So I was asked by Miss Cakehead to make some of the Cock Pops I made previously for an upcoming (no pun intended) Torture Garden Valentines Ball.
I loved making these Cock Pops last time, but the most fun part was coming up with the new and innovative idea, so although I was up for making them I felt the boundaries could be pushed a little more…Especially as it was for Torture Garden cocks seemed a little bit tame!
Which led me to thinking that sex toys made in a cake pop form could be the next step; seeing as they needed to slot into the push up cake pop tubes they still needed to be phallic… so dildos and butt plugs it was!!
I have plans for a whole range of colours and shapes – if you want to order any in for fetish events (though I must stress – these are PURELY for eating), hen nights, stag dos or just plain lewdy nights or to supply in any adult shops email me on laura@mammajammacakes.co.uk

Image below belongs to Miss Cakehead

These images are my own

One of the things I loved about school days were cake sales!
Walking to school clutching an old quality street tin filled with the delicious gooey flapjacks that my mum had lovingly made. (You won’t find a better flapjack than my mums!) Showing the contents proudly to my teacher and beaming with pride as she exclaimed how yummy they looked.
Helping to set up the table with scrumptious goodies, standing back to peruse the rickety trestle table groaning under the weight of mountains of Fairy Cakes, Butterfly Cakes, Millionaires Shortbread, Rice Krispie Cakes, bright Iced Biscuits all just below eye level and tempting us to reach out and snaffle as many as possible. Then savouring every last crumb of the treats you had chosen to buy with your 50p.

Late last night my son told me his year were holding a cake sale the following day (such an organised boy – he clearly gets it from me ) I asked which of my cakes he would like me to contribute for him. I had visions of making all kinds of deliciousness ready for the following day, baking for events like that is the best kind of baking, and I was itching to get started. But he just looked at me dumbfounded and said “No mum, we have to take in prepackaged cakes from a shop, and then when we get to school we’ll unpack them and sell them like that.”  
Can you believe that? What a crazy idea! Lets face it, we all know how much better home baked cakes are to shop bought and a bake sale is one of the only times that many of us get to sample “truly made at home with love” cakes and biscuits at a good price. 
Having spoken with the teachers, and to parents with kids at other schools, it came to light that these days this is the norm. Gone are the days where mums can feel they’re doing their bit to lovingly bake something for the children and here are the days where prepackaged over processed foods are pushed towards our kids instead! Are home baked cakes going to become bootlegged in schools? It certainly feels that way; when talking it over with friends many suggested I rebel and make them anyway, or replace the cakes in the packaging with home made ones and repackage them. 

Not only are home made cakes disallowed but even with me being registered, insured and licensed to sell cakes to the public (a retailer of cakes and baked goods) I am not allowed to provide cakes for the sale because I am still a home baker….. Does my 5 star inspection rating and relevant food hygiene qualifications count for nothing?  
This is yet another case of health and safety gone mad, the nanny state has decided it is safer to feed the kids the cakes with shed loads of additives in them than to let them choose from an array of home baked tasty cakes consisting of, on average, 5/6 ingredients.
Please note that I am in no way holding the school responsible for this farcical decision, my childrens school is wonderful, it is the same school I attended (where those aforementioned wonderful memorable bake sales were held) and the level of  support and education is second to none. Having spoken with the teachers here and at other schools I would say that most, if not all, teachers feel this is a ridiculous decision. 
Cakes and baked goods are a low risk food group, unless they contain fresh cream, surely a better option would be to ask the parents to bring in cakes without cream or nuts in them and to label the ingredients. Or at the very least allow professional home bakers to make cakes for the sale. I would have happily churned out a dozen chocolate cupcakes, a dozen butterfly cakes, 2 dozen flapjacks, a few caramel tray bakes and more, but as it stands I reluctantly bought some Viennese Whirls, Mini Victoria Sponges and some French Fancies, it truly felt like a part of me died whilst I stood in that cake aisle choosing these over processed cakes. Very sad to think those important childhood bake sale memories won’t be there for my son and daughter. Strange when we are all supposed to be working together to advocate home cooking and baking that we are teaching them to reach for the packaged tat instead.  

If some parents dislike baking and want to provide prepackaged cakes then great, but to those who enjoy it part of the fun is baking for these wonderful sales which are ingrained in our childhood memories, surely with guidelines in place we should be allowed to carry on this tradition?
Is your childs school one of the ones that has banned the sale of home baked cakes? What are your thoughts?

Not only did I enter the Decorative Exhibit competition at Cake International but I also pushed myself forward to enter the LIVE!!! Cake Decorator of the Year competition on the Sunday as well! The cake I planned to recreate is my now infamous Fisher Price phone cake as seen above.

Unfortunately Lady Luck (or should that be Lasura – check out my name badge it was my new name for the day haha) was not on my side and I literally lost a grip on time. To start with I was one of only 3 people using actual cake and the only one carving and modelling the entire cake on site in the time frame of the competition. I knew this would get me more marks for showmanship of skill and carving is a strong point of mine; I know i can carve and cover and decorate a cake in that time frame BUT it leaves NO time to allow for mistakes!

Then sadly the first mishap happened – the sugarpaste I was using was dry and awful causing a few cracks which I had to spend more time ironing out. This was swiftly followed by the board I was covering being too soft to place my raised cake board on, so the icing gave way underneath causing the cake to tip back I had to take the cake off and cut some icing away off the board. By this point panic was beginning to set in – it was only looking over and seeing my awesome friends, my husband and lovely kids that kept me going. There were so many times I was thinking to myself “Can I just walk off now?!”
Then the coloured panel under the cake tore when I peeled it away from the backing paper so I had to repaint the whole thing. Of course all of these factors led to me completley flapping in the last 30 mins – I was panicking and stressing and saw the entire competition hopes just go flying out of my grasp! The Rice Krispie Treat receiver was awful too – i would normally adhere 2 coats of sugarpaste to a piece as big as that to stop te bumps and also to make the receiver wider for the finished cake BUT by then there was no time and also no time to do the painting on the sides of the piece or the phone wire or even to paint the face on properly.

It was awful – I was pretty embarrassed to have my piece up there with all of these people looking at me and it in pity (that’s how I took it anyway lol). It was absolutely NOWHERE near my standard and I was so peeved that everything had gone against me on the day. I think the funniest part was definitely my panic clean up method!!! I had 30 seconds to spare and so just lifted the bin up to the side of the table and swept EVERYTHING minus the cake into it hahaa – true panic mode and I think my family would agree true Laura style

I was delighted for the bronze, silver and gold winners – they did a great job and were much better prepared for time should they have encountered any mishaps along the way (which I don’t believe they did). If I had taken my cake ready carved and my RKTs already formed then I know I would have produced an AWESOME finished piece. That is what I am most upset about, I’ll never know if it would have been enough to be placed or not now but I am sure there would have been a much better chance of it had it at least have been finished. Not only that but I would have been proud of my finished piece and the audience would have been able to see how much better my work is than what they were presented with yesterday.
I am proud of what I achieved in the time limit given because there was a heck of a LOT of work there but I challenged myself to go all out and show them every skill I have and sadly that choice backfired!!

The judges said to me afterwards I did show great skill with my carving and modelling and had that have been hand in hand with a fabulous finished piece at the end of it then that would have been great BUT it wasn’t and they could award me highly for the skills shown but not for the finished piece.

So a fun, exciting, adrenalin filled 3 hours was had by me, and I think I certainly had the best cheer squad of the whole competition (I should have had credit for that hehe) and as crazy as it seems I am DEFINITELY entering again next year – I have a point to prove about my standard of work and now I know I can take precarved forms and not worry about the loss of marks then that’s what I intend to do. I think I am already addicted to this sort of competition – so bring it on

Photo of the winning cake by Laura George….

So here she is, this years competition entry for the Decorative Exhibit class at the NEC Cake International 2011. Based upon the character of Poison Ivy, covered in chocolate paste and handsculpted, painted and decorated. A true labour of love and I truly do love her! I am so happy with the finished piece now all that remains is just to wait and see what the judges think…. 

Yesterday I found out that Ivy was awarded a silver and I initially went through a slight grieving process haha – first there was deflation and then denial, anger, resentment, upset and finally….acceptance!

After entering a different category last year with Eric and being fortunate enough to win a Gold on my first ever competition the pressure was on to follow suit with another, and I think it was that pressure (that I placed upon myself) that became my downfall. I ummed and ahhed about what cake to create and I decided upon her after creating the Silent Hill Nurse cake earlier this year, I thought I would create a prettier version of her, but not only that but to throw another challenge in there of making ther bust taller and adding hands to her!

Why I do this sort of thing to myself I will never know haha – I was going to do her without hands as they are so notoriously difficult to draw and sculpt. But then thought – “nope I will add hands there is no reason why I can’t do them!” I chose Poison Ivy as I wanted to create a face that had a beautiful graphic novel /computer animation aspect to it as that is how she was originally created after all.
This also allowed me to add in other elements of design such as flower and leaf work. To create the smooth facial features I created her predominantly from chocolate as it is a great medium to work with for characters.I was hugely proud of her when she was finished apart from a couple of bumps on her back by the shoulder

Then she got her silver and after all the gorgeous lovely comments I had received about her and certainties that I would win gold I was upset. Once I saw her again on the judging table I noticed that the bumps had become more apparent on her back and I started to understand why she had lost a few marks but I had thought she would have still achieved over 90%.  So I was bitter and angry at this point and thinking it was all sooo unfair, I was never going to enter any comps again …ever!! haha.

However acceptance soon came after speaking with one of the judges this evening – they commented first and foremost that the flowers and leaves didn’t have as much finesse as they would like – which is fine – I would have to agree because they were made from choc paste and this must have let me down, the slight bumps on the back also let me down – which again is fine and myself and the judge believe they became worse in the heat of the NEC (it had happened to one of her own judged cakes before). They would have preferred her to have been covered in sugarpaste rather than chocolate and also the hands needed a bit more detailing!

 These critiques I could take and accept, but the ones I disagreed with were; they believed the eyes were too large for the face and that the hair was too clumped together. This was not true to life – now obviously this is how she should be as she is based upon a computer illustration figure and so I mentioned that, the reply to this is that the judges can not know this and so judge on what they see. Had she have been entered into a chocolate class (of which they currently don’t have) then the judge believes she would have done very well

So now I am accepting, proud and happy, all she needs was a bit of finesse and after all what lady doesn’t need that when she’s on show for all to see

And now it’s time for me to get prepared for my 2nd competition of the weekend – tomorrow I am making my Chatter Phone cake live in 3hours whilst being pitted against 8 other amazing competitors – so time to put Ivy to bed and go get my A game ready for tomorrow!!

This was a great design to come up with! I was asked by the customer if I could make a cake all about Las Vegas for her partners 40th birthday celebrartions. He is a bit of a gambler and a fan of the bright ,lights and fun times of Las Vegas.
I love it when a customer presents an idea to me and then leaves me to get on with the design element to it – I came up with a quick sketch depicting the idea to have it adorned with poker chips, bank notes, coins and of course the Las Vegas Sign!
One thing I always tell my customers is that the sketches I provide are a general idea of the final cake – very rarely do my cakes turn out exactly like the sketch as that is all part of the process. Once the cake starts to take shape in front of me, then I may need to make changes to produce the cake to a better finish.
Here the difference was made in the way the poker chips were displayed, they looked great sandwiched between the 2 tiers so that the top tier appeared to float above them, the normal coins were omitted altogether and a fan of edible dollars was added to the top instead – creating a frame for the playing cards (the highest hand in Poker) then the Las Vegas sign created the focal point to the centre of the cake.

Who doesn’t love Horton? (Ok so maybe some of you don’t you don’t need to shout!) But I love him as do my nieces and this cake was made for their joint birthday party last year. A pretty cute, bashful version of Horton with his puffball, and would you believe I even handcrafted all of the who’s on their planet as well – they’re all in there – I promise!!

So what do you get for the man who has everything? Well if he’s a petrol head – then why not get him a cake version of his own car or his dream car? In this case the gent in question had a silver Aston Martin DB9, so we took his favourite cake flavour and carved a replica of his car for him as a surprise birthday present/cake. 

Any car can be recreated in cake – so drop me an email and I’ll make the perfect cake for the petrol head in your life….

So this week involved making some very naughty (but hugely fun) cakes for a VIP. Not too sure if I can name drop, so I won’t, but she is founder and director of a very high class adult retailers (hence the theme), and for her special birthday party she held a Cunt-ry Fair at a hide away venue in Herefordshire. The request was put forward to Miss Cakehead for some fun and risque cakes, the request was taken and handed on to me and another baker (the fabulous Nevie-Pie Cakes) and below is my take on the idea;

First of all Psychadelic Rainbow Vagina Cupcakes which were a mix of Baileys Mud Cupcakes and Lemon Cloud cupcakes, with a dash of lickable cum! Inspiration for these was lifted directly from the Cakehead Loves Evil Blog by an unkown baker. I think they pretty much scream Cuntry Fair and therefore had to be included on the list!!

That was going to be the only thing I produced (apart from a surprise birthday cake for the occassion too) that was until I laid my eyes on these little beauties, push up cake pops! Apparently they are becoming increasingly popular and are a take on the push pop lollies we all had as kids, in these kits you get the empty pot, stick and lid ready to be filled with layers of cake and sprinkles (or any type of sweet or sickly food you may happen to want to shmush into one cavity and gorge on all at once!) So, I am not sure what it says about me, the first thought that sprang to my mind was “cock pops”.

Given the subject matter surely I can be forgiven for having such thoughts? On thinking more in depth about the idea it was apparent it needed to work on a surprise element and play on the hidden treats that lay within; so I swiped some fabulous images used for cake pop sticks from Bakerella‘s site and shrank them down to use as stickers on the lids and also wrapped the holders in vibrant candy stripe wrapping paper.

That way the enjoyment was all about popping the lid and pushing up the stick to reveal the over sized mocha choca cake pop enrobed in white chocolate (or dark chocolate) dependant on the cultural background of the member in hand even smurfs were accounted for in this array of multi cultural cocks – alas I forgot to take a photo of the smurf cock pop!! – but believe me he was there.

I have to admit I LOVE these cockpops – I reckon they are an ideal addition to any hen party, if you wanna order any then feel free to contact me on laura@mammajammacakes.co.uk they are priced at £8.00 each and can be adorned with any personal preferences upon request (think Prince Alberts, Tattoos etc)

Last but not least on this delightful array of naughty cakes is the one that may just tip you over the edge, it is grimly realistic and was ordered as an additional surprise birthday cake, inside lurks a 9″ delicious swirled lemon sponge carved and covered in fondant and handpainted with edible paint. This was inspired by the original vagina cupcake again as seen on Cakehead Loves Evil‘s blog and made by Holly Andrews

So this concludes one of the most fun and tiring weeks in caking so far, involving non delivery of goods, late delivery of goods and needing to hide these beauties from my two young children, resulted in lots of late night caking! But great fun to push those boundaries (and the sniggering from my inner child as I hand modelled the appendages kept me most entertained of the evenings lol) So what do you think? Would any of you fancy tucking into any of these?

Yep I realise I still have blogs to write about the Kerrang awards and the business name change and I promise I will be doing those this weekend, but for now here’s the lowdown about the Silent Hill installation for none other than Mr Alice Cooper’s freakshow auditions.
This piece was commisioned by Miss Cakehead to be the centrepiece for the table and I was pretty dam excited about this cake gig as AC is a total LEGEND! Unfortunately the nearest I managed to get to him was 10ft away and grabbed this quick snap in between auditions. The acts auditioning in front of Mr.Cooper-Cowell were one hell of a lot more entertaining than your average BGT contestant and included drag acts, blood, staples, arrows, fire, flamage, nasal flossing!! It was a brilliant (if somewhat sweltering) day.

So on to the cake; made from 6 stacked chocolate cakes sandwiched with white chocolate buttercream, covered in white chocolate paste, and finally handpainted with food pastes. The cake support was built by my frankly brilliant husband without which Nursey would not have been standing at all so Kudos has to be sent his way too.  Gonna be adding a speeded up vid to this post soon which should hopefully show you the main bulk of me creating this gory piece of art (that is if I managed to set it all up correctly).

Although her face is suitably grotesque (the cake is based on the nurses from the movie, rather than the game) it was not the face that grabbed peoples attention -  without doubt the talking point/s has been her mighty fine top rack! One of my fave quotes on her has to be “Nice boobs – shame about the face!”  They have earned her a LOT of attention, they have made me envious of cake boobs (!) and she is now officially a page 3 girl after earning the slot in my local newspaper. 

The challenge and creative process of this cake was just brilliant, I enjoyed every bit of it and once she was in situ with the edible gory goodies seen below the whole table looked suitably sinister, eerie and totally gory.  Some amazingly talented cakers and creators were involve in this exhibition there were fantastically detailed jumbo cake pops from the lovely Kiss and Bake Up  gory wound cupcakes from the amazing The Butcher of Caker Street and blood splattered delicious red velvet cupcakes from the bodacious I Heart Cupcakes with some edible barbed wire and minty glass from yours truly. The entire set up was overseen by the inimitable Miss Cakehead  (who also created some frankly disgusting looking blood soaked bandahe covered cake stands) and Ms.Arty herself Thefty .

The decapitation of the nurse and general butchering of her neck with glass and a knife and yes MORE blood just took it all on to a whole new level!

photo credit: Thefty

Update: 17th July 2011

Before delivering the cake, Rob did a quick video interview with me. This shows some of the detail as I explain how I made the cake.

I just LOVE this cake – gave me a chance to break out the paints and revisit my first love; painting. The image was copied freehand with edible markers and painted with food pastes. Cathy came up with the idea for her tattoo artist boyfriends birthday, she gave me this image and asked me to recreate it on a cake somehow, Cathy thought this old school tattoo design would be the perfect idea for his cake. – Have to say I loved it when she sent it over and the only change was to ask for the cap in grey or black rather than the purple.

The swallows add to that old school charm and assisted me in where to fit the message onto the cake, by holding the obligitary tattoo style ribbon. The request was also made for a tattoo gun (I call it a gun but my tattoo artist friend continuously bitches at me that “it is called a machine Laura – a tattoo MACHINE!!”) to be added to the cake, I was going to paint it into the design but once the tattoo was painted the cake needed that to be the main focus; to have a gun (“I told you it’s a MACHINE!!”) next to it would have been far too busy. So a decision was made to craft one out of artista soft to sit at the front of the board. 

Cathy tells me the cake is to be kept and nobody  is allowed near it with a knife. The plan is to keep it in a glass box in their shop, not sure if it’s still the case or if they’ll succumb to temptation and dig into the yummy vanilla goodness that lurks within?