Cute Dinosaur Cake!

Happy 21st Birthday, Lindsey!

How cute is this little guy?? I have been looking forward to posting this cake all week. She has been starring at me from the kitchen counter, her little face sitting on top of her now half-body. Believe it or not, I baked this cake for my wonderful housemate Lindsey's 21st birthday this week. Although it may seem more suited to a slightly younger birthday, Lindsey loves dinosaurs and yellow so this cake was born! 

I was excited to actually have an excuse to decorate a cake again and just have fun. I adore decorating cakes, it's by far my favourite part of baking. But since I started this blog it has somewhat taken a back seat to leave time for developing new recipes and flavours for you. So I fully embraced this opportunity and hoped to produce a perfect cake for my lovely friend! 

She absolutely loved the cake so I think it was a job well done! Everyone else who has seen it has it has also been majorly impressed - clearly not realising it is much easier than it looks! I honestly believe even a complete baking/decorating novice could produce this cake with just a little patience and practice. So here is a guide for how to make this adorable little dinosaur. This is a long post with a lot of instructions but read them through once before you start!

My First Cake Pops

Bitesize cake pieces on a stick. Enough said.

I feel that as a self-confessed baking enthusiast it is pretty shameful to say that I have never attempted to make cake pops; until last night! They just never really appealed to me for some reason but all of a sudden I had the urge to give them a go and I'm so glad I did!
As I baked them on a whim I didn't have a lot to decorate them with but I think the sprinkes look soo cute and give a slightly different texture with a bit of a crunch. And I just love sprinkes...

They were a bit more fiddly than I had anticipated but they are not particularly hard or messy once you get in a sort of routine. Another great thing about them is that it is completely okay to cheat and use a box of cake mix. I didn't just because I love baking so much but if baking isn't really your thing but you want to give these a go, cheat away!! My first attempt at covering the cake pop in the candy melts was a bit of a disaster to be honest but I ate it anyway then just learned from my mistakes! For me, dipping and twirling in a shallow dish worked far better than submerging in a deep dish, I then used a spoon to cover the slightly bare bits. I'm not going to lie, my cake pops were not evenly covered and were kind of bumpy but I imagine perfection will come with practice! I just wanted to share my first ever attempt with you all. I hate when you find a blog and try a recipe or a tutorial on there and it just ends up nothing like theirs, you feel so defeated so sharing a mediocre attempt at something can only be a good thing, surely?!

Decorating time: approximately 2-3 minutes per cake pop
Difficulty: Easy-Medium
You will need: Cake mix, Icing, cakepop/lollipop sticks, candy melts, sprinkles (or other decoration), tall glasses or polystyrene for drying.

Marshmallow Flower Tutorial

Hello everyone! 
Rather than a recipe share today I thought I would do something different and share a tutorial: marshmallow flowers! Such an easy way to make mini cupcakes look especially pretty and give them the wow factor! When I made these a few weeks ago everyone asked me how I made them and were really impressed by them! As tempting as it is to let people think that these were really difficult so you are obviously a cake decorating genius, I will share this not-so-secret, super-easy method! You don't have to though of course...

Decorating Time: Approximately 15 minutes to decorate 20 mini cupcakes
Difficulty: Easy! 
You will need: coloured sugar, marshmallows, scissors, chopping board.