Friday, November 25, 2011

Mini Christmas Pudding Chocolate Cakes

Mini Christmas Pudding Chocolate Cakes all packaged by emtysoe

Today is school's Christmas Fete....... so last night I made some "Christmas Puddings"

Here's how I made them .......

First, I made a chocolate cake mix

150g caster sugar
150g butter
3 eggs
120g self raising flour
30g cocoa powder
vanilla essence - proper stuff
chocolate essence - only found in waitrose

Butter Icing
some butter, icing sugar & vanilla essence - I don't really measure

I have this lovely 8 mini dome / semi sphere silicone bakeware (Tefal) which is great for making round cakes (used it to make mini angry birds)  - I can't find it anymore bought it a few years ago however found something similar on  internet


once cooled I cut the dome so they were level, scooped out a little bit and added the butter icing ....


I joined them together using "cake pop" mix I made using the off cut cake & butter icing

I then covered them in chocolate flavoured fondant .... very tricky


I did "cheat" and had to add some fondant on the bottom and blend the joins
To make the "sauce"  I used a round cookie cutter and hand shaped with a sharp knife


added some sparkle the "sauce"



Now making the Holly Berries & Leaves

I bought some special Beau Flowerpaste which happened to be "holly green". I use a holly leaf cutter but you could easily just cut the shape with a template & knife.


The holy berries was just some red fondant icing which I added some "Christmas Red" colouring to do make them more red.   I added them to the leaves and used a leftover apple packaging from Sainsburys to shape the leaves in to the dome shape..... (I made these first and left them to dry while I made the cakes)



Once I'd made the cakes I added the holly to the top using a bit of icing & water mix .....



To make them nice for the fete, I placed them on 4" silver bases and bagged & tagged



I buy most of the my baking supplies from Craft Company
The clear bags are from LakeLand 50 for £2.99
The cute labels are from PaperGlitter

Monday, October 17, 2011

iPhone 4S Cake

iOS5 Icons - see below for the close ups
iPhone 4S Cake !!! #iPhone4S #O2 #cake by emtysoe

For the iPhone 4S launch - Friday 14th October 8am, I made a cake for my work mates at the O2 store in Leamington Spa.

I hand drew all the icons with various edible ink markers. I used the screen shot from the display stand (see below) which shows the new iOS5 icons. It took me about 3.5 hours to make the icons and in total took about 5 hours to make. As it was quite late in the night I had to make a "quick" chrome band with buttons, etc... and the background was black as it would have been too fiddly to try and copy/create the default iPhone background.


I asked Siri if it would like some cake, unfortunately it didn't understand the question and told me it could only search for business in the USA

Thanks to @O2  for tweeting my image on http://twitpic.com/700zis - currently has 1,692 views

Me at work (O2 Leamington Spa)
Cake on the iPhone Stand

I started work at 7am on the launch day and worked until about 6pm, with just the odd 2 min break here and there to grab a bite to eat as we were super busy as you can imagine.  We had a total of 97 iPhone 4S that day and the second guy in the queue was Seb he got there at 3am.  We didn't sell out until very late in the afternoon.

I'm very lucky that I work with an amazing bunch and had the most exciting and tiring day ever :)

Looking forward to the next iPhone launch whenever that may be




Edible iPhone Icons


 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

We've only just cut the cake today, as it was "too nice" to eat :)


Finally cut the cake  :)

Monday, September 12, 2011

Did I design a Smart Phone not a PDA?

My PDA design - smart phone by emtysoe


I studied BSc Product Design at university and realised that I didn't design a PDA but a Smart Phone !
also I called it the Em Pad  :)



Project : New Product Design and Development

Brief : Generate a new product in one of the following fields:

A Leisure product.
A Home domestic product.
A Business product.
A DIY / Maintenance product.
Also the term used to describe this type of development is Blue Sky Design, because this type of product does not exist.

Personal Note

I found this product difficult at first, trying to think of product that doesn't exisit isn't easy! I decided to choose a business product but it can be used as a home product. As we were designing for the future it was slightly easier to design as there weren't many constraints. I searched the internet for insperation and I came across Philips Vision of the Future Web Page which I found amazing and very helpful. I decided to design a PDA for the future. It's voice activated but also has a small pen which can be used instead and for short note taking. It has a built in camera so it can br used for taking pictures or video conferencing. It comes with all the software you need for word processing, e-mailing, surfing the internet, etc... It's similar to PDAs on the market now but it's more sophisticated and has advanced materials, microchip, etc... A full size model was made for the project and I like the natural look so wanted a wood look finish.

3D Studio - pda


Via Flickr:
Designed this on my degree course back in 1995-6
My old website is still on Wayback Machinewith my other University designs.

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

My Birthday Cake - R2D2



It was my Birthday on Monday and had no idea what cake I wanted.
After watching an episode of "Ace of Cakes" making a R2D2 cake I knew straight away that's what I wanted. I don't have the skills to make a full size, working R2D2 cake like Duff and his team but it didn't stop me having a go!

I went to my local cake suppliers and got some polystyrene cake dummies. I used a 6" round one for the bottom - I could have used cake but only had one 6" tin and didn't have time to bake a second cake. I also bought a 6" square one so I could cut it and make the legs.

I used a CAD program to draw out a rough shape for the legs.

For the dome I used the Wilton Sports Ball Pan, which is 6" round too.

I made a basic vanilla sponge and put some butter icing inside the dome.

Covered in white fondant and decorated using coloured fondant and used my cutters.

Some of the detailing is just random as just wanted a simple yet recognisable look

I took it to work and it was enjoyed by everyone :o)

For info on making your own Star Wars cake checkout - http://hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Make-A-Star-Wars-Cake



R2D2 Cake - sideR2D2 Cake - Top
R2D2 Cake - frontR2D2 Cake - back

Monday, January 31, 2011

3D Angry Bird Cake



My oven broke just before Christmas and with the help of family and friends, I bought a new one from Ikea last weekend.

I'd been planning on making an Angry Bird cake after seeing @bobbiealice 's amazing cupcakes on PocketLint, I thought I must make my idea of a 3D round cake and thought what better way to test my new oven :o)

I used the Wilton sports ball cake pan for the big one and used silicone semi dome tray to make the mini ones. I decided to go a bit crazy with the insides and make what in USA call funfetti basically it's basic vanilla sponge with sugar strands

Covering them was very tricky as the fondant kinda pleated itself at the bottom. I managed to "hide" the messy bits the beige tummy.

The beak and feathers are attached with cocktail sticks

I've decided to take the Big Angry Bird to work for them to eat and I made some mini ones for my husband, best friend & a special black on for my son as it's his favourite one!

I'm hoping to post a mini to @roviomobile if they let me know their address asap as they won't fly that far


Update: The cake arrived at Rovio and they loved it. Pockelint wrote an article about my cake and my local cake suppliers Craft Company also sell the Wilton Sport Ball Tin.


#angrybird cakes complete 1 big 1 + 3 mini ones @roviomobile



All of the cakes with plushies ...


All #angrybird cakes !



The insides .......


The insides of the #angrybird cakes