Mayflower Events

Looking to have a tea party theme for a special occasion? Our guest post today comes from Robyn Ayala-Lea who is able to help out with her company, Mayflower Events.

Mayflower Events specialises in organising, styling and catering for tea parties and supplying beautiful vintage crockery, cakes and catering for weddings, engagement parties, hen parties and stag parties. 

The aim of Mayflower Events is to make the organisation of a wedding or party effortless by being a single point of contact from vintage crockery hire, glasses, table linen and cutlery hire to the cake and catering. 

Mayflower Events also offers an event organising and styling service so the bride and groom can enjoy their wedding or party whilst someone else seamlessly brings all the elements of the day together. Depending on what the bride and groom’s requirements are, we can assist for the whole day or just for certain individual parts.

The team at Mayflower Events really enjoy putting together a beautiful selection of vintage crockery with the most delicious cakes and fabulous tea party food and watching our brides and grooms have a truly amazing, special day. Our resident baker has a real talent for making not only beautiful, but also very tasty cakes – we believe that a cake must taste as good as it looks!

We have collected a wide range of beautiful crockery over the years, and some stunning accessories. We love being given the challenge of turning a generic venue into something unique for the bride and groom that guests will talk about for years to come. It’s important to us that we keep producing unique and fun ideas – for example we currently planning a Willy Wonka Tea Party and Mad Hatters Tea Party and are in the process of launching our Gentlemen’s Tea Party service.

Typically we will sit with a bride and groom and go through what they are looking for, put on our creativity hats and come up with a selection of ideas to meet their budget. The consultation and planning process will vary from client to client. Some clients may just wish to hire our beautiful vintage crockery and will simply book us for their event date having viewed the website and asked us some questions over the telephone or by email. Other clients organising, for example, a tea party for a hen party or wedding may have a telephone consultation, followed by a face-to-face meeting where ideas are discussed and agreed. Mayflower Events can be as involved as much as each bride and groom require.

We pride ourselves on paying attention to every small detail and providing a reliable, professional yet personal service to make the bride and groom’s celebration as special as possible.

Please take the opportunity to browse the services Mayflower Events offers on our website. If you have any questions no matter how big or small then please contact us and we will be happy to discuss your individual needs.

You can also follow Mayflower Events on Facebook and Twitter.

Sweetcreationz

Today I'm pleased to introduce Chintal from Sweetcreationz who tells us how she started her business creating these stunning cakes.....

My name is Chintal Kakaya, the owner and founder of Sweetcreationz, where we create mouth watering cakes for all occasions. Since a young age I have been very passionate about baking and creating imaginative and stylish cakes which inspired me to turn my hobby into a business. 

Although we offer celebration cakes and cupcakes our main speciality is Wedding cakes. My inspiration for designs comes from different sources such as current colour and style trends, clients, saree prints and various Indian and ethnic designs. Based on these I am able to provide my clients with a wedding cake that suit their needs and budget. At Sweetcreationz we use the finest sourced ingredients and free range eggs to bake our cakes. In addition all cakes are custom made to order and do not consist of any preservatives, we believe in cakes should taste as good as they look. We aim to cater for all markets with a variety of cakes and flavours such as standard chocolate ,vanilla to a variety of egg less flavours such as citrus orange, cardamom, vanilla and chocolate.

As our clients are very important to us, we provide a private consultation service to discuss their requirements, budget, design ideas and offer cake tasting. Clients get the opportunity to go through designs created by Sweetcreationz, however, all cake designs are unique to the couple, their theme, venue and attire. We take great pride in our creations and services to ensure clients and their guests are satisfied with the taste and design of the wedding cake. 

Please do check Chintal's website to see her full portfolio and follow her on Twitter

Designing and Creating Cakes By Janet Mohapi-Banks

Our Guest Blogger this week is Janet Mohapi-Banks who designs and creates the most exquisite cakes to suit every taste and wedding theme.

Designing and creating cakes is the most enjoyable part of my job. Wedding cake design can take inspiration from the clients stationery, dress, flowers or colour scheme. This ensures that the wedding cake is the centrepiece of the day that ties everything together.

The design process starts with a private consultation that typically lasts a couple of hours and is usually held at the clients home or wedding venue. The luxury service I offer means that I usually get to know my Brides and Grooms really quite well and I feel that this is an important part in designing a cake perfect for them. Although my Brides and Grooms get a portfolio of previous cakes to look at, each design is unique and based on their tastes and their unique wedding day.

Sketches are drawn with the clients present that enables them to visualise their cake and the ability to let know the features they like and the aspects that they would like to change. The sketch is then changed accordingly until the client is happy with every part of their wedding cake design.

Once the design is finalised and the order confirmed, I get to work creating the sugar features that will be present on it. Whether it’s sugar flowers or piping templates, all aspects of the cake including the cakes themselves are handmade to order.

My signature cake Rose contains literally hundreds of hand-pulled sugar roses. Each sugar rose takes between about 10 minutes to about an hour to create depending upon size so it is therefore necessary to start making sugar flowers as early as possible if many of them are featured on the cake.




Rose Sculpture Cake

Cake: Janet Mohapi-Banks - http://janetmohapibanks.com/

Photography: Juliet McKee - http://julietmckeephotography.co.uk/

Styling: Stacey-Marie Chalk - http://www.cherrytopped.co.uk/

Flowers: Woods Florist - http://www.woodsflorist.co.uk/

Stationery: Ivy Ellen - http://www.ivyellen.com/

 

Extensive hand-piping usually requires planning and templates are created to ensure that the pattern is evenly spaced. Obviously the hand-piping can’t be done until the cake is baked and covered in almond paste and icing. This means that although the planning can be done in advance the actual piping has to be done at the last minute.

Given that all Janet Mohapi-Banks cakes are baked as close to the delivery date as possible to ensure freshness, except the rich fruit cake that takes three months to mature, extensive hand piping sometimes requires working through the night.

Whatever the design, a Janet Mohapi-Banks cake is guaranteed to be aesthetically exquisite and tastes as good as it looks.



Forget Me Not Sculpture Cake

Cake: Janet Mohapi-Banks - http://janetmohapibanks.com/

Photography: Juliet McKee - http://julietmckeephotography.co.uk/

Styling: Stacey-Marie Chalk - http://www.cherrytopped.co.uk/

Flowers: Woods Florist - http://www.woodsflorist.co.uk/

Stationery: Ivy Ellen - http://www.ivyellen.com/


 



Purple Princess

Yesterday I came across some photos of Princess Grace of Monaco which led me onto putting together this inspiration board full of princessy luxury ....

Wedding Gown - Madelineisaacjames.com

Bridesmaids Dress - 1950sdresses.co.uk

Tiara - Tantrumsandtiaras.org

Silk Invitation Box and Silk Favour Box - Lilguy.co.uk

Shoes - Queensandbowl.com

Flowers - Zaraflora.com

Cake - Cakecreationsbysarah.com

Bridesmaids Necklace - tiny-gems.co.uk

Bracelet and Earrings - chezbec.com

Cakes By Sugar

Sugar is a cake design company based in South West London.  Designer Andrea Freeman creates beautiful cakes, cookies and cupcakes that taste as good as they look. Specialising in ways to make your celebration stand out from the crowd with dessert tables, upside down cakes, cookie place names and cake towers.

As a small company Sugar promise you a friendly and personal service with guidance through all the steps from initial consultation and tasting through to delivery and set up. They also promise that you will never feel part of a 'production line' and that you'll be delighted with your unique creation!

   

After careers in finance and teaching Andrea has found something she has a passion for - creating beautiful goodies for birthdays, christenings, weddings and corporate events, or just because!  Her aim is to create beautiful cakes which taste delicious using top quality ingredients, including organic eggs and flour.  She cannot guarantee a nut-free environment due to requests for carrot cakes etc. but can cater for special diets such as gluten and dairy-free.

   

Delivery is included within a 5 mile radius of Kingston-upon-Thames, and further afield by arrangement.

 

You can contact Andrea through her website, Facebook, and follow her on Twitter.  

Rich Reds and Golds

To be able to do a job I love is a privilege and a pleasure, and it's taken me a while to really relax and enjoy myself - sounds strange? Perhaps, but after years of working for various companies in largely financial and administration roles, the fact that doing things like putting together inspiration boards is actually now part of my 'job' takes a bit of getting used to! I hope that somewhere along the line they help someone to have the wedding of their dreams. Today I have indulged my love of strong, rich colours.

Cupcake Tower from Cakes By Beth

Invitation from LilGuys Mhendi Range

Wedding Gown from Kekopean Stitches

Red Dress from My Evening Dress

Bouquet from Stylehive

Shoes from Crystal Couture

Styling from Sweet Days and Roses

Paris at night photo borrowed from Janey Butler's Facebook page!

Pink Rose Cakes

You may remember back in February I wrote about Mrs LGs addiction to Twitter. Not only does she like to chat to her Tweeps on-line but sometimes she gets to meet some of them too. Earlier this year she combined a shopping trip to Brighton with meeting Fay Millar who runs Pink Rose Cakes. Fay promised Mrs LGs a blog post and today she shares French Macarons with us. 

The Rise of the French Macaron 

Not so long ago if you mentioned macaroons to somebody it would conjure up an image of a thick almond-flavoured confection with rice paper stuck on the bottom. The rather more delicate French macaron (and yes I write it deliberately as the French would!) was something only seen across the Channel and rarely on British shores.

But recently these delectable shiny domes of almond meringue filled with flavoured ganaches have been gaining popularity in Blighty. As people increasingly look for something different from the standard three tiered white wedding cake, the once esoteric macaron has suddenly found its place as a chic and fashionable alternative.

It is a worthy rival to the much-vaunted cupcake, which though still extremely popular, sometimes lacks the delicate nature and sheer versatility of the macaron. The macaron begs to be experimented with, to be fun, to be different. A cacophony of colours, smells and decorations combine to give it its endless allure.

Great towers of multi-coloured macarons can be created in place of the traditional cake and they can be colour-coordinated to match bridal schemes with everything from rich dark chocolate to green pistachio or blue mint. And for those who still want some cake the tower can sit atop a single tiered cake decorated to match.

In addition, at a time when people are more conscious than ever about spending a lot on a wedding, macaron towers generally work out cheaper than a standard wedding cake - £150-£300 for a tower as opposed to £400 for the average three tier cake. Even if you still hanker after a white stacked cake blocked with fresh flowers you can still indulge your inner macaron gourmand by offering them as wedding favours to guests.

The only problem with macarons is they are a bugger to make and get right! They must have an egg shell-like shell but be soft like meringue inside, smooth across the top and have that all important little foot at the base.

At Pink Rose Cakes we have been practising religiously for the last few months and the number of batches that have cracked, spread, collapsed or generally gone awry (although they always still taste nice) doesn’t bear thinking about. However, we are planning to launch three different-sized towers soon and bring the le macaron Francais to Brighton.

To see more of Fay's creations visit her website, catch up with her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter. From traditional to creatively different Pink Rose Cakes will give your celebration a real WOW factor! 

Choccywoccydoodah!

How many of you have been watching the current series about this amazing company? I've been watching it avidly and whilst I can't begin to impart here in words the amazing personalities and creativity of the characters behind this delicious company to those of you who haven't seen the series, I can share with you some information from the company and some images of their spectacular creations. Living just 7 miles away on the other side of the beautiful South Downs we often pop into Brighton for shopping and browsing - the Choccywoccydoodah shop window is always spectacular.  The cake shop Christmas window for 2010 was stunning with a lifesize stag with golden antlers made entirely out of chocolate!  

Choccywoccydoodah is an art and design focused chocolaterie based in the bohemian city of Brighton ...

We specialise in chocolate one-off sculptured fantasies, bespoke wedding cakes using only the finest chocolate and ingredients, chocolate gifts (small and thoughtful, as well as extravagant gestures), birthday cakes with a choice of flavours decorated in chocolate, slabs of chocolate, chocolate fantasy pets, really, really naughty stuff ... All in chocolate! We use only the finest Belgian chocolate couvetures and coatings, where we can we source ingredients from local Sussex suppliers.

  

 A choccywoccydoodah chocolatier undergoes a huge amount of intensive training, and is actively encouraged to use their own initiatives to design and invent wonderful, delicious chocolate creations. It takes three years to become a fully trained chocolatier. We have 2 chocolatier florists whose sole purpose is to hand make, from solid chocolate, the most astonishing chocolate flowers. The top secret technique is completely unique and doesn’t involve any pastes, fondants or glycerine! Just chocolate. Our chocolate floristry is constantly evolving – by researching nurseries and flower shows we are able to adapt our skills ahead of fashion.

In addition to our chocolatiers, we have, in our opinion, a superb front of house team with customer service skills second to none.  They are trained to have an extensive knowledge of the chocolate we sell and are happy to spend time with each customer to ensure the customer has made an informed decision of their purchases. In our Brighton bar du chocolat, our team of chocalistas serves the best hot chocolates, slices of cake, dipping pots, milkshakes, and sundaes in an atmosphere of lavish extravagance.

Between us all, we have a dynamic, talented, experienced and unique team of people whose ambition and desire is to provide our customers with much more than they could ever anticipate.

  

With Mothering Sunday (3rd April), Easter Day (24th April) and St. Betley's Day (ok, I made that one up, but any excuse really!) this is the place to go if you're looking for a chocolate gift for your mum or MIL, a chocolate alternative to the usual chocolate Easter Egg, or if you want to join me in celebrating St. Betley's Day (date to suit!).  Live too far away to get to Brighton? No problem, shop online via their website.  

You can also find them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.