I've been making bespoke celebration cakes for Ariv's family for years now, so I was delighted when his mum got in touch about his sixth birthday cake. This one was particularly special because his birthday fell on the same weekend as Diwali, which gave us the opportunity to have a bit of fun combining the two celebrations.
Ariv is very into police cars and police dogs, mainly thanks to Paw Patrol. But we didn't want to make a Paw Patrol cake as such. Instead, we decided on a police-themed cityscape, complete with a K9 unit, police cars and a little model of Ariv himself dressed as a police officer.
His mum gave us the brief and a budget to work with, then left the rest entirely up to us. Which is always lovely because it means I can get properly stuck into the design without having to recreate something from Pinterest.
I decided to make a cakescape rather than a traditional stacked cake. We built a little stone bridge with an arched tunnel running through it, complete with a road, kerbs and white road markings. The idea was to have a police car coming out of the tunnel, with another one on the bridge above. I love adding a bit of movement to cakes like this, even if everything is technically standing still!
The cakes themselves were arranged at different heights around the bridge. We covered them in buttercream, with a mix of navy blue and cream, and then added a black city skyline with bright yellow windows. The buildings were all individually cut and applied around the cakes, giving it that slightly comic-book city-at-night look.
Because Ariv's birthday coincided with Diwali, I also wanted to bring in some festive details without turning it into an entirely different cake. We used our edible printer to print some colourful rangoli patterns, which we then added to the buttercream. I really liked how they looked against the black and yellow buildings. Not an obvious combination, police cars and rangoli, but somehow it worked!
Then, as the birthday was getting closer, his mum got back in touch with a little problem. Ariv's sister was feeling a bit left out of all the birthday excitement. Could we include her somewhere on the cake too?
Well, having made cakes for his sister before, I knew exactly what to do.
She has a particular Jellycat toy that she absolutely loves, so I made a little model of her sitting in a pink dress, cuddling her favourite toy. We popped her right on top of the tallest cake, looking very pleased with herself. I thought it was rather sweet that she got her own little moment on her brother's birthday cake.
And this is one of the nicest things about having regular customers. Over the years, you get to know the family and the children's little obsessions. It means that when something like this comes up, you already know what will make the cake feel personal to them.
Of course, we couldn't forget the birthday boy himself. We modelled Ariv in his own little police uniform, complete with navy trousers, black boots and a police vest. His K9 companion was a German Shepherd with a tiny harness, looking very happy to be on duty.
Once all the main pieces were in place, we started adding the finishing touches. Little orange traffic cones along the road, green buttercream grass around the cakes, vines climbing up the stone bridge, and lots of colourful sprinkles and piping to bring everything together.
There were a couple of police cars, one emerging from the tunnel and another parked on top of the bridge. We also made a big navy and gold number six for the front and a little personalised police-style shield with Ariv's name and age.
The final decorations were bright orange buttercream swirls with colourful sprinkles and gold accents, which helped bring a little more of that Diwali colour into the design.
Underneath all those decorations was our signature Vanilla Hero Sponge, filled and covered with Swiss meringue buttercream. It's the sponge we use for so many of our bespoke cakes because it's beautifully soft and moist but sturdy enough to cope with elaborate designs like this one.
If you fancy having a go at making our cakes at home, we sell both our Vanilla Hero Sponge recipe and Swiss meringue buttercream recipe on the website. They're the same recipes we use in our kitchen.
I think my favourite thing about this cake is how many different bits of the family's life ended up in it. Ariv's love of police cars and dogs, their Diwali celebrations, his sister and her beloved Jellycat. It's quite a lot to fit onto one cake board!
And that's really the fun of making bespoke cakes. The customer doesn't have to come to us with an exact design in mind. Just tell us who the cake is for, what they love, what you're celebrating and what budget you're working with. Then we can work out how to turn all those ideas into something that actually looks good together.
This one certainly kept us busy, but I loved seeing it all come together. A very happy sixth birthday to Ariv, and Happy Diwali to the whole family!
Reshmi xoxo
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