cakes don't have a big slab of icing on the top, it's much thinner - I'm not mass-producing these things like the supermarkets do so I can take the time to make it nice. Also, once the cake has been cut each slice only has a tiny bit of icing on the top so it doesn't dominate. But if you're still anti-icing, go naked!

Mmm, Cake. What flavours work best?

For me personally, I love naked cakes to be a traditional jam-and-buttercream cake, like a viccy sponge. I like the way the jam oozes out of the sides! So I'd go for a combination of vanilla ad raspberry, and strawberry and champagne tiers.

But then again....they look ace with lovely chocolate cakes filled with lighter coloured buttercream, so chocolate and salted caramel, or choc orange, or chocolate and peanut butter....

I make lots that totally mix and match the flavours, too, and you can see from the pics above that they look fantastic too - so anything goes!

Fruit? Flowers? How should we decorate it?

I love them decorated with fresh fruit and fresh flowers. I supply all the fruit, and I'll ask you to order your flowers from your florist. Obviously, they can't be toxic flowers! The flowers sit on top of the cakes but they are in contact with cake you'll eat, so if you hate the idea of fresh flowers on cakes (some people do, and that's fine!) then just stick with the fruit. You can see it still looks fab! Either way, I'll set the cake up and arrange all the fruit and/or flowers on it.

Oh but I read that they dry out...

I have never worried about this. I bake them at the very last minute, and use great recipes that really aren't dry, and I set it up as late as I possibly can for you. They don't get a chance to dry out! Sure, if you baked it a few days in advance, or set it up the night before, it wouldn't be nice, but I'm not going to do that. So don't believe all the internet scaremongering, but do select your baker carefully!

Budget-busting?

Not at all, Naked cakes are obviously less work for me than an iced cake covered in sugarflowers, and that's reflected in the price.

I want one now!

Yay! Drop me an email!

The gentle art of Pimping Your Easter Eggs

My new year's resolution was to blog every week. Oops! It's March. Never mind - here is my first proper post. If you click 'like' at the bottom you can see hearts fly!

Every year, tradition demands that I 'pimp' my kids' eggs. That basically means, adding bits of icing to make a shop-bought egg look cooler. Or that's the aim, at least.

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Now, I'm not pretending that this is anything close to a 'tutorial', because that would mean that I was some sort of Egg Pimping expert. (Eggspert?) Whilst I've done it every year for a good few years, I'm still making it up as I go along. Every year, without fail, it's the very last thing I do on Easter Saturday - at about 1am. It's late, and I'm tired. But we all know that 1am is the best time for parental creativity - especially when expectations have been raised beyond belief, right? So, with apologies for the lack of step-by-step instructions, here's some things I've learned along the way. 

• I've got an easter egg mould....which I've never used. If you can temper chocolate then by all means, make your own, but if - like me - you're doing this at midnight ad can't be bothered, then don't beat yourself up.   
• I use the eggs that come in minimal packaging, for obvious reasons but also because they tend to have the sweets on the inside of the egg, which is critical in my opinion!
• I tend to use what ever bits of sugar paste, modelling paste or modelling chocolate I have kicking around. If you don't make cakes for a living you may not have cupboards full of sugar paste. You can use the supermarket 'ready to roll' stuff, or coloured marzipan, or anything you can find. For bold colours, ready-coloured is best. Modelling chocolate is great, too, and very easy to make using Wilton Candy Melts and liquid glucose (check the wilton website for the recipe).
• The question I am most often asked is 'how do you stick it all on?'. I usually find that the sugar paste is sticky enough by itself - and after all, I'm making this at 1am, the kids will be up at 6am, it doesn't have to cling on for long. You can use a bit of royal icing if you're worried, or melted chocolate, or water. 
• My number one tip is probably an obvious one (but it wasn't to me)...chocolate melts at body temperature. When I painted the Beatrix Potter egg, I held it in one hand and - of course - my fingers left melted holes in the chocolate! Make a little 'bed' to sit the egg in while you decorate with a bit of sugar paste or some crumpled up cling film. I use a squished ball of sugar paste to hold the egg upright once it's done, too.
• For this year's eggs, the designs meant that I needed to cover the whole egg in coloured paste. Or does it? Actually, I only cover the front, so the back isn't covered. much easier, and trust me - your kids won't complain. I just slap the rolled-out sugar paste on and then neaten the edge with a sharp knife.

That's it - have a ball! And have a very happy easter - don't stay up too late xx