More on Gran's 90th birthday

As well as Gran's picture quilt I also made a matching cushion.  The picture quality is terrible, I'm sorry, but, I was literally walking out of the door with it when I remembered I needed to take a photo.  I perhaps shouldn't have bothered!

It does match the quilt, honest!

We also had a surprise birthday party for her.  Normally my cousin Jayne makes and decorates cakes for family occasions.  This time she had the excuse of having just had a baby.  Some people, the things they do to get out of cake decorating!  Anyway, when this was mentioned a few months ago, I foolishly stepped forward to volunteer. Full of confidence.  I mean how hard could it be?  I should point out at this juncture that my usual decorating method is to put chocolate (or chocolate fudge) on top of the cake and if I'm feeling really fancy (i.e. it's a birthday cake) I add Smarties.

I had a vision in my head of doing something with fondant or sugar paste roses.  I've made roses out of paper before, it can't be too much different, can it?  Turns out it can.  We were going for a purple and silver theme for the party, so I used food colouring to dye some sugarpaste.  I spent days looking like I'd committed some kind of terrible crime.  The red just would not wash off.  It was very Lady MacBeth.

We got a topper printed onto icing by the lovely Gill to go into the centre of the cake.  We wanted to go with understated elegance.  I know.  This is the person who usually makes princess dresses and pirate quilts.

Mam made the spice cake and put the marzipan on.  Then we started to decorate.  You've seen nothing like it.  Poor Mam's kitchen looked like a bomb site by the time we'd finished.  I've never covered a cake (or cake board for that matter) in fondant.  It took several attempts and lots (and lots) of patching and smoothing.  After putting the topper on, it was time for the piping.  Can I have a dramatic drum roll please?  I'd practised piping once and it went ok.  I then ran out of time to do any more practising.  You can see how well this is going to go, can't you?  Mam left the kitchen at that point.  She was then unsure whether she was supposed to come in everytime there was an exclamation.  On the whole she thought it wise to stay out of the way.  I can't say I blame her!

Cake complete.  We did debate whether or not to put some silver balls on.  Mainly to try to distract the eye from the piping.  But it was decided that less was more.

It wasn't too bad in the end.  Jayne's job is definitely safe though!  I'm not sure I can handle the stress levels for one thing.

For around the cake table at the party I made some personalised bunting.  The idea was that Gran could keep it afterwards as a memento.   No prizes for guessing Gran's name.

In the picture the bunting isn't quite finished.  I also stuck some purple bows onto the pegs.  Just because I could!

Now where are those Smarties?!