I had no idea that the birth of the new Royal baby was so close. And now that I am aware that there is only about 2 weeks to wait, I’m actually quite excited. After an amazing couple of years with lots of national celebrations, 2013 would quite frankly feel a bit lost without something to unite us all again and have a reason to purchase another special edition mug. Don’t laugh….I love my Emma Bridgewater Royal Wedding mug! I really do! And how great will it be to have something other than the sunshine making an appearance to raise a toast to on a country wide scale? Although the sun does help to put me in the mood for champers or Pimms that’s for sure. So, when Renshaw got in touch to ask me if I would like to design and make a cake for the imminent arrival of Baby Windsor, I jumped at the chance. Having had a rather enjoyable flurry of baking lately, I was up for the challenge, virtual high five moment.
But here’s the thing I still only have 24 hours in a day and slotting in the making of said cake was going to be super tight. How was I going to make something that was suitably impressive (well to my standards anyway) with the 2 hour slot I had identified to do this in? Hm bit more of a challenge than I first thought. But as you can see from the pictures, I think I have managed to come up with something which I know at least I would have loved at a baby shower of my own or just after I had any of my 3 children. I’m very fond of my Royal baby, and as the design kind of evolved as I went along, it feels like a really creative process. To explain a little bit about how this cake developed, I started with what cake I was going to make. This was the easy bit though because I knew straight away that it would have to be my favorite Peggy Porschen lemon and limoncello cake purely because it is seriously the best lemon cake I have ever tasted. And yes I am very confident to say that even though have baked it myself. Another reason is because I thought that lemon/yellow would be a good colour/flavour for a baby who we don’t know the sex of yet. Something else I like about this cake is the fact it is 3, 6 inch round layers, rather than your normal 2, 8 inch layers making it a bit different and a cool and quirky way. End result a very cute sized cake, but one with substance due to it’s height.
So then I covered my cake with the white Renshaw ready to roll icing that we were given and I had the perfect blank canvas to work with. An hour later, after my creative head kicked in the top of my cake was turned into a baby face and the sides were covered in a yellow polka dot pattern. And do you know what, all I used to make the decorations on the cake was a pack of Renshaw primary colours icing. No special equiptment, colours or cutters. I just mixed various different coloured icing into the white icing to get softer tones and by doing this I created the skin tone and the pale yellow for the hat. And the shapes I needed were just cut out with a knife or modelled by me. This really is a cake that anyone could try making. After a few finishing touches, I’ve got to say I was more than pleased with this cake. How I am going to explain why I have a cake with a big baby face on when I offer a slice to the in-laws tomorrow I’m not sure. But what I do know is that my 2 year old looked at it and said ‘baby cake’ so that I am very pleased with indeed. Many thanks to Renshaw for the icing samples. The lemon and limoncello cake recipe can be found on page 97 of Peggy Porschen’s ‘Baking Boutique’ book.
