How to Make an Elephant Cake

A few weeks ago I was looking online for inspiration for making an elephant cake and found there really aren’t that many available.  Sure, there is a plethora of nursery-styled ‘Jumbo the Elephant’ type cakes, but I wanted something more authentic.  The occasion was my father’s 80th birthday and the celebration was to be a […]

Cheat’s Bombe Alaska

Ever since we enjoyed Bombe Alaska on New Year’s Eve, it’s been on my mind how much I’d like to make one.  This is a theatrical dessert that was big in the 70’s when a dinner party wasn’t a dinner party unless you were setting your guests’ food on fire. But the dessert originated a […]

Tropical Cake with Coconut Cream Frosting

As most of you are aware, Miss Arabella has had a birthday.  And while we did have a ‘Queen of the Desert’ party and while I did make a stiletto riding on top of a bus, birthday cake, there was still that issue of a more intimate family celebration. The weather for Miss Arabella’s party […]

How to Make a Bus Cake with a Stiletto Shoe

When Arabella chose, ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert‘ as the theme for her 21st birthday party I knew I’d need to make an appropriate cake and thought about what best symbolised the movie/musical. The realisation came upon me that central to the movie is the bus named ‘Priscilla’ with its giant sparkling stiletto perched precariously […]

Pink Champagne Cake

Today is the last day in our 10-part series of recognising and sharing some of the recipes that have inspired, intrigued and challenged me from blogs I love.  I thought it would be good to finish the series with a bit of a celebration and there’s no better way than with a sparkle. I promised […]

A Dud Dachshund Cake

Not every day in the Hotly Spiced kitchen is a happy one.  In the lead-up to Arabella’s birthday party I set about making the cake she had requested, a dachshund.  What could go wrong! Pretty much everything. But not the baking-the-cakes part; that went very well except for being too heavy-handed with the tint.  I […]

A Cake of Joy

Prior to sculpting the Titanic cake, I had no idea of exactly how much cake I would need to make.  Just to be safe I made four very large cakes that were 30 x 40 cms (12 x 16 inches) and stored them in the freezer.  Running out of cake turned out to be not […]

How to Make a Titanic Birthday Cake

As soon as Archie announced the theme for his party, my mind raced to the cake and I knew instantly, there was no way of avoiding the issue.  It had to be the ship.  As daunting as this sounded, the good thing is a few years ago, a friend asked me to make a ship […]

A Titanic 21st

Thank you so much for all your enthusiasm and best wishes and interest in Archie’s 21st.  I’ve been bursting to share this with you and would have done it sooner if there hadn’t been so much cleaning up.  Right now I’m still in a daze; it was a very special and wonderful evening that I […]

Shark Attack Birthday Cake

Alfie has just celebrated his ninth birthday with a shark party where nine boys watched Jaws in his bedroom then had pizza and jelly cups followed by a Mintie scramble and a shark attack birthday cake. Hooray!  It’s all over for another year.  That probably sounds a bit mean but I’m currently organising a 21st […]