The Gluten, Dairy and Egg free challenge!

I had my first 'special dietary requirements' cake challenge last week. I was asked to make a gluten, dairy AND egg free 80th birthday cake.

My heart sank (no offense Mark). But i rose to the challenge! I found a very helpful website (that isn't American!) that a cake decorator has put together, full of gluten and dairy free recipes. It also tells you what products are safe to use (which was ridiculously helpful especially for fondant icing).

Here's the link to this very helpful website:

http://www.icedgembakes.co.uk/

I used their victoria sponge recipe which uses sunflower oil as the egg and butter replacement. It came out really well and once iced with dairy free butter cream and jam, it tasted fine.

BUT I have no idea what it has been doing once inside the fondant icing and I'm anxiously waiting to hear how it it tasted. For all I know - it could have turned to mush....

So I did make an additional 12 normal cupcakes just incase it was inedible, so that those who didn't have an intolerance could enjoy some tasty cake.

Fingers crossed!

18th Birthday Cake

An 18th birthday cake I made last summer.

This was the first cake where I successfully rolled out the fondant large enough to cover the cake! It took a while to master it but I got there in the end.

There are a lot of stages involved in this cake decorating lark - I can see why cake shops charge so much money. It's exhausting - but really really fun and worth all the effort.

Cath Kidston inspired cake

Here's a cake I made this week based on Cath Kidston designs http://www.cathkidston.co.uk/.

It was very fun to make. I still need to work on my fondant roses - the petals always stick together I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong?!

I think it'd look very cool as the top cake for a wedding with a tower of cupcakes underneath. I've run out of washing up energy to make any today though.