AOk, thankyou both. :-)

AYes girls she has been on my mind must a bit so kind you ask her tho.

Aw sorry about your cat lynne, I had 3, loved them.

Jean they were concrete blocks, holocaust memorial represents 6 million jews killed very sad.

sorry to hear about your cat Lynne, i can understand you both feeling distraught, after all they a part of your family. hope you both feel a bit better soon.

Petticat the chihuahua is 5 years old although being a little chap he does look like a puppy still.  the other one is 6 months old and way to playful for TJ, hes just like a grumpy old man with her.

Nanny hope Sarah is a little better, you must be very worried, no matter how old she is she's still your little girl and you never stop worrying.

Maisie i used patchwork cutters for my snowflakes i also have some Jem ones too but they were a little bit more tricky to use. I also saw some glass globes in Home Bargains the other day in case you still wanted one.

Loubee & Roxy - lovely frozen cakes.

AFound this recipe and it looks interesting I might try making it later today for pudding to see if it works

AJust had a quick catch up but likely to miss stuff so I apologise.

Most importantly though please wish Sarah well for me Barbara. Hope she gets better soon, bless her x

Lynne, sorry about your cat. That's really sad.

Lizzy. Just mentally punch them people in the nose, don't really do it, not a good look for a cake decorator. :D

Maisie, I'm freezing today, heating is now up at 26 and I'm still cold.

Ok I'm out, sorry but my memory is shot at the moment. Lol

Had a nightmare last night with my airbrush, spitting all over the place, not spraying right then it just stopped spraying, work out it's cos I used the actual dinkydoodle paints and its blocked it. My cake was a mess at this point. Took apart the airbrush, very carefully. Put it back together and its spraying better but the lever is loose. Can't fathom it and it's spraying, having swapped to Kroma and its covered it better. Thought I'd use the Rose iridicent colour to make it look metal, it's a fire engine, and now it looks like a pink sparkly one. 11:45 pm I gave up and when to bed. Got it out this morning an gave it another coat of Kroma, it's looking better. Randomly dropped a bar of choc whilst making ganache and see a small bit of metal Next to it, work out that it's a bit of my airbrush, take it apart and put the Missing bit in Nd it's now working perfectly. Moral of the story. Sometimes it's better to step away from the cake for a while

AWow I missed lots but I've just had a quick catch up. Let's see what I can remember...

Nanny I hope Sarah feels better soon, she doesn't sound like someone that comes down with illnesses often so I bet she's suffering bless her.

Lizzy, poor gerbil. I bet your son feels terrible bless him. We had two gerbils and they were lovely sweet little things, so amazing to watch. I hope he's OK.

Lynne so sorry to hear about your car I know how you feel. When my cat died, he was only 2,i was devastated. He was my baby, so much more like a little puppy than a cat really. He went everywhere with me!

Roxy I love your frozen snowline cake it's very clever. I'm with maisie on not usually like the snow globe cakes but I really do like yours.

Sian glad you got your airbrush sorted eventually. I really really want one soon haha!

Ok don't know if I missed anything sleep, sorry if I have!

Nanny, just wishing Sarah well. Can't believe family haven't asked after her!

Lynne, I'm so sorry. Try and keep your chin up as best you can xxx

Maisie, if I'm using delicate cutters I use either modelling paste or flower paste and roll out thin, then flip over straight away. Leave it for 3 or 4 minutes to go a bit leathery, then flip back over and cut from the wet side to the drier side. This allows a clean cut and helps them to come out of the cutter a little more easily.

If your board is too small I often don't centre the cake in the middle of the board, I just centre it right at the back of the board instead. It looks like a design feature, and it's a bit different I think :)

Lol Siany, I think at the very least it would get attention to my stand if I lamped a customer  

I've found just the same with cakes. Sometimes even if I'm really pushed for time I'll stop and completely clean the kitchen around myself so there's nothing but the cake and my tools out. Bowls of ganache, bits of drying out sugarpaste etc are usually no problem to me, but sometimes I just can't think for the mess!

How odd of the family not to just suck it up for the funeral Kathy. Apart from anything else, it's just plain disrespectful. What a shame.

I'll join the no Frozen cake club! And the no pretty shoe cake club 

Ginger (the gerbil) seems to be doing ok. My son is a bit happier now, but I think I've persuaded him it really wasn't his fault which is a good thing!

ALizzy glad to hear ginger is doing ok, hopefully he will pull through it, also glad your son is a bit happier now

A[quote name="chezzabelle" url="/t/622656/a-thread-for-all-uk-bakers/23910#post_7571407"]Lizzy glad to hear ginger is doing ok, hopefully he will pull through it, also glad your son is a bit happier now

AI had wedding cake order yesterday which I meant to mention - I'm bricking it! They want a completely plain one (4 tiers) apart from ribbons around the bases and a hand painted copy of their really scrolly initials on the top tier. In purple. On a white cake. I rely on covering mistakes up with decoration! Why do we all nod and say 'of course I can do that' when we know we'll fret about it!?

AI've tried to cover my cake about 7 times. I don't know what's wrong with my SP. It was getting elephant skin as I was rolling it and it was tearing as soon as I tried to lift it. I managed to get it in the cake twice but it tore away at the sides immediately. I've tried adding crisco, that made it too soft (but still elephant skinny) I added icing sugar and now it's just yuck. I don't know what do. Except cry maybe, that's looking good. :-(

AWhat pasye is it maisie?

AA bit of a mix to use my leftovers up Lizzy. Maybe a quarter Renshaws already coloured green, a quarter tesco and half culpitt. I haven't got any corn flour tho, that's what I roll out with. I used icing sugar instead, I can't see it making that big a difference tho. Or could it?

AI think I'd leave it for a few minutes to settle down. If you've been adding things and re-rolling it's not going to be at its best, plus you're likely to lob it out the window of you don't leave it for a bit!

With the elephant skin, I'd try the trex again making sure it's smeared all over your hands and not in any big blobs and really work it in.

I only ever do this if I'm having real problems, but could you try lifting it with the banks of your hands rather than a pin? Less chance for it to tear then. Also make sure your paste is only just larger than the cake (or a tiny bit shorter) so that there's a little weight as possible.

Don't give up! :-)

Maisie - I guarantee you it will be down to temperature/climate.  If it's a SP that you have used before with no issues, that is.  I must admit, I never thought to add Crisco to SP before - is that supposed to help it stay supple?

Kathy

AI don't think so :/ I only use icing to roll out and it doesn't cause tearing as far as I'm aware.

Tesco paste is unworkably soft for me, I always have problems with it tearing and always have to use a bit of tylo if it's the only paste I have in!

AI left it just out uncovered for about 20 mins while I got Leah off the bus and sorted her out. I went back to it to give it one more try before I chucked it and started again. I've managed to get it on but it's a state. My options are: redo it and drag Leah out to get some more or use it as it is, there's one really bad bit (pictured) but that will obviously go at the back. Or cry. Crying is still an option!

[IMG]http://www.cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3323557/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

AOops, posted that too soon.

The black ribbon is the best I've got, does it look ok? I wasn't going to use ribbon, I was going to put the lace on the bottom pointing up but I've got elephant skin on the top edge so I need to hide it.

And thankyou girls for helping me. :-) X

AIf that's the worst and it can go at the back I would leave it. If it really bothers you could you make a design feature of the ribbon and do one at the very bottom, then leave a 2 or 3mm gap, then do another strip?

I think it looks very classy btw - that green is really lovely and with the black and the lace it looks all 1950's vintage. It's going to be a really nice cake.

AThat's the look I was aiming for Lizzy, I was taking inspiration from Nanny's Sarah's cake. If it was for somebody's party where other people would see it or if it was for somebody I didn't know extremely well I'd take it off and start again. It's only for my mam tho, you know what I mean when I say "only".

I think I'll leave it and see what it's like when it's finished. Thankyou Lizzy. :-)

AMaisie your cake looks great, can hardly see anything wrong with it so I wouldn't worry.

Finished my curious George cake and my friend loves it. It was simple enough to do, think it looks OK gabached without the brown SP too.

[IMG]http://www.cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3323645/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

Hate the fact that the board isn't covered but she specifically asked me not to so hey ho. No idea why though.

A

Looks great

He's so cool sugar :) The ganache worked really well didn't it? It's turned out to your advantage that you didn't have any brown paste - saved you time, money and effort and looks great!

AYes it definitely did save time and effort lizzy I was dreading trying to cover that shape with SP. Just hope the cake stays fresh as she informed me when she picked it up today that she might save it until his party on Saturday! It should be ok until then do you think? I worry with it not being covered in SP but it had a tonne of ganache on it.

Wedding fair cakes...

AWow lizzy they're all stunning. I particularly love the last one. That would suit my wedding to a T with a slight tweak to u the colours. Really fantastic!

Feel free to yoink any elements you like!  And thanks 

AEvening guys.

Love the colour maisie and I agree with lizzy it would give it a vintage feel.

Well it just doesn't get any better does it,had a rare text from DIL teatime to ring her, very unusual I thought, but I did as she said it was urgent, apparently my son has taken off, needed some time away, not too bad you think but where rich is concerned the alarms bells ring, I rung him and ask where are you, in the house he replied, I said, no your not lauren said she doesn't know where you are, he hung up on me, so apparently he was last seen heading towards Hereford, now that means a pub and a car, which doesn't mix, it never ends.

My patient seems to be improving, she eat half a carton of soup, whoo hoo.

Lizzy, your cakes are outstanding, a true credit to you. I love all of them.