The Kiki Cake

This is a little blog on the 'Kiki Cake'. Every year I make a cake for the same lovely family and their Daughters. Last year it was Abney and Teal, this year 'Kikis Delivery Service'. This is a real learning curve for me in children's programmes and this one I had never heard of!

It is a Japanese animation produced, directed and written by Hayao Miyazaki. It tells the story of a young witch named Kiki who flies around on her broom with her little cat. As well as being a lovely visual animation,  the movie touches on the gulf that exists between independence and reliance in Japanese teenage girls.

Despite all that, little Zadie who was about to turn three loves it, and so it was the choice theme for her birthday cake. The choice of flavour was also chocolate. Yum.

Having no knowledge of this film I had to watch it for a bit of research and loved the idea of having Kiki flying above the city, much like she does in the film.

So with a vague plan in mind I started by making her sat over a piece of dowel which was to become the broom. I thought this way I could stick the end of the dowel into the cake for support and she would look like she was flying. (well, that was the plan :)

I wanted to slowly add her hair in little pieces so I could make it look like it had a bit of movement, so I rolled little sausages out of floral paste.

Then of course she needed that big red bow for her hair which was easy to do as I had a nice silicone mould to do the job perfectly.

And not forgetting the little cat. As he is only a cartoon, he only needed to be a simple shape. A couple of legs and some big round eyes seemed to do the trick. Loving my fairy scissors.

I wanted him to be really shiny too, with a bit of sparkle, so before he went on the cake he got a good dose of glaze spray and a sprinkle of glitter. It gave him the perfect witches twinkle.

And now to the rest of the cake......well, in the film Kiki flys around a city, visual inspiration that originally came from a town in Sweden. The buildings really lend themselves to more of a European City much like Munic or Stockholm. There is also an important clock tower that features, so I went about creating a border for the cake made out of buildings. The lumps of colour are the pastel shades I chose to model my buildings from.

After rolling out and modelling some simple architectural shapes, I laid them over some old dummies to dry for an hour or two.

The main bulk of the cake I iced in blue. I wanted it to look like Kiki was in the sky flying over the city on her broomstick, with the cat! I made a slightly cobbled border on the cake board and then stuck all of the houses, and the clock tower around the outside. I even made a couple of clouds to sit in the sky.

Here is Kiki with her little satchel and cat on a broomstick. Mum requested that Zadie's name be on the cake too. Then everything got a good spray of super sparkle to give it a lovely lustre. There was also a sprinkling of glitter too (witches special magic dust) but it never really shows up in photos.

And here is the finished cake. It's lovely to have a little challenge. Especially with a theme you know nothing about. I hope you like it! :)

Now I wonder what next years theme will be.....

From Beaky to Bear!

I've just spent the most wonderful weekend with my family, friends and the people I love dearly. My Nephew Dexter turned 1 year old today (6th of May 2013). We have all just celebrated not only his Birthday but his Christening too! I was honoured to be asked to be his Godmother and as part of that package he gets the cake :)

After sketching out a few ideas, his mum Sarah had the last say and this was the final draft. Before Dexter was born we all knew him as 'Beaky', now he is 'The Bear' and so I had the idea of incorporating a little beaky bird and a little brown bear. Blue is of course the choice colour for boys, but I mixed it with chocolate brown and white for a cute twist.

I always hand make all of my own cake bunting and cupcake pics so I chose some sweet blue flowery paper to complement the blue on the cake. And then tied little brown bows to the base of the flags.

Then I made all the little bits to make the bear. Have to say I'm not a big fan of making characters, but for my Nephew, I will make anything :) I used Sugarflair Dark Brown to do this one.

And then the little 'Beaky' bird. I didn't want him to be legless, so they came along later by way of a couple of cocktail sticks.

As there were little white daisy flowers on the bunting, I thought I would make a few little cutout daisies to pop around the cake. I used a simple plunger cutter and wasn't bothered about them looking too thin and real as this cake was more novelty than floral. The bird kept a beaky eye on the proceedings.

I cut simple little circles out of white fondant to decorate the top tier, and stripes to decorate the bottom. The whole cake was vanilla and raspberry jam with a vanilla butter cream.

I wanted to do some cupcakes for the children so I found some cute blue cupcake wrappers and made some raspberry and vanilla cakes to match. These ones have been brushed with a delicious raspberry syrup before being piped with a swiss meringue buttercream. Yum.

Here is the little bear. Think the cocktail stick slipped a bit over his left eye!

And the little bird :)

This is the lovely Louis, my cousins little boy. He couldn't get enough of my cupcakes. Him and his brother Finn think I am the second best cake maker in the whole world! I like to let them continue to think that :) They are my best supporters. 

Here is my Godson with his cake. I couldn't get him to look at the camera but never mind. He is looking super smart in his special outfit and enjoying every minute of all the attention.

My lovely Brother and Dexter's Daddy Andy did the 

cake cutting and speech.

And this is my Sister in Law Sarah with the little man. 

We all had such a fantastic day and it's so nice to eat one of my own cakes for once.

Happy Birthday and Happy Christening Dexter John David Hill. Love Auntie Rachie Godmamma xxxxx