"The King" of cakes

Tonight my Mum's friend Genie is having a 60th birthday party. Somehow I ended up with the task of making 75 "Elvis themed" cupcakes for Genie as she is a huge Elvis fan (she even goes to watch him as a hologram on stage!) When I was given the cake brief a couple of weeks ago my mind started racing with the prospect of icing moulded into huge quiffs, music notes and stars cut from royal icing and maybe even making some cakes based on titles of his songs like "Hound dog" and "Jailhouse Rock".
However... my Mum knew I'd take any project to extremes so she quickly intercepted and said "No Joanne, your sister is going to order you some Elvis heads on Sugar paper from eBay, bit of frosting, plonk one on top, done! I was reluctant and didn't think I'd bother with a blog post, but...

I'm pretty damn proud of my "kings".

The Elvis heads arrived on sturdy sugar paper in sheets of 12...

Then I just needed to cut them out (all 75 of them!) I caught Jeremy fiddling with a "Donny Osmond head" in work last week. (What a sentence!) I presume he had some kind of food gift for Sue (who is a big Donny fan). It was lucky that Jeremy was hovering around the fridge the same time as me actually, as he was desperately trying to chill and peel the Donny head, until I pointed out that he just needed to cut the head free.

Moving on...

So I made 4 double batches of lemon cupcakes with a lemon curd centre and topped them with cream cheese frosting. I bought jet black cupcases, mainly because they were the cheapest greaseproof lined muffin cases in Occasion cakes, but they turned out to be a great choice. The black seemed quite rock'n'roll and was inkeeping with vinyl records I thought. It also contrasted well with the pale cream frosting. Then I bought "graphite" coloured edible glitter that also looked a bit "rock'n'roll" . I gave my Mother (apprentice helper) strict instructions to sprinkle the glitter from a height and then add the Elvis heads. Placed directly on top they looked weird, but when you pushed them down a bit into the frosting the heads looked "framed". I was pleased, very pleased.

And they went into the fridge to set...

And then got boxed, which always makes them look like a lot:-

Except for when you make 3 boxes full and that really does look like a lot...

75 Elvis cakes... done!

And now I'm thinking about whether you can buy sugar paper faces of your friends and family, I've seen people take a photo into the Asda bakery for birthday cakes before... or maybe I buy myself an edible ink printer like Bakerella has.

Even with an edible ink printer I'd struggle to make these though...

 http://www.mymms.com/utility.aspx?src=

How cool are they....!

So the Elvis cakes are on their way to Wales and the cake stand is on loan again. The only things I'd have added if I'd been there to construct the cake tower would be to put the stand onto a section of bright fur fabric and plonk a small model Elvis on the very top tier which holds one cupcake. If only I'd kept my "Rockin' Elvis" from my Micra driving days...

And if you don't fully see the importance of Elvis cakes, listen carefully because "Percy"; the biggest Elvis fan I know, told me this important fact:-

‘The number of Elvis Presley impersonators has reached an all-time record high – there are now at least 85,000 Elvis’s around the world, compared to only 170 in 1957 when he died. At this rate of growth, experts predict that by 2019 Elvis impersonators will make up a third of the world population.’

Remember this blog post...

J :)

P.S. If you're looking for more Elvis themed food, try this...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hungry-Tonight-Brenda-Arlene-Butler/dp/051708242X

Anyone for tennis cakes....?

I'd originally planned to make these for the Wimbledon finals but for one reason or another I just didn't get around to it. Then it was the end of season tennis dinner last Friday so I decided to make these and sell them for Chris's charity....

Tennis Ball Cake Pops.

Step 1... (The tennis court)

To make the court I bought a chunk of AstroTurf from B+Q and a paper box from IKEA. Then I marked out a tennis court on the back of the A4ish section of Turf, dug holes at every corner with a bradawl and a screw driver and sewed a tennis court outline onto the astro turf with a bobbin and some string. Then I plonked an A4 chunk of polystyrene underneath the astro, to dig the lollipop sticks into later.
I could've done with fashioning a miniature net, I know, time ran out though sadly.

Step 2... (The cake)

Then I made the "Buttermilk Poundloaf" from The Hummingbird bakery cookbook and when it had cooked I mixed the crumbs of this with a batch of vanilla frosting (recipe from the same book) and rolled together small balls.


Step 3... (Making the "tennis balls" yellow)

After making the cake balls I dipped the lollipop stick into a small amount of the melted yellow "candy melts" that I had purchased from Hobbycraft online...
http://direct.hobbycraft.co.uk/search/candy%20melts
These are basically tinted chocolate that melts easily (it has a high oil content). Food dye added to chocolate splits and is hard to work with. These melts are far from natural and I thought I'd dislike the taste, I didn't though, they tasted just like a caramac from yester-year.

Step 4... (Finishing touches)

Put the cake pops in the fridge and when they have set, use a Dr Oetker or Silverspoon icing device to pipe on the rubber detail. I also bought a black pen with edible ink to draw on a Wilson, Nike or Slazenger logo but the damn thing didn't work at all. Then I used a small black cake gel and these smudged too, it had to be just a sprinkling of edible glitter and that was all.

Step 5... Arrange cake pops into pre-prepared holes in astro court.

Step 6... Use mini "Wilton" cellophane bags to wrap a cake pop in, and tie with gold curling ribbon.


In addition I made...

Tennis ball cupcakes.

These were lemon, with a lemon curd centre and cream cheese frosting.
I then made "toppers", which are a candy melt with rubber detail piped on as though they are a tennis ball. I was really very lucky that they hadn't melted in the post as the packet warns they often do and then I'd have obviously had one big chunk of yellow, not loads of little round yellow buttons that just said "tennis balls in waiting" to me. (God, I'm weird!)

Then I squeezed them all into the fridge overnight...

Finally, I stacked them onto Kellie's wedding cupcake stand. I had a lot of AstroTurf left over from my court (you could only buy it in a strip 2 metres in length) so I displayed the tower of cakes onto a faux grass table-runner...

And I also made a few signs to tell people what they were and how much they cost... (mini frames from IKEA) and got some takeaway cartons, gift boxes and green serviettes.

Game over!

Now I need to think about what I'm going to make for Ant's charity Softballathon...

J :)