Some more birthday cakes...

15:57

There have been a few birthdays this year, including my sister ofcourse, and I've felt really privelidged to be making cakes for such special people in my life.

One of my old friends Nikki turned 21 this year and her mum asked me if I could make her a cake to have at her party. Nikki already had quite a few ideas about the design of the cake so I didn't have any trouble in trying decide how to decorate it! Infact these were my instructions: Silver and black icing saying 'Happy Birthday Nikki' with decorations including colourful cocktail glasses, a black retriever dog, a horse, a runner, dresses and bags and a globe to represent travel.

So I said, sure, I can do that!

As you can see, I actually decided to do a two tier cake rather than one really big one as I thought this would look more impressive and grand-perfect for a 21st cake! Cutting the cocktail glasses out of icing took an awfully long time but I think it was a great idea of Nikki's and really finishes off the cake. It was my idea to top the cake with black and silver stars on wires to give a firework effect- a decorating technique that seems to be quite popular at the moment.

Each corner of the cake contains the decorations that Nikki suggested, all made out of icing and mazipan. However I decided to do horse shoes as I wasn't sure whether I could make a horse out of icing!

Another cake I have done this year was for my younger cousin Alice, who reached double figures in April- scary stuff! Alice absolutely loves dogs, and although I couldn't get her a real dog, I could atleast make her a dog themed cake!

I went with a dalmation theme as I just love the print. I also got some inspiration after a little googling and made a dalmation dog out of icing, and a red dog collar to go around the bottom of the cake rather than a ribbon.