It all had to start somewhere...part 1...

Hi my cakery friends!

So I thought I would give you a little background into my love of baking. My mum was lucky enough to be a stay at home mum until I was 12 years old and used a lot of her spare time baking and dress making. She has always been very creative, I don't know if it's because she is Japanese (they do tend to be more creative!) or if it's her character or a bit of both. She went to the same dress making college as Issy Miyake (famous japanese designer, probably better known for their perfume though!) and although she has tried to get me to understand the art of dress making I failed miserably. But luckily she also loved baking, and I grew up in a home always filled with the smells of yummy home baking.

I then turned into a dreaded teenager and wasn't very bothered with baking, I would make a cake here and there but never really loved it like I do now. I went to Uni, came back and worked full time in London. My life pretty much consisted of work and play and not much inbetween. Then I had my gorgeous little girl, Miya, she was born in 2011 and all of a sudden I had a whole year at home with nothing to do! Babies sleep, and mine slept a lot so I decided one bored day to do some baking and then that was it, I was hooked!

Piped buttercream rose with sugar butterfly dipped in edible glitter

I started with a friends birthday cake and then quickly went on to cupcakes. I loved decorating individual cupcakes and trying different techniques like the grass on this cake.

My first cupcake decorated using a multi hole icing nozzle / wilton grass nozzle below. So effective and so easy!

This is such a useful nozzle, not only for cupcakes but also for the bigger cakes with an outside theme. It helps to make the grass appear more realistic even if you just add a few tufts of it here and there. It is best used with buttercream and obviously for grass, green buttercream! You can also use this nozzle for hair if you are making a bear cake or even on people if the figure is large enough.

 

There are so many easy techniques that you can use that can make cupcakes look amazing and I will run through more in this blog as it's where I started my passion for decorating cakes :)

 

Until the next instalment...enjoy!