This is such a lovely book and one of my sons favourites when he was little and I think most children will have come across it somewhere. It is even a West End Theatre show. I was so happy when a client came to me and asked me to make a cake themed around it for her daughter.

She wanted me to keep the decor in the same illustrated style as the book so all credit to Judith Kerr and the team. Elements that had to be included were the little girl at the door with the tiger, some balloons and the tiger playing his trumpet. I used the technique of cutting out the shapes from icing and then hand painting them in the same colours as the book. Above is my very sketchy drawing, with lots of scribbles!

I loved some of the retro details in the drawings. You can see here some of the images I used resting on the base board which I have hand painted in the same detail as the carpet from the book. I didn’t want anything to be too neat and perfect. I enlarged images from the book on my photocopier and then cut round them on pieces of floral paste to make cutouts.

I’ve always loved images of messy paint palettes and if you know me or follow my http://www.instagram.com #rachellesbespokecakes you will know that I’m always taking pictures of them too. Here is a mixture of the colours I used. All slightly dirty and not too bright, just like the book.

Above are all the little pieces I have painted ready to go onto the cake, i wanted them to have that ‘handpainted’ look so I kept the colours all wishy washy. I used water and sugarflair paste colours to do this and let them all dry completely before adding to the cake.

Here is the final cake I made for Tillys first Birthday, I hope you like it. I loved it!

All credit to the illustrations and content of the book ‘The Tiger That Came To Tea By Judith Kerr’.

So I received an email from a lovely lady looking for a first Birthday cake for her son, she was very open about design and told me to just take inspiration from the invites, especially the little red fox as her son had a similar toy. I sometimes find it hard when I’m given a totally open brief, but these invites were so cute I just decided to use the lovely illustrated style and do a painted cake.

There were some lovely little characters on the stationary so I picked out a few and copied them to the right size. I then used a sharp knife to cut round them onto a piece of rolled out sugar paste.

Then I painted each little character in a water colour style using small bits of black to give them a hand drawn feel.

I chose a couple of foxes, a little squirrel, owl and bunny 🙂 I then did cutouts for some bunting and balloons. I didn’t want the whole cake to look flat so by having some elements in relief it would give it more interest. I’ve got a bit of a thing about paint palettes and seeing all the colours mixed together. This cake had an overall muted palette, not too bright but still colourful.

First I covered the three tiers of cake with the tree details painted directly onto the cake. Wishy washy branches outlined in a darker brown to give the hand drawn effect. With blobs in different shades of green to give the tree a little depth. In close up water colour can look badly done but always stand back from your work and the images will come to life.

I then stencilled the little boys name on the cake to match the font from the invite. I could then fill it in with paint.

I then carefully added all of the elements to the cake adding little painted details like the grass and some flowers. It was all topped off with one of the little foxes wearing a party hat and a hand painted number one. I really really enjoyed making this cake, it was so cute and unique to the party. Right down to the little Birthday cake I made at the base. I hope you like the finished result as much as I did. Rachelx

I always do a little sketch so the client can see my vision. It was only little at 4″ round and it had to be eggless sponge. I suggested doing a bit of a watery effect, a bit like Monet. And this was my vision.

I started by making up some Lotus flowers, layering up to get some nice petals and then choosing a darker orange and some stamens for the middles.

Whilst the start of the flowers were drying I did a lovely watery effect on a white fondant iced cake. I used Jade, Baby Blue and Ice Blue Sugarflair colours. I normally use Vodka to paint with but had to dig out some rum this time as the vodka had strangely gone 🙂

Lastly I made up some flower buds and a couple of Lily pads. Then they were ready to place on the cake. I added a little brown dust to the green parts to give them some depth and stop them looking too ‘flat’.

Towards the end I made the decision to pop a some silver leaf on just to give a bit of sparkle to the water. I thought it was really cute and colourful in an arty kind of way, I hope you like it!

The great thing is Sam didn’t want the usual building blocks thing, which to be honest I was rather glad about. She is a little bit arty and Barnaby was a Christmas baby so we went for a slightly wintery theme with an artistic twist.

I used two different types of blue sugarflair colour paste and used lemon extract to paint the colour onto the cake for a watery winter effect. The same technique was applied to some cupcakes. Sam requested a tree and a bit of silver leaf too, so I cut a simple tree from floral paste using a template drawn by me.

Lastly I made some little birds to give it a bit more ‘cuteness’ and of course Barnaby’s name to the front. I love how it turned out, a little bit different and not at all traditional. Here is the original sketch I did, as you can see we ditched the original ‘wreath’ idea, kept the watery blue and went for the tree in the end which still look beautiful. Rachelx