It comes around once a year – baking week! It started 10 years ago and this year’s challenge may be a cake too far! Well, a cake decoration too far?

It all started 10 years ago, when I made a rubbish chocolate hedgehog cake for my son’s first birthday. It was worthy of Jo Brand’s An Extra Slice – you know, the pictures that everyone laughs at.

I knew I could do better.

So I started making a real effort. There were several years of treasure chests (easy), a few with tiers, printed sugar paper pictures for the top etc. I started adding in a second cake week for my stepdaughters’ birthdays excelling myself for their 17th when I made a Mini! It was pretty good. I sort of gave up trying by the time I got to the wheels, but there was absolutely no mistaking what it was.

So back to the kid … one year it was a football cake! Fairly easy. A couple of years the request was simply ‘really chocolaty’ which was also easy, I even tried one of those ones with a cascade of Maltesers. The best to date has to be the Millennium Falcon. I had pictures pinned around the kitchen for a week … it was pretty good, though there are bits I would have done differently if I were to do it again! It was definitely worth it for the look on his mates’ faces when I brought it out.

And so to this year. We’re surfing for the party, and he wasn’t buying my surfing cake idea so I googled. And came up with Galaxy cake. No, nothing to do with the chocolate bar, and a lot to do with planets and stars and blues etc. Sounds fun, sounds not too difficult …

… until …

… it’s covered in a mirror glaze! Obviously all the YouTube vids make it look easy. I’m not so sure it will be.

So, I’ve googled, I’ve watched, I’ve read, I’ve thought, I’ve noticed that Sainsbury’s has a mirror glaze on their shelf which I think I’ll buy as back up.

Work starts on Wednesday with the planets. And then the cake will be made on Thursday, and the butter cream coating goes on on Friday.

So that the glaze doesn’t lose it’s glaze it’s going on on Saturday morning! A bit last minute, because if it all goes wrong, we’ll be heading to the party via any supermarket …

Wish me luck, I’ll update you in a week – unless I’m saving the picture for Jo Brand.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but when it comes to quoting for voiceover work, I don’t post my rates here, but ask you to get in touch with me to discuss.

Why?

Well, because a voiceover is made up of the voice and the production work to get it to sound right … but if you want to buy the rights to use it, then there’s a ‘usage’ fee. This can be separate from the recording fee or I can give you one combined fee but usage always plays a part … a bigger part if the usage is ‘public’.

If you want to know a little more about the regulations around usage then this is a great article. https://www.cms-lawnow.com/ealerts/2019/04/a-new-age-for-copyright-regulation-in-the-eu-digital-market-part-2?fbclid=IwAR1XAuCIBMMtePISsuyOU81PtO_mqlTv7Z0tSbsxytWDkBGeujZpwKfAxns

And one of the reasons I’m posting this here, is so that I can always access it too!

Living Magazine (a North East luxe magazine brand) caught up with my recently to take stock of my North East … the answers to which were a little bit of a collaboration with my husband, especially where eating out and landmarks are concerned!

I’m not sure when the mag came out, but the first I heard was a Facebook post earlier today.

Unfortunately my anonymity is once again shattered – I was cornered on the school run today (in the playground) and asked if it is indeed me in Living Magazine.  The disguise of using a photograph with hair and make up done (absolutely not my normal playground / school run appearance) failed in its bid to keep my identity secret!