Tuesday 28 October 2014

My Bakes So Far

I'm not starting this post with the intention of finishing it today, but if i do that's a bonus!

Im currently getting ready to go to an awards ceremony for my undercover work that i do with the police but i'm waiting for my curls to set so i thought I'd take some time to show you my previous bakes.

I'll start with my first proper cake!

Cake No. 1
i made this cake at a decorating class i attended back in April. I have made many cakes prior to this, but these are the ones worthy of photography!

A bit shabby, but for my first attempt at piping... I'm pretty proud!
It's a vanilla sponge, covered in fondant then decorations piped with royal icing and to say the least, it was tricky!

I'll rephrase that to "Very very shabby".
Cake No.2

This cake was a complete disaster which shall only be known as "The collapse of the castle". 
I don't know if I'm the only one, but when I bake with somebody else, any skill I ever had flies straight out of the window and becomes little more than a handicap. That's what happened with that cake. I had great intentions for this cake to be the best cake I've ever made... it wasn't. It wasn't even worthy of being called a cake. We used a castle mould and baked for far too short a time. When it emerged from the oven all looked well... the top was springy and a cake tester came out clean... from the centre. After turning it out onto the counter we saw what could only be described as a self formed moat form around the cake due to the corners of the cake still being liquid. I don't know what went wrong, all I can put it down to is that baking should not be done in pairs!. #Antisocialbakersunite. Then to top off the 'cake', and simply to accentuate the natural disaster that had occurred, we covered it in bright yellow icing and made a 'sea' from chocolate butter cream that had been turned a funny shade of Algae with the excesses amounts of food colouring used to try and get rid of the brown. 
I got a photo...
Nobodies perfect... 
Cake No.3

No sooner had my accomplice in disaster cake gone home, I started preparation for my next cake. 5pm, and already downhearted from the previous disaster, I didn't have high hopes for this cake. My boyfriend had been away for 2 weeks so i wanted to welcome him home with a cake. 
I made the batter and set it off to bake. An hour later I had 2 perfectly formed cakes cooling their little socks off waiting for me to assemble what I can only describe as my best creation to date.
9 hours of hard work paid off

    Covering the cake was eventful! After getting the fondant over the top, I discovered a huge tear up the side. 16 Carnations and 4 hours later, the rip is no more. Each flower takes around 10 minutes to perfect. If you're interested in how to make these, and anything else you see, let me know and I may make a tutorial post.
The scale model of my boyfriend.. okay not to scale.. but I am rather impressed with him, was my first attempt at a human figure and I think he turned out pretty well. 




The most pleasing thing i think there is about baking is the joy it brings to other people. Staying up until 3am seems worth it when you see how happy what you've crafted makes somebody else. It's the best therapy. 

Cake No. 4

 I threw this cake together pretty quickly, hence the lack of skill. Disaster cake accomplice was going through a bit a rough time so I thought I'd cheer her up with a cake.
Very very very shabby!
Cake No. 5

Recently I made a cake for my dads friends daughters hen night. She didn't give me much of a briefing. So besides pink, purple and girly, I didn't have much to go off. I managed to put this together in between college and homework.
Is this pink, purple and girly enough??
Cake No. 6

This cake was supposed to be Oreo shaped, however the mould didn't work again... (see a bit of a pattern occurring here?) 
Definitely not an Oreo





I made it just for fun and ended up giving it to my friend for his birthday! The sand is coloured sugar skillfully made by my boyfriend. I don't quite know how it turned from an Oreo to an ocean but im glad it did. 


My first wedding peice!!!

My boyfriends sister got married in June and I was asked to make the Bride and Groom figures for the cake!!  This was nerve wrecking as not only would it be other people seeing my figures, they'd be part of their wedding memories forever and I really did not want to mess this up!
I'm really proud how she turned out. Again i made her with minimal briefing. Having only met her once before (when she was blond) and most of her Facebook picture with her hair blond... I did her hair blond. On the day her hair wasn't blond... Woops. 
Bride, Groom & Son

I'm really pleased with them and how they looked on the cake. Even if the grooms arm fell off in the heat of the car. 

Its now Tuesday morning.. nearly a week after i started this post and i've got a driving lesson to get  ready for!I Hope you've enjoyed this little update on my baking so far! And I hope to keep you updated on my future baking endeavours

Lia 
xoxoxox


PS...

The awards evening went so so well! Here are a few pictures 
Chief Superintendents Good Citizen Award

Mayor and Mayoress of Halton 

<3


Tuesday 21 October 2014

First Proper Big Girls Blog!

Good Morning, Good Evening, Good Afternoon..

I'm saying that because I'm not too sure when this post is going to go out.
I'm in the middle of a rather hectic bedroom move around, I say hectic... If you count a kingsize bed arriving to your house at 7am when your half dressed and have to answer the door to two delivery guys who then promptly want to escort you up the stairs with a cardboard box the size of a wendy house only to find there's then nowhere for it to actually fit, then yes, this is all rather hectic! 
This probably wasn't one of the greatest times to start a blog, with little time on my hands, I barely get my college work done, God knows how I'm going to keep this up! I can but try. 
I've been on tumblr for nearly 3 years now, I don't see it as proper blogging.. More of a baby step into blogging. I think my time on there has run its course and it's now time to grow up and move onto big girls blogging. 

I created this blog with the idea of moulding myself into a more productive and organised person, so here's some things I'd like to get sorted within the next week or so:

-My UCAS form... Here in the uk we apply to university with a little badly organised website called ucas (I'm not too sure what it stands for). My college is the most pushy college in the existence of the planet and has set the deadline for 100% completion of the form and personal statement by the 4th of November and so far I've procrastinated my way through hoping it'll sort itself out. I'm coming to realise that it won't. 

-My bedroom... This, I think, is going to have to be a work in progress. Due to a significant lack of money and Christmas coming up, I don't have the means to create the bedroom I wish for. After splashing the majority of my money on a new bed, I've got next to nothing left. I'm not sure if I like the idea of a work in progress, I rarely ever finish anything so I'd hate for this to become one of the many forgotten projects. However It could also keep me focused on improving my surroundings and be my own little labour of love. I'm really excited!

-Driving... After starting my driving lessons 2 weeks ago, I've suddenly come to realise that driving takes a lot of effort and If I want to pass my test I really need to focus on revising for my theory. So that's what I'm going to do. I've downloaded the official app so hopefully I can inspire myself to do just a bit more revision!

That's it for now I think, I might add more later if anything else springs to mind but those are my main focuses for this week and half term. 

I'm not sure if anybody is going to read this but if you did, thank you. 

Lia xoxo



Sunday 19 October 2014

Im new here

Hi 
My names Lia. 
I'm not really too sure what I want to do with this blog, I've been intending to create one for a while, I woke up this morning and decided today is the day. I've had tumblr for a while now and have a healthy amount of followers but I feel like its not really too personal. That's what I hope for this to be. Not only for you to get an insight into my life but for me to have something personal which I can look back over when I'm old and incontinent :')

soooooo.....

Enjoy!