Archive for April, 2011

3 More Wills & Kate Cake Comp Entries!

April 26th, 2011 | Tags: kate middleton, prince william, royal wedding, wedding cake
Posted in Competitions, Photos
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As the wedding of the year gets closer the competition is hotting up! Over the Easter weekend (and I hope you had a good one, by the way! ) we had three more entries to our Wills & Kate Cake Competition and your imaginations are clearly working overtime. Take a look at these:

Frank is clearly a fan of Baby Ruth bars but it was the marrying of Big Ben with the Statue of Liberty atop the cake that caught our attention with his entry. Great work!

Clare Law’s entry (related to Frank I wonder?) is far and away the most detailed and I have to confess I love this one as it incorporates some of my favourite American sweets and drinks. The idea of an American Soda London bus tour is intriguing too…

I’m not sure Wills and Kate would appreciate this design but it certainly had all of us at American Soda doubled up laughing!! A right royal throne indeed, and a good play on the happy couple’s initials. Genius!

I’ve been really impressed with the entries we’ve had so far and I want more – you’ve still got until midnight this Thursday (April 28th) to get your entries in to be in with a shout of winning our Complete Cake Making Kit so get baking or sketching and add your entry here.

Thanks a lot!

- Dave

The Royal Wedding – T-Mobile Style [VIDEO]

April 20th, 2011 | Tags: funny, kate middleton, prince william, royal wedding, t-mobile, youtube
Posted in Competitions, Videos
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Sorry to keep banging on about Prince William and Catherine Middleton’s Royal Wedding but I stumbled across this on YouTube and HAD to share it with you all. Funny thing is, I was looking for more retro TV commercials for American food and drink products (like this and this) – how this ended up in the listings I don’t know, but I’m glad it did!

As I am going on about the wedding again, please remember to enter our Wills & Kate Cake Competition for a chance to win our Complete Cake Making Kit! Full details in this blog post.

Cheers

- Dave

Wills & Kate Cake Competition Entries So Far

April 18th, 2011 | Tags: kate middleton, prince william, royal wedding, wedding cake
Posted in Competitions, Photos
1 Comment »

Wel, our Wills & Kate Cake competition has been open for a litle while now and we’ve had some great entries so far. Remember, you could win a Complete Cake Making Kit packed with cake mixes, frostings, icings, decorations and even pie cases – all you have to do is design a truly original, unusual cake for the happy Royal couple.

Full details and entry form here.

In the meantime, take a look at the entries we’ve had so far.

This was the first entry we had on the day of launching the competition. In our opinion, it set the bar pretty high. Kelvin Payne has designed a cake not FOR the happy couple, but OF the happy couple. Definitely original and just the sort of thing we were after.

Stacey B went with a more traditional type of cake, but we love the crown on the top. Very royal, very appropriate for the future King of England and his bride. Like the lettering on the cake too.

Sticking with the traditional, Chelsea Hurrell entered this cake design. What we like about this one is the thought that has gone into the little details, right down to the key Chelsea gave us: 1 – silver sugar balls; 2- pink piping; 3 – roses pink. Beautiful.

Joanne Sowinska has picked up on the truly royal overtones of the colour purple and produced – and baked – a cake design accordingly. It’s the feathers that really set this off though, a fantastic idea.

This was the first entry that really blew us away. Grainne Halligan has gone ahead and created the most decadent wedding cake we’ve ever seen! Or in this case, a Giant American Chocolate Wedding Cupcake! And of course, we love the American Soda branding!

One cake? Chris Gorman laughs in the face of the idea. Instead, Chris has gone for a tower of cakes, or rather, a tower of Whoopie Pies! Chris says they are fantastic when made properly, with Crisco Shortening, Hershey’s chocolate and Marshmallow Fluff. Who are we to argue?

Finally, what about this from Becky Newell? Becky picked up on the real English event that is the Royal wedding and applied it to her cake, coming up with a traditional English breakfast inspired design. It looks good, is bound to taste good and is really fighting hard to be our favourite so far!

Brilliant entries so far, we’re sure you’ll agree – but can you do better? Remember, it’s not fantastic art we’re after, it’s originality of thought and design.

Enter your design now to win this lot:

Duncan Hines Classic White Cake Mix

Betty Crocker Whipped Fluffy White Frosting

Nestle Premier White Morsels

Nestle Milk Chocolate Morsels

Duncan Hines Strawberry Supreme Cake Mix 517g

Betty Crocker Whipped Whipped Cream Frosting (340g)

Hershey’s Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips

Duncan Hines Confetti Cake/Cupcake mix (517g)

Betty Crocker Cup Cake Icing Petal Pink

Betty Crocker Cup Cake Icing-Buttercup Yellow

Keebler Graham Pie Crust (6oz)

Keebler Ready Pie Crust Chocolate (6oz/170g)

Jell-o Oreo Cookies and Creme Filling

Jell-o Lemon Instant Pudding & Pie Filling

Bloggers we’ve come to call Friends

April 12th, 2011 | Tags: bloggers, blogs, friends
Posted in News and Updates
1 Comment »

One of the great things about having this blog on the American Soda website is all the people we’ve come into contact with over the last few years. I’m not just talking about our valued customers, a lot of which we’ve really got to know as a company, but other bloggers who write in our niché or those closely related to it.

Some of those bloggers have been kind enough to write about us on their blogs and I wanted to return the favour by giving them a mention too. This is in no particular order but I reckon if you’re into food and particularly American food then you should check these guys and gals out:

Chocolate Mission – Jim at Chocolate Mission is fanatical about chocolate and regularly reviews all kinds of the stuff, from the well known to the remarkably obscure, so if you’re passionate about chocolate, this is a great place to discover new kinds. We’ve got an ad up on Jim’s site and are hoping for some reviews of our own American chocolate in the near future.

Cook Sister! – Written by a South African living in the UK, Cook Sister! is a great blog for those with a penchant for cooking. The author, Jeanne, has done some brilliant things with some of our products, including this recipe for Really Simple Crabcakes using Old Bay Seasoning. Looking for inspiration? Cook Sister will help, for sure.

Grumblings from a Greedy Girl – Amy is a genuine American living here in England (London to be exact) who was delighted to be reunited with Kraft Macaroni & Cheese thanks to us and went on to create, in her words, “the perfect Buffalo wings” using Frank’s Hot Sauce. As well as praising us though, Amy regularly reviews restaurants so if you’re looking for a good place to eat in the Smoke, she’s your girl.

The Yummy Yank – Amy’s mum, Lisa. Very into baking and apparently uses a lot of our products. We’re keeping an eye out for which ones…

Lay The Table - A great blog by Becs Rivett, who was kind enough to create a recipe for chocolate brownies using Strawberry Fluff, Hershey’s Kisses and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for us. Consistently high quality articles on all things food as well, you’ll really enjoy this one.

A Wedding Cake with a Difference

April 7th, 2011 | Tags: facebook, royal wedding, wedding cake
Posted in Competitions, Photos
1 Comment »

One of the reasons I like our Facebook Page so much is that our fans often share some truly brilliant things with us. Like this, from Helen Marshall:

Posted to Twitter by @pickassoreborn, Helen reckons someone got a headstart on us with our Wills & Kate Cake Competition and I reckon she might be right! Not sure the Royal family would go for a pork pie wedding cake, but you never know! At £150 the price might be a bit steep too.

Speaking of our competition, you could win a Complete Cake Making Kit, including genuine American cake mixes, pie crusts, fillings, icings and decorations, just by designing your own wedding cake for Wills and Kate. Check out the full details on how to enter here.

And a big thanks to Helen for sharing that cracking photo!

Dave

Wills & Kate Cake Comp! Win a Complete Cake Making Kit by designing a Royal Wedding Cake!

April 5th, 2011 | Tags: kate middleton, prince william, royal wedding, wedding cake
Posted in Competitions
1 Comment »

Wills & Kate

It’s just three weeks until the wedding of year, when Prince William marries Miss Catherine Middleton on Friday 29^th of April at Westminster Abbey. And what is one of the biggest elements of any wedding? The cake, of course!

Wills and Kate have already chosen the cake they want and who they want to bake it, but we thought it would be fun to get you guys to design a cake of your own for the happy couple – and we’re offering a Complete Cake Making Kit to whoever comes up with the most original, most stunning or most unusual design!

We’re not after five tiers of intricate flowers and frosting – that’s a no doubt beautiful but TRADITIONAL wedding cake. Use your imaginations and keep in mind WHO the cake is FOR…the future King of England and his bride!

How To Enter

We want as many entries into our Wills & Kate Cake Comp as possible so we’ve made it really easy for you to join in.

1 – For those of you that really want to make a special effort, go ahead and design AND bake your wedding cake creation then photograph it and upload it to our Competition Page on Facebook.

2 – Those less inclined to get their hands dirty can simply draw, sketch or scrawl their design, scan or photograph it and upload it to our Competition Page on Facebook.

No access to a digital camera or scanner? No problem! Whichever method you choose, you can send your sketches or photographs with your name, address and a contact telephone number via post to:

Wills & Kate Cake Competition
American Soda
Unit 8, Alexandria Court
Alexandria Drive, Ashton Moss
Ashton under Lyne
Lancashire
OL7 0QN

REMEMBER: We’re looking for quality AND originality of design, so the more effort you put in, the more chance you’ll have of winning our fantastic Complete Cake Making Kit.