Please note:  This is a sponsored post, however all opinions are honest and my own.

RENSHAW'S COLOURED MARZIPAN RANGE

We all know and love Renshaw's sugarpaste, traditional marzipan and modelling paste ranges. It was therefore exciting to hear that Renshaws had, earlier this year, launched a range of coloured marzipan with cake decorators in mind. I was delighted to receive a box containing the entire range for me to try out and review.

I had the perfect cake, a really colourful Ariel the Mermaid cake, to try the range out on just a couple of weeks later. Confession time! I have to be honest and admit that writing up the review afterwards went completely out of my head, but I am rectifying that now, because I think you'll want to know how I got on with it.











Some clients, and my own family, have told me that they don't like to eat decorations made from sugarpaste, so using Renshaws coloured marzipan range seemed like a possible alternative.  Marzipan has long been associated with covering fruit cakes, especially at Christmas time.  Well I've got news for you.....MARZIPAN IS NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS!

When I started work on the Ariel cake, I attempted to use the marzipan in exactly the same way as I would sugarpaste.  This didn't quite work.  Sometimes I found it quite hard to work with as it is naturally more sticky than sugarpaste.  Once I realised that I would need to use icing sugar for rolling it out, dusting my hands and lining my silicone moulds with, it worked fantastically well.  I had no difficulty with it then.

 

I was able to use the plunger cutters as normal to make the little flowers.  In this respect it worked exactly the same way as sugarpaste.

Although there are many colours in the range, I wanted a few extra colours.  I was able to mix two colours of marzipan easily to make a different colour or shade.  I also tried adding gel colours to achieve completely different colours, this worked well, but again made the product a bit stickier.  Nothing a bit of icing sugar can't solve.  

I wanted a golden sheen on the shells, and I used gold lustre dust as usual, again with no problem at all.








All in all, I was very pleased with it.  I would thoroughly recommend it.  It offers a very good alternative to sugarpaste, and it is an option I have been giving to my customers.   And the verdict from those that ate the decorations was ...."yummy". 

If you would like to try it please visit Renshaw's website.

I'm a Blogger!

Well it's offical.... I am a blogger! That sounds cool doesn't it?! Unfortunately to my teenage daughter this is just another way that I embarrass her apparently! This will not deter me though! To make her happy I will stay clear of giving make-up and hair tips (what would a fossil like me know about stuff like that anyway), and concentrate on the world of cake and celebrations. This shouldn't be too hard because I am, quite frankly, obsessed with cake. My bedtime reading is solely cake and sugarcraft books and magazines, and I get stupidly excited when the Lakeland catalogue lands on the doormat. I lose hours researching cake. I could methaphorically wonder around Pinterest for days, given half a chance.

I will be writing about all things cake - recipes, techniques, trends and about the actual cakes I am making. There is plenty to discuss regarding the actual celebrations that involve cake too.

I must say however, that none of this would be possible without the technical support I received from my lovely friend Ellie. She is a seasoned blogger who writes about family life at The Mummy Diary and Family Style. She has provided invaluable help to me in setting up this website and blog. I am truly grateful.

I look forward to sharing all things cake with you.  My next blog post will tell you all about this week's cake project, my own version of Tracey Emin's Bed, which links rather nicely back to my daughter who celebrates her 14th Birthday this week!

Sonja