Spring Butterflies Birthday Card

I had a sudden urge to do some more card making not long before my baby was due, but as I wasn't going to have the time/ energy/ ability to lift heavy boxes and keep bending down, I decided to indulge myself but only use things that were easily accessible from my craft stash, either at the front of the cupboard or not needing any special equipment or effort! It was a good opportunity to use up some of my stash, for example these die-cut butterflies I bought from ebay absolutely ages ago.

I received a large packet of different coloured die-cut butterfly shapes and had used them before but there were a lot left. The colours made me think of spring so I decided to make a clean and simple (CAS) card for a friend with a birthday in March, letting the butterflies take centre stage.

The way I've arranged them makes me think of a whole swarm of butterflies taking flight en masse - and the card didn't really need anything else other than a 'happy birthday' sentiment.

I'm sharing this with Cuttlebug Mania, a challenge to use die cuts where the theme this time is spring, and the Sparkles Forum Challenge where 'spring is in the air'.

Rapunzel Cake and Free Cakes for Kids

Have you heard of Free Cakes for Kids? No, it's not a company handing out free samples - it's a charity that helps disadvantaged youngsters have a bit of a treat on their birthday.

For many children a birthday cake is a luxury they don't get - or at least not a home-baked personalised cake with their favourite animals or characters. These days so many children seem to expect that and parents spend a great deal sometimes on their child's cake.

But it's not just about feeling left out among their school friends - many of the children this charity helps are underprivileged, either from families that are below the poverty line or living in temporary accommodation or women's shelters. For them, receiving a birthday cake is hopefully something that will bring a smile to their face, helping them to forget for a moment their hardship, and something that will bring joy to the rest of their families as well.

The way it works is that the parent or more often their school or shelter representative contacts a co-ordinator, and gives them some information like the first name and age of the child and a few things that they like. The co-ordinator then sends out the request to an email distribution list of local bakers and someone responds and volunteers to make the cake. The co-ordinator (in my area at least) will collect the cake from the baker and deliver it to the recipient.

You can find out more about Free Cakes for Kids and sign up to your local group by clicking on the link.

I signed up a while ago but usually by the time I saw the email (as I work full time) there was already a volunteer to bake. A few weeks ago I happened to be looking at my email as the request came in and so I responded - and the next thing I know, I had agreed to make a birthday cake for a girl about to turn seven, who liked Rapunzel and butterflies!

I had nearly two weeks' notice which was really handy as I was able to google Rapunzel cakes and realised that the Disney film Tangled is actually about Rapunzel. I knew I was going to have to make the cake on a day when I was working from home, which worked out quite well as I save time that day by not having to commute into central London (giving me back nearly three hours). Even so I wasn't going to be able to spend hours crafting Rapunzel out of icing!
I ended up ordering a personalised cake topper printed on wafer paper with the little girl's name and age, which I got via the internet. I actually baked the cake the night before and decorated it very early in the morning before I logged on to my computer to work.

Thinking that most children probably won't want a strongly flavoured or unusual cake I decided to stick with a vanilla sponge. The recipe I used is from the Sainsbury's Cake Recipe Collection book:

250g butter, softened
250g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs, beaten
250g self-raising flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
I added a splash of milk as I like my cake mixture to be looser

Preheat oven to 180C and grease an 8 or 9 inch cake tin. Cream the butter and sugar and beat in the vanilla and eggs. Fold in the flour and baking powder and the milk and beat until smooth.

Pour into the cake tin and bake for around 25 minutes, testing with a skewer until it is no longer raw inside. Leave to cool in the tin then turn out onto a wire rack and split through the middle to make two cakes.

It made a decent 9-inch cake which when split and filled with vanilla buttercream made a good height cake (I was worried about it looking too flat).

I covered the cake with a thin layer of buttercream and then fondant that I had coloured lilac.

The cake topper sat nicely on the top (once I had levelled the top of the cake that is), moistened slightly with water (just a tiny bit) so it would stick to the fondant, and I coloured some extra buttercream and piped it using a star nozzle around the edge of the wafer paper.

 

I made the butterflies using a plunger cutter from fondant I had coloured pink and stuck them around the cake.

 

A week or so after the little girl's birthday I received a lovely message via the organiser saying she had been thrilled with her cake and was still talking about it a week later, and that the butterflies happened to be in her favourite colour. I was really pleased to think I had made a little girl and her family happy, even if they were complete strangers, and I will definitely be baking again for Free Cakes for Kids.

Butterfly Thinking of You Cards

While I was sorting out my craft cupboard - which is a narrow (single) wardrobe from Ikea, with shelves and two drawers instead of a hanging rail - I came across some cards I made ages ago (probably a couple of years).

Sometimes you need a card for a sombre or sorry occasion, or sometimes just to wish people well and let them know you are thinking of them. All the elements on both of these cards came from one big pack; the butterflies are die cuts that I thought went well with the patterns of the backing paper. In fact they are decoupage and though you can't really tell from this picture, the butterflies have several layers raised up from the card. The 'thinking of you' sentiments are also both die cuts, with gold words and edging on white card; I mounted them on the cards with adhesive pads so they would stand out.

I'm entering this in the Butterfly Spot Challenge where the theme each time is a butterfly and a colour or something beginning with a particular letter; this time it is navy. The butterflies have navy blue in their wings and though you can't quite tell, the dots on the background of the bottom card are navy blue.

I'm also sending it to the Crafty Boots challenge as the theme is 'things with wings'.

Pastel Tattered Lace Shoe Birthday Card

I made this card using my Tattered Lace high heel shoe die, a frilled edge circular die and a Sizzix butterfly die, in complementary pastel colours.

The backing paper is also various shades of pastel, from a pack of cupcake and related printed papers. I used the dies to cut the shoe and butterfly out of purple card and the circles from pink card and mounted the shapes on top. The topper that says 'to a wonderful friend' is from a little pack I bought from Ebay; this sort of thing isn't hard to make yourself but I never seem to have time!

Tattered Lace Especially for You Pink Sparkle Card

Among the Tattered Lace dies that I received for Christmas (and then bought a few more of in the January sale) was this beautiful ‘especially for you’ die. It’s very pretty but what I didn’t realise is that it’s quite large; if you use it on a small card (this one is 6x6) there isn’t room for much else. But I didn’t just want to use the die cut on its own.

My Sizzix die cutter

I made the ‘especially for you’ die cut in pink, and realised it wouldn’t stand out on a pink card so used a cream coloured one instead. I had an off cut from a border which I stuck on the right hand side of the card, and used another die in my machine to cut out the shape of a butterfly, which I overlapped over the bottom of the ‘especially for you’ die.

It still looked quite one-dimensional so I decided to add some sparkle with tiny pink gems, which I dotted about the die cut and on the butterfly. Finally I added a little pink bow in the bottom right corner.

This is quite a girly card and I think one that my friend’s 7-year old daughter might appreciate more than the adults!

Yellow Butterfly Birthday Card

Butterflies appear in my card making time and again. I’m not sure why – they are pretty and colourful and seem quite feminine, but younger somehow that flowers. I think a lot of people these days only send floral cards to their grandmothers!

This card was a bit of a cheat as it uses elements from a shop-bought birthday card (one I received)- but I do like to recycle! I used a tall thin card blank and covered it with a pretty yellow paper patterned with little flowers. I cut the butterflies and the flower off the other card – they are made of foam backed onto cardboard so were easy to cut out and look really nice as they are raised off the card. The ‘happy birthday’ banner is also recycled from another card!

I think to papercrafting purists this would be unacceptable but using pieces from shop-bought cards doesn’t mean you haven’t made an effort; the design is still your own idea, you can still be creative and you can still say you spent the time and effort making something yourself.

Royal Icing Run-Outs

Royal icing run-outs are a lovely way to decorate a cake, and also are a great help to the busy or novice cake decorator, as you make them in advance. This helps save time when you bake and decorate the cake; also (and perhaps more importantly for some people) you create these on a cake board, and place them on the cake when they are set – so if they go wrong you can start again without messing up the cake!

 

I’d never really done this before (though I had flooded biscuits with royal icing which is a similar technique) so it was an interesting thing to cover in my cake decorating class at South Thames College last term.

 

To start you need a template; this can be something you’ve drawn yourself or printed out from the internet but it’s much easier with a pattern to follow. Ideally one with strong black lines and spaces in between; some of the class used a Hello Kitty picture while I did this butterfly.

 

The first question is how to make royal icing for piping and flooding? There are a few ways, usually using egg white though you can find vegan recipes online (try here for instance).

 

If you can get albumen from a cake decorating shop (this is another name for egg white but can be bought in pasteurised powder form) you can make smaller quantities, but if you are using actual eggs, here’s a recipe that will make a bowl of royal icing:

 

175g icing sugar

1 large egg white

1 tsp lemon juice

 

Carefully beat the egg white with the icing sugar until you can then use a hand mixer without the powder going everywhere! Then add the lemon juice and mix until incorporates; the mixture should be slightly stiff. It will set if left out so cover with clingfilm whenever it’s not in use.

 

Using a small piping bag, which you can buy or make by folding greaseproof paper (you probably need to watch a YouTube video rather than read my attempt to explain).

 

Decide which colours you want to use and separate the icing into as many bowls as you need, and colour with a little gel food colouring (preferable to liquid colours).

 

 

Place a piece of cellophane over your template. The easiest way to do this is cut open an A4 file pocket. It’s a good idea to lightly rub down the cellophane with oil or trex so the icing doesn’t stick.

 

 

You don’t need a nozzle on your piping bag – the bag will probably be too small anyway. Just snip off the end and carefully squeeze so you have a line of icing to follow the outline of your template.

 

Allow to set for a few minutes then add some water to thin down whichever colour icing you want to use to fill in the sections in the middle of the design. Use a piping bag again for precision; you can use a cocktail stick to help nudge the icing into any corners. The filler icing needs to be in a quite thick layer so you can pick the design up when it’s set. For this reason, you need to make sure that you don’t leave any gaps.

 

All lines need to be connected to the outside outline as well – so with the butterfly I had to change some of the patterns on the wings so they were connected to the outer line. Otherwise you will find that when you pick up your run-out when it’s dry, some of the design will remain on the board!

 

Leave to set overnight or longer – we had to leave ours a week between cake decorating classes but it shouldn’t take that long! You can then carefully lift the run-out off of the cellophane, and use it on top of a cake. These also look really good standing up around the side of a cake depending on what design you have chosen.

Through Thick And Thin Friends Birthday Card

I think there is a bit too much going on with this card and it's the butterflies which don't really work - the elements would have been enough.

I started with a square card blank and a piece of printed paper which had a striped design. I took another piece of paper from the same pack with a polka dot print and cut out a cloud shape, which I layered on top. I had a pack of stickers with friendship messages and sentiments, with coloured wording on a clear background, and I used one of these saying 'through thick and thin' over the polka dot background. I then added a 3D clay heart in the bottom corner.

That would have been enough but then I decided to add some foam butterflies as well! Never mind....I think the sentiment is good for a friend who has stood by you through good times and bad, and I'm sure we all have friends like that.

Sophisticated Black and White Birthday Card

I made this birthday card for a friend who I think likes sparkly things but also has quite sophisticated tastes, so it combines the best of both worlds. I used a square white card blank then layered different papers from the same pack - a piece of patterned grey and white paper on the left part of the card, and a plain black paper on the right. Then I took a piece of patterned paper and cut out around the pattern including the butterfly, and overlaid that. Finally I took a piece of sparkly silver ribbon and stuck that where the two papers overlapped and added a black 'best wishes' sticker on the left. I think this card proves that monochrome isn't dull!

Butterfly Tea Birthday Card

I like this pretty, girly birthday card. I had some printed backing papers with pictures of cake and afternoon tea, and cut out a rectangle slightly smaller than the card I was mounting it on. I added an outline edging sticker around each side to make a frame, and then two 3D butterfly stickers - the wings lift up and stand out from the card- in two corners. Finally a 'happy birthday' outline sticker and the card is complete.

Doberge Cake

My boyfriend's mum loves to travel to America and has been every year that I've known her. One of her favourite places to visit there is New Orleans and on one trip she brought me back a cookery book called New Orleans Classic Desserts, by Kit Wohl. So for her birthday last month I knew I wanted to make her something from that book.

There weren't that many actual cakes in the book - it includes a lot of pies and desserts - and I quickly settled on one called Doberge cake. I'd never heard of it before, but the author says it is a must for birthdays in her family, and they are bought from a particular bakery called Gambino's,  to the extent that they even have them sent frozen by overnight delivery to people who don't live in New Orleans! Kit says that Doberge cake is traditionally either chocolate or lemon, but so many people can't decide and order it to be made half chocolate, half lemon, that has now become an actual variety of the cake.

The name Doberge comes from a New Orleans word, stemming from the Dobos torte made in the Alsace area of France - I've never heard of it! It tasted so good though that I may have to make this again- I'm tempted to serve up the filling as a dessert by itself!

My cake did end up being a bit lop-sided unfortunately. The chocolate filling was a lot thicker than the lemon - Kit Wohl does give a recipe for lemon curd later on in the book but I was very pressed for time so used lemon curd from a jar. The chocolate mixture was quite thick so the chocolate side of the cake was a lot higher than the lemon side- what I should have done perhaps was mix the shop-bought lemon curd into some homemade buttercream to make a thicker filling. Or just made the whole cake with the chocolate filling, as it tasted amazing!

I adapted the recipe slightly, using plain flour instead of cake flour as you can't buy anything specifically called cake flour in the UK, and the instructions are in my own words.

I made the filling first and put it in the fridge overnight.
For the filling you need:
2 1/2 tbsp cornflour
2/3 cup caster sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder
pinch of salt
1 cup double cream
3 egg yolks
2 cups half and half - a mixture of cream and milk I think you can only get in the States, so I just used milk
180g dark chocolate,melted
1 tbsp butter, sofened
2 tsp vanilla extract

Place the cornflour, sugar, cocoa powder and salt in a pan and slowly stir in the cream. Place over a medium-high heat and slowly add the egg yolks while stirring the mixture. Add the milk and the melted chocolate, stirring well. Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the butter and vanilla, stir and pour into a bowl. Cover the bowl with clingfilm to prevent a skin forming and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

For the cake
You need:
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
10 tbsp butter, softened
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
3 eggs, separated
1 cup buttermilk, or milk with a dash of lemon juice added
2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 180C and grease two 9 inch cake tins.

Cream the bitter and sugar in a large bowl then separate the eggs and beat in the yolks, one at a time.

Gradually fold in the flour and baking powder alternating with the buttermilk, until all of it is mixed in. Then add the vanilla and salt.

In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until stiff and then fold into the cake mixture.

Spoon into the prepared cake tins and bake for 45 minutes. Cool first in the tins then on a wire rack. When the cakes are cooled, split each in half so you have four thin layers.

If you are making a half chocolate, half lemon cake, you will also need to make the lemon filling. The book gives a recipe for lemon curd but as I was under time pressure I used lemon curd from a jar. However, this meant a very thin layer of filling while the chocolate layer was much thicker. What I would recommend if you don't have the time or inclination to make your own lemon curd is to make buttercream and mix in the shop-bought lemon curd, so you have the flavour but also the thicker filling. Spread chocolate on one half of the cake and lemon on the other and repeat for each layer.

This cake didn't look like much, mainly because the side with the chocolate filling was higher and the cake looked lopsided. So please don't leave critical comments saying it looks awful! I did add some wafer butterflies in an effort to make it look a bit prettier, I'm not sure if that really helped. But this is one of the tastiest cakes I've ever made - largely down to the chocolate filling, which tastes like a thick mousse and is ten times better than buttercream. I'm tempted to make the filling again as a dessert in itself!

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker. The letter I have chosen randomly this month is D.

Purple and Pink Butterfly Birthday Card

I found some cute stickers in Paperchase recently that had butterflies and a few sequins inside a clear rigid square so the butterflies move around if you shake the card. I decided to make them the focus of this card and covered a white square blank with patterned paper then placed three butterfly stickers along the top third line of the card (if you imagine the card divided into three with a line across each third). I used several round shiny stickers from another sticker pack to make three rows along the bottom of the card, graduating the colours from purple to pink. Finally I added a happy birthday outline sticker.

Sparkle Butterfly Birthday Card

This birthday card uses some unusual stickers which I bought from Paperchase. The stickers consist of a clear square with a sparkly butterfly and a few sequins inside, which move around when you tip or shake the card. I decided to use a printed card blank for this card, so the purple daisy print you can see is actually on the card itself. I mounted a piece of plain purple paper (that had a few white stars across the bottom) onto the card, so the sparkly stickers would be on a plain background. I added a few circular 'bubble' stickers along the sides and a 'happy birthday' outline sticker across the bottom.

Pink Princess Doll Cake

I love this cake - it's so girly! Yes, this is indeed a cake - or rather, the bottom half of the doll is cake. Her dress is made of fondant and her skirt is a chocolate cake - a delicious vegan recipe. In this post I'll also explain how to use a Garrett frill cutter, a piece of equipment I bought when I took a cake decorating class last year, and also review a brilliant new product I found at Ikea.

So how did this cake come about? Well, my friend Ros - who some of you know as The More Than Occasional Baker - decided she wanted a pink princess theme for her birthday party in September. We might be in our 30s but that's no reason not to embrace our inner child... or our inner princess! I was very honoured when she asked me to make her a birthday cake, as Ros is such an amazing baker herself. As soon as she told me the theme I thought of this cake - I'd seen pictures of them before but never made or eaten one. You basically take a doll, like Barbie or Bratz, bake a dome-shaped cake, and stick the doll in the middle and decorate the cake to look like her dress!

Ros also told me that one of her friends was vegan so asked if I could make a vegan cake. That was no problem - one of my closest friends is vegan so I've tried a few recipes and found this amazing vegan chocolate cake, it tastes nicer than almost any chocolate cake I've ever had!

My first challenge however was to find a doll. I didn't want to buy a brand-new Barbie as they're not cheap, and I don't know any children I could borrow one from, so luckily found some dolls in my local charity shop. Yes, I did wash it thoroughly!

I made the batter for the chocolate cake - as it is vegan, it doesn't use eggs or butter, but instead uses oil which makes it deliciously moist. You also use a cup of hot water in the mixture, which makes it a pretty runny batter, but it bakes really well. See here for the recipe.

I decided to bake the cake in a Pyrex ovenproof dish so it would be the right shape. I sprayed the bowl with Cake Release Spray and it did come out very smoothly.

Ready to go in the oven. I found it took a lot longer to cook than expected, I guess because the cake is so deep in the middle. I tested it a few times with a cake tester and put it back in the oven until I was happy it was cooked through.

I turned out the cake and allowed it to cool. I didn't think it was going to be big enough however, so I whipped up another batch of the same mixture, and cooked it in a small-ish (I think 7 inch) round cake tin.

The dome cake fit perfectly on the top of the round cake. If the round cake had been too big, I would have trimmed around the sides.

You can make vegan buttercream very easily, by using vegan 'margarine' such as Vitalite or Pure. Mix with icing sugar and cocoa powder.

I spread a thick layer of buttercream on the base cake and sat the dome cake on top.

I made a small circular hole with my cake corer (which is designed to make holes in cupcakes to fill them). It made a perfectly-sized round hole, though it didn't go very deep so I used a spoon to extend the hole downwards. I wrapped my Bratz doll in clingfilm from the waist down (after having thoroughly washed her, of course) and placed her in the cake. The perfect fit!

Now onto a product I bought only the day before which I was very pleased with. My boyfriend and I went to Ikea to buy a bookcase - as an aside, he has just moved in and saw how my cookery books were taking over the kitchen, as I have so many - and rather than suggesting I get rid of some, he went out to buy me a new bookcase for the living room to put them in. Readers, he's a keeper. Of course, he did manage to buy the wrong bookcase so we have to go back - which is not necessarily a bad thing! I've only been to Ikea a few times and when I do, I really enjoy browsing around their 'marketplace' area. I've picked up some nice cake tins and cookie cutters from there in the past, and this time found a rolled-up silicon baking mat and plastic knife for £9. I'm sure I remember seeing something similar at last year's Cake International for £40!

I always have a problem when rolling out fondant, as I don't have enough space on my kitchen worktop - they are not that wide and also my cookery books were lined up against the wall (not for much longer!). My dining room table has grooves as it has extendable sections, so I'm limited with what I can roll out on there too, and if I use a chopping board then I'm also limited. This mat is huge - 62cm x 45cm - and has patterns on both sides you could use as a template if you were piping or cutting something.

I coloured some fondant pink and rolled it out.

The mat is really thin and lightweight so it was very easy to pick it up, turn over so the fondant was covering the cake, then peel the mat off the back - so I covered my cake in one swift movement. I'm really pleased with this mat and can see myself using it a lot!

I took some of the same fondant and made a bodice for the doll. The fact that it was separate to the cake meant I could actually take the doll out and fit the cake in a standard cake carrier with the doll separate, then reassemble when I arrived at my friend's house.

I tried to fold the fondant in a few places so it looked like pleats on her dress, though I'm not sure I would bother with this next time.

I wanted to decorate her dress with some frills, and I have a Garrett frill cutter I bought for a cake decorating course (but then we never actually had time to use it). I had to look up on the internet how to use it, so I thought I would give instructions here. Mine was from PME and came with a wheel and three centre pieces of different sizes, which give different widths of frill. You clip the centre piece into the wheel. I've rolled out my icing - I used a mixture of flower paste and fondant so it would be stiffer than just fondant - and got the wheel ready here.

You just use the wheel to press down as you would a cookie cutter. You don't need the inner circle, just the outer one of what you cut out.

Take the outer piece and make a cut so you open the circle out. You then need a balling tool and ideally a foam pad; you need to gently rub each 'spoke' on the wheel until it curves upwards.

Then fasten onto the cake with edible glue. I did two layers all the way around.

I am going to hide the joins later

I used a butterfly plunger cutter and some fondant that I had coloured a slightly darker pink to make some nice shapes.

I attached these with edible glue at the places where the frills joined.

I also put a butterfly at the top of the doll's bodice and used the frill cutter with the darker fondant to go around her waist.

Here's the finished cake - a bit silly and very pink, but I think little girls - and not so little girls - would love this!

I am sending this to We Should Cocoa as the theme this month is 'chocolate showstoppers' and I think this cake is definitely a showstopper! The challenge is hosted by Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog.