A Thread for all UK bakers!! - Page 8

We've got a Ladies Summer Event coming up where there'll be loadsa stalls, activities and stuff. I'm planning to have a cake stall and thinking of doing cupcakes and the like. I wanted to do half boys themed cuppies; with football shirt decos on top and another half girly themed cuppies; with miniature tiaras. I've looked on CC for tiara templates but they're sized for larger cakes. Would anyone have an idea where I could get smaller size? I came across this, but there's no template for that:
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1187418

*edited to sort link out

Hi,

Have been on a break and just back a couple of days ago in time to get stuck into a tray of easter cupcakes and a carved tractor birthday cake. Couple of things n response to some of your queries:

1. I also am charging basically the cost of doing a cake for friends etc while I build up a portfolio and get certificates etc, so yes I ask for the box back but not the bases as they tend to get scratched when the cake is cut. I have also tried to where possible make my cakes fit on the smaller boards that Asda sell when doing birthday cakes for friends as they are about 60p a board, loads cheaper than cake shop!

2. What about doing tiara shaped cookies, just thinking that I used the NFSC recipe on here for the pirate boats for my son's party and they went down a storm with lots of parents asking for the recipe. I got a really decent sized crown cutter on line last year and decorated with icing and metallic balls, jelly diamonds etc for DD's princess birthday.

3. Is the BSG website part of the british sugar guild, just not sure if you have been to any of their meetings? I went to one last year and it was fab, I paid a guest rate of £5 for the meeting and spent ttwo hours watching Debbie Brown create a circus cake a few meters from me. I think it is £12 or so to join for the year and then only £2 a month for the meetings you go to. Iwas the youngest there by far but recon I would learn a lot, just struggle to fit in the meetings around the kids!

Speak soon, E x

eilidh, thanks for the cookie idea. Your pirate cookies look fabulous! I could never do work like that . I asked the lady who's cupcake pic I liked, and they are actually jumbo cupcakes, so to make miniature tiaras would be a mission

honestly you could easily do it. It was my first time and it was not tough at all other than I have a pretty bad tremour in my hand when I am concentrating! The cookie recipe is so easy you could not go wrong at all and you just make the decor as fancy as you want, the best bit about the icing is that you just outline in watered down royal icing (from the box) and then make it slighly more runny to "flood" in he same colour so e.g. you could maybe do a crown in yellow and then stick on "jewels" and maybe dust in a bit of edible disco glitter. Used that today at an easter party on cupcakes I di and the kids (and mums!!!) were very taken with the sparkles!

Only other thought I had was maybe seeing if there is a mini crown cutter that would fit on our normal sized cupcakes. Like I have the wilton set that has a flower butterfly bell and tulip, maybe another set has crown on it? That way you just cut out of fondant the shape. I did flower ones for hubbie's work one morn started baking at seven and had had breakfast showered and decorate a tray of them by eight am so seriously easy.

Whatever you decide good luck with it!

Could you resize the template? I'll go have a look!!

Don't really know what the protocol is for using these templates (I'm assuming you can as people have posted them!!) But if you either save the pic to your pc or copy it into word, you can re-size it to what ever size you need!

Might be a bit time consuming to pipe them all, but bet they'd look fantastic!

Failing that, Cakes, Cookies and Craft have a mini crown cookie cutter which might do the trick!

Good luck!

eilidh, that easy huh. Can't wait to try my hands on them! I'll have a look at that site for the cutter, fairycakes. And thanks so much for the instructions on re-sizing. I assumed I'd need some fancy software to work with images, but obviously I can resize on word too! I had another idea of doing butterflies on some cupcakes, coz those are absolutely gorgeous too!
Thanks again guys, when I do them I'll post the pics to show you guys how things turned out.

Hello fellow UK bakers
I'm am a self taught decorator (been decorating for about 18mnths) and am so pleased that I found this post.
I am thinking about setting up a home business and It's great to share other UK bakers experiences about setting up businesses and the usual issues with pricing (everyone wants a bespoke cake for Asda prices - lol)

Newsums x

I've had that happen twice...they make a huge cake request, then when i give them a price (which is never high enough anyway) ...the said oh never mind I'll go to asda !! haha

Lyndsey xx

I' know I'm a little late coming in on this but hello fellow UKers. It's so nice to know some of you are out there lol

I live just north of Birmingham & I work from home too. All my work comes from family, friends & work colleagues & It's just word of mouth from them. I get lots of compliments that my cakes taste as good as they look. They think I use some really fancy recipe but I only ever use a good old fashioned victoria sponge recipe, you know equal amounts of fat, flour, sugar & eggs.

I've tried lots of recipes for chocolate cakes but the simplest & best tasting comes from Kathy Moore's Cakes From Concept To Creation book, which is a fantastic book if you're just starting out. It covers everything from basic recipes to pricing.

This will do an 8" cake.
225g Butter or maragarine
225g caster sugar
225g self raising flour
4 eggs
4 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
4 tbsp hot water
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp coffee powder/granules

Pre heat oven to 180 c.
Mix the cocoa with the hot water & coffee granules to make a paste.
Then place all the ingredients into a mixer & beat well until light & fluffy.
Then cook in a lined tin as normal for 30 - 50 mins.

As for cupcakes I agree that people think you're crazy for wanting to charge them £1.50 each for them, they think they should cost 50p like they do in Greggs. My cake dec tutor hates making cupcakes so she charges £6 each for them just to put people off.

Newsums I agree everyone thinks you should only charge Asda prices because lets face it that's what most people are used to nowadays. I always say if you want a generic mass produced cake that looks & tastes awful & is full of additives then go to Asda. If not be willing to pay for bespoke.

bashini I too prefer to use covapaste. It's tastes better, is easier to work & doesn't have that weird smell Regalice does.

Lyndseyb52 yay another Lynsey I only I spell mine without the "d"

Just a quick thank you to Cathy for the heads up about Rye Pac. I get my boards from a local warehouse but have had trouble finding cheap boxes & now I have. Thank you so much

Also I don't know if any of you use a lot of ribbon but there's a site midpac.co.uk that sells really cheap high quality satin ribbon. The draw back is you have to buy 91m rolls but it only works out about 12ppm. They also sell gift boxes & printed carrier bags, with your own logo, but I've never bought any of those kind of things.

Hey all.

hope everyone has had a great easter weekend!!

Well I made my first Cupcakes! Did some for a mini party we had for OHs birthday we had on Fri, The butter cream was to soft and my "swirls" mixed in, so I made some thicker butter cream for DS ones on Sunday and the swirls were better but I still need lots of practice!! DS's were supposed to have choccie buttons as mickey mouse ears but as I came down from shower OH had fed them to DS so had to but open some smarties from an easter egg


So these were a few of the first batch (with a few crispie cake DS wanted to make after the advert thats on ALL the time!)



This was DS's birthday cake and the only pic I got of the cupcakes you can see in the corner of the pic


Gutted as my icing cracked when I moved the cake!! icing was suppsoed to be dark green, i couldnt get it any darker....how do you all colour icing, or do you buy it coloured? Is this Covaice easier to colour as well as to work with?

Love the Mickey Mouse club cake! Sure nobody even noticed the crack! i buy my icing ready coloured generally, when it is e.g. red or green etc, I only self colour for small amounts or for more unusual shades e.g. like various flesh tones etc. Not sure what the make is called though as I get it from the local cake shop in Swindon.

Totally agree about the whole asda thing. Funnily today I had a look at the cakes in sainsburys and my 4 year old and I were laughing at how rubbish the Mario birthday cake they had was. i had made one for a friend recently and sainsburys effort was a stick on edible image. Part of me thinks people have forgotton what real baking tastes like. E.g. on Saturday I took some cupcakes to a party where there was tonnes of cakes etc, and lots of people were still going on about my cake the next day, same with a birthday cake I did for Sunday...thing is it is not like I do what many of the Ameicans do and doctor recipes etc, like you say I use a pretty basic victoria sponge recipe that ANYONE could do...but the issue is that so few people bake properly now and they actually think cake from Asda is what cake tastes like...yuk!

Even if I never make it as a business at least my kids will know how to bake and never have a horrid shop bought birthday cake! (EVER!!!!)

Hi all,
just to say this is a fab thread. i have had all my questions answered in one swop.
Thank you all

Great Minnie Mouse cake. I must say that this has been an excellent post, there has been so much information and advice.

When I make a cake I either use a basic victoria sponge, or this recipe that I found in a cake book. This has worked for me everytime.

4oz butter
1tsp vanilla essence
51/2oz sugar
2 eggs (large)
71/2oz sf flour
4floz milk

Beat butter, essence and sugar together. Beat in eggs until combined. Stir in flour and milk in two batches,

Kathryn