Thassa, God of the Sea

All my bakery is a bit nerdy, but this one takes the cake. Although arguably it's not my fault - I don't even play Magic: The Gathering, although I do secretly quite enjoy the artwork. I just picked the prettiest card to try and replicate -- she's a cool David Bowie-looking mermaid, which I obviously like. Here's the original card:

My interpretation is a bit more pastelly, in part because the cake-odds were stacked against me. I only had purple and pink food colouring to work with, and had to improvise other colours from leftover tinted marzipan, melted dark chocolate and coffee grounds. Sigh. I do actually quite like the 3D look the cake came out with as a result though.

A mise-en-scene also starring my favourite rabbit mug and my beautiful new Tala icing syringe -- it's exactly like my Grandma's one that she bought in the 1950s, and which I started to feel guilty about using, in case I was damaging it. The only difference is that my new one comes in a nice sturdy tin instead of a battered, yellow sellotape-coated cardboard box.

  Aand there's Thassa's disembodied head, thinking up ways to wreak divine vengeance for indignities suffered. I might not know much about Magic, but apparently I scored some accidental fan-points for ensuring she had her signature two-pronged bident with which to do spells -- not the more conventional trident upstart newer versions of the card have tried to impose.

Cassette Tape Cake

This was a commission/birthday cake for Lone Omi -- a handy bit of multipurposing! After a bit of Photoshop primping it'll be the cover for his joint EP. For now, it's sitting partially dismembered in the kitchen, after a mammoth photography session.

I was extra proud of the way the window came out -- it's made of glacier mints melted down -- but it's not very camera friendly. But getting the writing done was the really hard bit, because I wanted it to look as much like Sharpie on paper as possible, not like raised icing, and had to make sure it would come across in the photos. Really specific commissions like this are so satisfying to do because it means I can skip the agonising and deliberating stage and get on with baking, icing and piping -- more please!