Shirley's party advice part 4 - Better at party planning than Pippa Middleton

[BlatherskiteOfTheLivingDead]

New thread :) Everyone welcome.

I like the tea light better than the angel, TBH.

Silver - I have that book, but not with me (not even I travel on business with cake books, although I have been known to travel with sewing ). If you can describe what you want to change about it, I could probably suggest what you would need - I am home on Friday so could do it with the book in front of me then.

Ooh that looks good (if a little lot Christmassy!) but I don't fancy buying a special mould.

The 'easy cakes' one: looking at it again, it is almost right. I just need to make it a bit bigger (use a 12" square, so have a 6" house) and decorate it differently. I don't like the face, would prefer to decorate it as a house. Was thinking of using buttercream rather than fondant to cover the walls, though not sure about that (want it to look neat, so maybe fondant would be better). Would also like a bit more garden than the easy cake one has. And was thinking of use jazzles (is that what they're called? The large choc buttons covered in hundreds and thousands?) as roof tiles.

I guess with this sort of cake you can do what you like, but I just want to have a clear idea of what in doing (pref by copying someone else's ideas!) so that I don't end up having to go out shopping again mid decoration.

By the way, I don't expect 1 year old DD to actually eat much of this, but DS is v keen, as will his cousins be!

PMSL. I was just off to Lakeland to find the house mould I knew I had seen when I thought I had better just check the link that DW posted first...

Great minds think alike.

Hi stealth, hopefully the above post indicates what I'm thinking if doing!

Any advice would be much appreciated. It needs making by 16th, though I might make the sponge in the next few days and freeze it as I'm going to be so busy in the run up to 16th (we're having close family and friends round for tea and cake on 16th, which amounts to about 30 people!)

You can make buttercream look neat enough for walls with a bit of practice, and jazzies (yes, for some strange reason, that is what they are called) would make good tiles.

Garden - how do you/your DC feel about coconut? Coloured dessicated coconut makes great grass, but unfortunately my DC hate coconut in all forms. Fondant textured with a new scrubbing brush works too.

OK, I have just googled and found a picture of the cake in question - it's not one I have tried or even considered.

So - what she lists, minus a bit of fondant and sweets, plus more buttercream, fondant/coconut for grass, sugar flowers (or a flower plunger cutter), matchsticks to make a fence, and you should be sorted, IMHO.

(there speaks a woman who has such ridiculously large stocks of cake stuff that she can (and will have to) make 9 mini christmas cakes without going shopping )

Thanks for the ideas. Think using coloured dessicated coconut is a good idea as no one hates it, even if it doesn't actually get eaten. I only have gel colours, so would it be possible to colour it with that (ivf only used them on icing before)? I'll prob cover the board in green fondant first anyway, add sweets etc, then sprinkle the coconut on top in the gaps.

Had been thinking of a curly wurly fence but not sure how to ensure it stays upright.

I had thought that it'd be easier to stick sweets on walls and roof yo buttercream, but for the walls as least I'd prob be better using fondant as I have plenty of sugar glue.

Think I'll use boiled sweets etc for flowers as I don't have any tools did modelling 3d flowers (and never done them before) plus the more sweets the better as far as DS is concerned. Will just go to the sweet shop (there's an amazing one near us that sells sweets by the quarter and pick n mix and large individual lollies which I can use as trees). At least if I overbuy I'll have plenty if willing helpers to dispose of the excess.

Dr Oetker do sugar flowers in tubs like the hundreds and thousands, ooh and rice paper flowers which I used in DD's Teddy Bears Picnic cake too...

Ah yes I could use some of those. Or could try making some freehand in advance (would be good practice). I want to use lots of sweets jb the design but some flowers would be nice too.

I got all of the plates and cups from IKEA today. They look fab :)

If you invest in a blossom plunger (fancy cutter) you can make tons and tons of tiny flowers from sugar paste.. I did loads on my rapunzel cake and had so many left I put three each on 22 cupcakes. if your sticking fondant to sponge your best to use buttercream than glue which may then defeat the purpose and just go with buttercream. You can get large spreaders for a couple of quid than help you get buttercream really slick, but its just a big credit card really. If you cut the moulded edge off a margarine lid you'd be left with a flat, flexible spreader of a similar ilk.

Plunger cutters are really easy to use - lakeland sell the flower ones if you don't want to order them elsewhere. way cheaper than buying sugar flowers.

I am thoroughly bored of this conference centre now. Home tonight, frantic cake making over the weekend, then back here again next week

Have just bought a set of four blossom cutters from amazon for just £3.50. The reviews are good so hopefully they won't be too crappy. I usually buy that sort if thing from tk maxx but won't be going near one in time.

So will use a combination of flowers, sweets, lollies and sprinkles to make the garden. I can't wait! I made four 6" square madeiras last night and have frozen them, so that's the actual cake part done. Need to concentrate in mince pies for the nativity next!

The rainbow backdrop for the food table is done. I just need to add some clouds now. Hoorah, finally a job done.

I've got my old stereo back from MIL to play the music too. Now I just need to create a CD to play on it. Any suggestions? Do I do rainbow/elephant/bouncing themed music or just go for random pop?

I've got gel colours! Tried my local cake shop and ended up with Sugarflair gels. I hope they work. Woman in the shop admitted she'd never coloured sponge but sells a lot of the Christmas Red for Red Velvet cakes. I was going to get 3/4 colours and mix the Orange, Green and maybe Purple but I went for the full 6 in the end to give me a chance to try them out as I'm guessing I might need half a pot to get a strong enough colour. I must remember not to give them cake until they're ready to go home

It's only 6 colours because I'm just doing 'purple' rather than Indigo and Violet. I know it's cheating but I've got 6 colours of jelly, 6 colours of plates/bowls/cups, 6 colours on the party bag labels and on the windmills etc so it 'goes' better. I've got most of the bits in a box ready to go now. It all looks really good together.

is Blather Shirley? i did not know this...

I am not Shirley. Shirley started the original thread but we've been carrying on without her for a while now. It was just my turn to start the new thread.

aha!

Sugarflair colours are good, IME.

Oh good. I did my test cake with the Hummingbird bakery Vanilla sponge and it worked well. I think it's maybe because it's Plain flour and baking powder rather than lighter self raising so it held up quite well even at 6 layers. They were thin ones though so I hope it holds up for thicker sponge.

Damnit, I forgot to get cake dowels!

Just use straws, if you have some.

Watching carefully.

Sugarflair colours. Check.
Cake tin. Check.
Dowels. Check.
A copy of blathers artwork. Check.
Peg dolly.....peg dolly? Peg....

Bum. Hurry up blathers i wanna see yours.

Stealth forgot to ask, what cake did you make for DB that time you were rushed? Did you manage a pizza one?

There was a pizza one, I saw a photo. DW, you really need to be on twitter!

I was finishing off DD's rainbow today and wondering whether to write "Happy Birthday DD" on it or not - and then trying to decide how I'd do it if i did do that it could be removed and replaced with your DD's name DW! :)

I still need to make that CD too....