I've had wide range of orders recently (for weddings, garden parties, work parties) and this one was for a family who are leaving England for the Czech Republic for a year and then Chicago (all this information from the little boy who's cakes these are - he was taking them in to his class on his last day). I think they look so cute with the cut out icing shape on top. I'm going to do some tomorrow with the black cherry cupcakes I've made for the stall.

Making cakes in this weather is fairly hot I have to say - I've had the windows open but the blinds down but half open (they're the slatted wooden type) so that I get a breeze without the heat of the sun but it's means cooking in semi darkness.. Juliet Binoche never looked hot and frazzled and her hair never went frizzy when she had a shop in Chocolat whereas I look like a stressed tomato :))

A couple more photos of the wedding cakes - I really like the M hearts L ones!

I had a great day on the market yesterday - lovely weather which always cheers people up and conversation about the, or should that be THE, match yesterday to keep us going (thank goodness we won, just for the sanity of the nation's women who have to put up with nervous male footie supporters..). I hadn't taken too many cupcakes with me - judging how many to take is always the most difficult thing - but they flew off and I'd sold out by 1pm! This can be a good thing but I felt very embarrassed as regular customers came to the stall and I didn't have anything to give them. Next week I'll make loads and not a soul will come to see me, c'est la vie :)) Anyway, here is a picture of the strawberry and raspberry cheesecake cupcakes which were very popular and very delicious..

These are the cupcakes for a wedding yesterday - it was for my sister's nephew in law (very complicated!). They had the reception at the restaurant in Madingley and I hope someone took some photos of the cakes once they were arranged on the stand with fresh flowers as they looked bloomin' gorgeous :)

A cake with fresh flowers for a wedding - the flowers are the same as the ones in the bouquet (how do you spell bouquet?something like that..). We took the cake and the cupcakes to the restaurant and arranged them there on a stand with flowers on that too but, nervewrackingly, we were being watched by the glamorous Italian guests, gulp..They looked beautiful when they were in place though so I hope they take some photos of them :)

I helped at the cake sale at my youngest daughter's school today and these are some of the cakes I made - they're Oreo ones with two tone icing which looks super cool! To make icing like this you take an icing bag (either reusable or the thick disposable ones, I get mine from Lakeland) and put one colour of icing in one side using a spatula and then put the other colour in down the other side as carefully as you can :) But it doesn't matter if it isn't exact as it looks good anyway - but this one has come out spookily well..

Tomorrow I'm making 60 wedding cupcakes for my sister's nephew-in-law (very complicated). I bought lovely heart shaped marshmallows to put on some them and I'll post some pictures as sure as night follows day..

Some of the cakes from this week. The first one is a cake I made for the neighbour of a friend, the second lot are some of the 400 (yes, 400!!) I made for a garden party in Downing College and the last picture is of some of the cupcakes I had on the stall today. They are Oreo cupcakes and have the normal vanilla buttercream topping but then I roll out fondant icing and use it to cover the top. It looked so good!

A cake I've just delivered to a lovely woman in a hairdresser's in town - I had to circle round until she got there as I could see a traffic warden following me down the road and I know that they'll leap out and have a ticket on your car before you can say 'I'm only delivering a cake!'. I can see now on the photo that I written the name on at a slight angle so I hope they still like it :)

It is a huge cake - 25cm - which took 2 hours to cook on a very low heat. The most nerve wracking part is cutting the cake in half evenly (I just about managed it) and the inside looked really lovely and moist. It has 4 chocolate bars and nearly 2 pots of sour cream in so it should be tasty!

I've also started making meringues but I'm struggling to take a good photo of them, I'll keep trying and then post the result. I'm going to sell them on the stall in bags for the small ones and then make larger ones like rose and chocolate - then people can take them home and just add some strawberries or raspberries and softly whipped cream, the perfect pudding..

The top picture is a box of wrapped cakes for a friend of my partner's - he comes every week now and buys one of each flavour! They look so sweet wrapped up in the box..

The other pictures are of a box of cakes ready to go in the car, one of the cherry peach parfait cupcakes and the inside of that cake. The sponge was really moist and I filled it with a strawberry puree I'd made by whizzing up some strawberries in my new mini mixer. (I usually use it for chopping nuts but it works well on soft things too..)

It was a lovely day on the stall today - well, it's always fun - but today there were a lot of happy students clutching bottles of Champagne (and some buying cupcakes hooray!) and wandering around looking relieved which made for a nice atmosphere.

Chocolate macaroons! They are quite big as I seem to have trouble making small things - I can only make sturdy sizes.. I'm really pleased with the way they've turned out, even with the sort of frilly edge that they're supposed to have :)

It's a Nigella recipe and she says to put a chocolate ganache in but I didn't have any chocolate left so I made a creamy mascarpone filling with a little cocoa powder beaten in to give it a chocolatey flavour. I'm going to try making smaller ones (like the beautiful Laudree ones, it may take me a while to make them like that) in different colours as they look soo pretty.

This Wednesday on the stall:

Cherry peach parfait cupcakes, yummy! Vanilla cupcakes with peach pieces, filled with raspberry sauce and topped with creamy mascarpone frosting with a cherry on top :))

Also:

lemon meringue cupcakes

Oreo cupcakes

and the ever popular chocolate cupcakes..

Hope to see you there!

Cakes from the stall this week. I love the close up picture of the two tone swirly one, it looks soo cool! The ones with the glace cherries are Oreo or chocolate and the others are strawberry which are by far the most popular at the moment and - after using Spanish strawbs for a while - I'm now using strawberries from Chivers in Histon and they are absolutely lovely, much sweeter than the others. So local is better!

I also had lemon and poppy seed cake and lemon and polenta. Next week there'll be cheesecake again, especially if this lovely weather continues, and summer fruits and almond cake from the Waitrose magazine - it looks gorgeous..