Bake It - A Mammoth Bake Day

Last weekend was my niece's first birthday party, and it was my job to make the cake. 

Last week, her parents got engaged, so I figured seen as how I was baking anyway, I could do a surprise engagement cake. 

Then I remembered that I needed to bake some cupcakes for my youngest son Charlie, and Chris's mum Marie, to take along to the party so that they could join in. Dairy, soya and egg free for Charlie, gluten free for Marie. 

I only had one full day to bake, as we had house guests last week, and a couple of hours the next morning before we left for the party. 

3 full on bakes in 1 day? Jakers. That's crazy talk. So the planned day of taking lots of blog photos went out of the window! 

Instead, I spent a few hours playing with fondant, which kinda looked something like this...

And I made a Red Velvet Heart Shaped Piñata Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting...

Little secret, it wasn't supposed to be a piñata cake. I always check my bakes with the skewer test, but some how something went wrong with this one and the centre wasn't cooked. So I cut a heart shaped hole in the middle, filled it with sweets, popped a fondant disc on top of the hole and crumb coated it as normal. Everyone loved it!

I also made Edie's birthday cake. It was a triple layer chocolate ombré cake inside, plain, milk and dark chocolate, sandwiched with chocolate buttercream and salted caramel buttercream. It was coated with white chocolate buttercream and fondant decorations.

Finally, I made vegan gluten free chocolate cupcakes, with peppermint frosting, and fondant monkey decorations. 

I forgot to photograph those, but they were very cute and Charlie says they were yummy.

Doing 3 big bakes in 1 day was incredibly stressful, but seeing everyone enjoy eating them makes it worthwhile.