The new fitness craze... Crossfit!

Hi everyone,

Now if you're a fitness freak you've probably heard of this thing called 'Crossfit'. Ask those crazy crossfitters out there and they will go on and on about what it is, means and how much better it is than a gym.. blah blah. I'm definitely no fitness freak and I've tried my hand at crossfitesque workouts but in the end it just wasn't for me.

What does crossfit have to do with cake you might ask? Well a crossfit themed cake of course! My cousin's now fiancee is one of these crazy crossfitters who lives, eats and breathes crossfit.  He started off as a personal trainer in your regular gym but crossfit took over his life and he now works as a certified crossfit trainer. Clearly, there was only one theme that would suffice for his 30th birthday cake...

Introducing to you my most pinned cake on Pinterest!
Ok so 8 pins isn't much but still pretty happy :P Also quality of the pinterest picture is really bad so here's a good one!

Crossfit Cake

This cake was made back in January 2013. It is a kettlebell sitting on a tyre with a skipping rope draped around.

The Kettlebell

The kettlebell was made by baking my cake in the wilton ball pan. The handle was made from rice krispy treats. It was my first time using rice krispy treats (I used Kellogs LCM's and squashed them together). I coated it in chocolate ganache and then covered in black fondant. There was a wire running through the handle so that I could curve the handle to my desired shape and also to insert the handle into the kettlebell cake.  Covering the ball part of the kettlebell was easy until it came to the bottom! Tips for next time - have the ball sitting on a small jar or can so the fondant can overhang and I can smooth the ball down the sides a little easier. Basically I want the ball to be sitting on something tall but with a smaller diameter to the base of the ball.. get it???? Haha, hard to explain but if you've had the same problem I think you would understand.

The Tyre

The tyre was kept simple. Just because I was too lazy to make it 3d with the indents in the middle. But thanks to my lovely boyfriend who helped me cut out the treads. He even measured them out so that they would be even but by the end of it we had done half of it by freehand. 

The Cake Board

First time painting on fondant, and I loved it! I am so pleased with how the wood effect turned out. I used vodka with some brown gel food colouring and used a wide bristled brush. I scored the fondant before painting and once one layer was dry I went over some bits with more 'paint' so that there were different colours of brown for the final effect. 

The birthday boy was very pleased with the cake. It was a simple dark chocolate mud cake (my go to fail safe recipe) for both tyre and kettlebell. Funnily enough, the hit of the day... The handle! Everyone loved the taste of the rice krispy treats, I guess it brought up a lot of good childhood memories!

Thanks for reading
Dee

Christenings and 30th's

At the start of the week I was asked to make 2 cakes for Sunday. A christening cake and a surprise 30th birthday. For the christening cake what instantly came to mind was doing a quilted patten. I'd seen so many nice quilted cakes out there that I've always wanted to give it a go, and this was the perfect occasion to do so! As for other parts of the decoration I thought a plaque with the baby's name was perfect and some sort of edible decoration on top. For the 30th birthday cake I had no idea! Luckily I was informed that the birthday boy participated in Jiu Jitsu so we agreed on the idea of a rectangle cake that looked like the Jiu Jitsu uniform.

To save time both cakes were made with the same recipe. I have a fail safe chocolate cake recipe that I have been using for the past year but am looking out for newer recipes to expand my selection base. Therefore with these cakes we decided on a marble mud cake recipe (will be waiting reviews on the taste!). 

Through the whole start of the week I thought about what sort of decoration I should add on the christening cake. I went from rocking horses to monkeys to teddy bears. I tried to stay away from doing an actual baby because I didn't think I could make one but low and behold, thats what I ended up doing! 

Here was my peaceful sleeping baby boy I left to dry overnight. I actually wanted him to be on his tummy but I couldn't get the arms and legs right so sleeping on his back it was. I also made a half moon and left to dry overnight. 

The next day I woke up to RAIN!!!!!!! Rain as most decorators know is the devil!  It creates too much moisture in the air and everything gets sticky. So yes, poor baby was sticky and my moon was nowhere near dry... not good as it is supposed to stay upright on the cake.

For the quilting I used a lovely tutorial provided by Sharon Wee Creations on her facebook page. The only problem was my fondant was sticky and my stencil kept sticking to the sides ruining the perfect fondant covering I had done. Oh wells I said and persisted on. Sigh, nothing ever goes to plan! haha

I used royal icing to pipe the baby boy's name and thought adding a cross was a nice touch for a christening cake. 

Baby boy christening cake

As you can see in these pictures of the cake the moon is standing. After these pics were taken it bent over because it was still too wet! So now it is off the cake lying flat hopefully drying out before tomorrow morning. If not the cake will survive without it :(

As for my second cake, the 30th birthday cake, I didn't spend nearly as much time as the christening cake. I really wanted to create a 3d collar but due to the silly weather I felt it would never have worked and opted for no collar. Any fondant to fondant touch would have stuck forever therefore there was no room for any mistakes. It was a really simple cake but I still managed to ruin even a simple cake...

Jiu Jitsu Cake. Can you see the slight shine? Cake is still sticky due to the weather!

So the black belt was supposed to be blue according to my brief which I totally missed! But the black belt is technically a higher title so hopefully the birthday boy can now focus on getting that black belt during his next 30 years! 

I've been making a cake a week for the past few weeks it feels. I need a mini break! Hard to juggle everything by myself since I also work full time during the day.

Hope you guys enjoyed reading. Have a great day :)
Dee 

Just a hello and introduction!

Hi All,

I would like to welcome you to my blog, Ruffles and Cakes. I hope this blog will give everyone the inspiration to decorate their own cakes and realise just how easy it can be!

My cake decorating journey started a few years ago when I made my first fondant cake. It was a square superman inspired cake for my boyfriends birthday.  I was inspired by a friend of mine who had seen some tutorials online regarding fondant cakes and she had made her boyfriend a present cake complete with bows and ribbons! All this she learnt off good ol' Youtube. I chose to bake a pound cake as I had read that fondant cakes required heavier cakes to hold the fondant. I covered and filled the cake with chocolate ganache and decorated in fondant. The cake looked pretty good I must say for a first try but the pound cake did come out really dry (my bad!). The pre-coloured fondant I bought for decorations however tasted disgusting! Like Play-doh!!!! I had fun making it but it didn't leave me inspired to make any more.
Heres some pics of the finished product. 

The 3 loops you see were my attempt to make a bow. It didn't turn out so I just left it off the cake. My cake board was a chopping board wrapped in aluminium foil. 

Fast forward to April 2012, I bought a deal to do a cupcake decorating class which taught us the basics of decorating cupcakes with fondant. I felt inspired after leaving the class and mothers day was approaching so I started researching into cake designs. Funnily enough it wasn't a fondant cake that caught my eye but the beautiful ombre buttercream ruffles cakes! Wanting to do some sort of fondant work as well I opted on doing some ruffled flowers to top off the cake.

....It is now approaching almost one year since the mothers day cake and I have been decorating ever since. It really is a love hate relationship. Love the inspiration I see from all other cake decorators out there and hate the execution part haha

Welcome to my journey!