Cake Dreams

Red Velvet Chocolate Cake

Cake Dreams is excited to announce a new flavour and more importantly, a new colour cake. Red Velvet is, as the name suggests, a red cake. But better still, it's a red chocolate cake! Based on a traditional recipe from the southern United States, Red Velvet is a deliciously moist layered cake with a unique and funky tone. More palette for your palate, as it were.

The basic list of ingredients includes buttermilk, butter, flour and cocoa. The amount of cocoa used varies in different recipes. Use either cream cheese or buttercream for frosting.

Most Red Velvet recipes use red food colouring* but there's also some serious natural science going on too. Reactions between the acidic and alkali ingredients (like the vinegar and buttermilk for instance) better reveals the red anthocyanin present in cocoa, enhancing the colors and also making it light and fluffy. Interestingly, back in World War 2 when food was rationed, bakers used boiled beetroot juice to enhance the hues - and it's still used today. Beetroot has the added advantage of retaining moisture as well.

Chemistry and history lesson over, let's eat some fabulous new cake. Enjoy!

* Food colorings have had a bad reputation in the past, but now they are rigorously tested by various bodies around the world and are don't trigger any of the adverse effects they used to - in fact most are based on purely natural ingredients nowadays.

Cakes for Birthday Boys

Don't get me wrong, I like a handbag. I like shoes even more. But as cakes go a handbag is not the most creative. So I am overjoyed to have recently been commissioned to make some new, different & fun cakes - for boys!! Lets hear it for the boys!

First of my new cakes - BUGS! A Black Beetle (actually 2, the 1st was for a production company who made a show called BUGS!. The 2nd was for a little bug loving boy, he had a Ladybird cake too).

And the latest, a Dinosaur Dig cake for a lad having his party at the Science Museum (a sleepover party, I've heard that its great fun). A chocolate cake with chocolate fondant & the 'dirt' is crushed McVities - I can't begin to tell you how delicious it smells!!

Thanks Boys! X

Shoes & Handbags Cakes

Extremely popular cake designs are shoes & handbags. Chanel handbags, Juicy Couture handbags but most especially Louis Vuitton! Also shoes - women love shoes (I love shoes too!). I fell in love with the idea of lime green Louboutin shoes that I was commissioned to make recently - that's lime green with the red sole. I want a real pair for myself! But back to the cakes - Louboutin shoes & a Louis Vuitton handbag, the white one with rainbow coloured logo (with a baby one for her new born daughter). Gorgeous!

Cake Dreams - How It Works, At Its Best

August has been a month of Grown-up cakes. Cakes for Adults are always a fantastic creative challenge. Everything is posiible. For example I've made a Pinball Machine cake, Bowl of Salad and Bowl of Chips cakes, the Bathtub from 'Scarface', and one of my favourites- three Flying Pigeons (like the flying ducks circa 1950)!

This last weekend I was commissioned for two unique cakes.

The first cake was based on a cartoon of the Birthday Boy (age 26) drawn by a friend. The cartoon was called, 'Hairboy' as the Birthday Boy has blue hair! I was also given a list of Hairboy's favourite things; his bronze coloured bicycle, his football team, his favourite band, his tattoo and his favourite animal to work into the design. The end result was a one-of-a-kind, personalized, unforgetable cake! A perfect example of what Cake Dreams does best!

My second commission was a 50th birthday cake for a psychoanalyst. What else could it be but a Sigmund Freud's Couch cake! I always love it when someone calls to order a cake and the first thing they ask is "I don't know if you can make this...". Then I know its going to be fun challenge. Freud's couch is not just an average couch but a well worn tapestry and cushion strewn couch. The client asked for the cake to read "sometimes a couch is just a cake!".

With fun and unique ideas from clients like these Cake Dreams works at its best!

Doctor Who Comes to North London - as a Cake!

I wait forever to make a Doctor Who cake and two come along at once! The first one was for a boy in north London, who had a Dalek last year. This year-a Sonic Screwdriver cake! ( I love it when kids see the cakes & desperately want to touch or in this case hold the cake in their hands!)

The second was for a woman turning 50! A Dalek old-style. Unfortunately the cake was a surprise because I would have loved to see her face when they brought it out!

Christening Cake and Birthday Cake Celebration

It seems that summer is a time for Christenings & Birthdays combined. Most often Christening cakes are very simple design. Plain white decorations-flowers, baby shoes, Bibles. Maybe a little blue or pink accent. But I have been lucky this summer! The Christenings have been celebrated along with the birthdays! One for a girl & one for a boy. The girl's was a Bible with baby shoes & for her birthday a Princess & A Frog cake. The little boys was a 2 tier blue & white cake with a train on top & for his birthday a 3 tier fire engine extravaganza! Wow factor indeed!!

The Corporate Logo Cake / Cancer Research UK

I've done many "corporation" cakes over the years at Cake Dreams for companies all over London. Basically cakes with corporate logos. Pretty much as dull as it sounds (so dull I often don't take photos of them). But this weekend I was very pleased to be able to make a cake for Cancer Research UK for their fundraising efforts for their Race For Life. In the past I've made cakes for Carr-Gomm in Camden North London, twice I've made large ear shaped cakes for Specsavers, a logo cake for Future Shorts a film production company and a Titanic cake for Channel 4. So I've decided to include a Corporate Cake Gallery on my web site. Enjoy.

Cake Dreams Does The Royal Wedding

What a wonderful wedding! Everyone and everything looked so beautiful. London is such a magnificent city and looked its best on the Royal Wedding Day.

Cake Dreams was definitely caught up in the excitement with our own Royal Wedding Cake, made for a 'royal wedding party' hosted by some of my American clients in north London: a 3 tier cake decorated with bunting, initials of the bride and groom and topped with an 'edible icing photo' of the happy couple! It was a big hit and delicious too.

The wedding and cake were of course planned well in advance but I have been getting many last minute requests for cakes - last minute as in tomorrow! Cake Dreams is a small operation with just little ol' me and no big bakery staff. All cakes are made to order and cakes take planning and time to create something special. I always try to accommodate but to be safe the more time I have the better the outcome! Thanks.

Super Mario Bros in North London! Kids' Birthday Cakes

Super Mario Bros. Cake Comes to North London.

March 2011, cake number 2464.

It would be easier to list the Character Cakes I haven’t made. This is my 1^st Super Mario Bros cake based on the game - most of the Mario Bros Characters in 3D circling a 3 tier cake made for a 10 year old girl. Lots of oohs & ahhs from the birthday girl & her friends!

This weekend a Toy Story cake for her brother.

Also, as its March, Red Nose Day cupcakes for the school cake sale.

Good Times!!

Cupcakes made in North London for Valentines Day

Valentine’s Day, 14^th February 2011.

Valentine cupcakes home-baked in North London.

Cake numbers 2451 and 2452.

Valentine’s day isn’t known for its cake related celebration but this year was different - 300 pink & white cupcakes home-baked in North London!!

The 1^st 100 cupcakes were for an 18^th birthday bash in Elstree, Herts. (Yes delivery can be arranged for anywhere, not just North London). Beautiful pink & white frosted cupcakes in silver cases covered with pink, white & silver sparkles, topped by a giant cupcake with feathers, ribbons & stars. Very shimmering!

The next 200 were for a Valentine’s themed fashion launch in Hammersmith. These were pink & white frosted as well but with heart sprinkles & little sugar pearls & bigger red & pink hearts & on & on. It was so fun to make so many different combinations & they looked amazing. They were presented individually boxed as gifts for the guests.

Literally a ‘sweet’ gesture! (Sorry, no more puns - I promise.)

Now its back to the kids - Toy Story & Super Mario Bros here I come!

Cake Dreams - probably the tastiest cakes in North London!

Dream of a Cake and we'll bake it!

The Cake Dreams Blog

February 2011

Welcome

Welcome to the new Cake Dreams Blog. While my Blog may be new, Cake Dreams most certainly is not. Working from my customised kitchen in North London, I have been turning fantasies into cakes for over 11 years. I have whisked, mixed, frosted & decorated thousands of cakes for birthdays, weddings & anniversaries of all kinds. Believe me there have been some very wild designs indeed, that is what makes the work such fun.

It all started way back when with a single birthday cake and it seems like just a few weeks ago. It was a shark jumping out of the water for the boy next door. His excitement was my inspiration. Over the years I’ve made just about any character or activity into birthday cakes. I have some kids I’ve known all the way from their christening cake to their 14^th birthday this year. I’d say the very best ‘perk’ of my job is the birthday child, squealing at the doorbell or peering from the window, waiting for my cake/ their cake to arrive! I can still feel their excitement just before I ring the doorbell.

Its not just kid’s birthday cakes at Cake Dreams! I relish the challenge of the adult’s birthday or celebration cake. That part of the creative challenge really keeps me going. One of my earliest was to copy a photo of a Husband, napping on his sofa, remote control in hand. Its still one of my favourites. There have been bowls of salad & bowls of chips. Cakes decorated with ‘raining men’ for a saucy birthday bash & a Hugh Heffner fantasy complete with bikini girls! I’ve even made 3 flying ducks (except they were pigeons- it’s a long story…). I love making cakes from a new (different) idea.

Cake Dreams is also all about Cupcakes! At the moment I’m up to my elbows in cupcakes (see my Valentine’s Blog). Cupcakes are very popular with kids to take to school here in north London-no need to cut the cake! Cupcakes or fondant fancies make a unique alternative to wedding cakes. Individually wrapped, cupcakes make lovely gifts for party guests.

By the way it’s not just North London that can experience the Cake Dreams love, some of my most loyal clients are south, west and east. So you can squeal with delight at the delicious cakes & cupcakes however you want them to look, all over this great city of ours!