Santa and Polar Bears

Christmas Cupcakes

Christmas Day came by, we stuffed ourselves silly with all the yummy food then groaned about how our tummies have expanded. And that was just the mains. Dessert - there will always be space for that one wee bit of sweetness. I'm glad I packed my expandable pants in my luggage - I definitely needed it.

My bit for the Christmas lunch was to bake & dress up some cupcakes!

I was supposed to have halved the recipes so I would only yield 24 cupcakes in total but in my daze I made 48. 24 red velvet cupcakes and 24 honey cupcakes. All decorated in Christmas themes. Some cupcakes were dressed up as Santa, some as polar bears and I threw in snowflake, candy cane & mistletoe as I had run out of time to do Rudolph & Santa's elves.

I couldn't pack a cake stand into our luggage, so I just used a cake board instead. Looks rather good if I must say so myself.

What shall I bake for New Year's??

Enjoy!

 

Christmas Tree Cake Pop

Christmas Tree Cake Pops

I finally made my first ever cake pop. I was always lead to believe that it was very messy and time consuming to create these little cuties but they did not take me too long to make. The part which was most time consuming was colouring the chocolate green and my kitchen did not turn out as messy as I originally thought it would be.

There is only 1 left in the kitchen now - first in first served. I really shouldn't be greedy as I was given a reindeer cake pop at work by a colleague but I'm so tempted to have the tree too!

Have a safe holiday and I hope you enjoy your Christmas break!

Enjoy!

A weekend of birthdays...

Chocolate Mud Cake with Chocolate Ganache

Tiramisu

It has been a busy weekend with 3 birthdays!

I made a simple tiramisu for my sister - nothing fancy here as you can see. For my brother, I made him a chocolate mud cake coated in a rich layer of silky smooth chocolate ganache before I finished it off by making it into a present for him. I'm trying to practice getting the sharp edges on a square cake...I think i'm getting better with each cake.

The first cake of the weekend was supposed to be an iPad 2 cake. I have everything done except the edible image of the iPad screen has gone missing. I've been looking for it everywhere around the kitchen and I can't find it! I hope it didn't accidentally get thrown out with the recycling pile. :(  I'm feeling really disappointed I can't find the image to finish the cake off. So now, I have an unfinished cake which needs to eaten by Tuesday.

To make up for the disappointment, I think I should bake some gingerbread and shortbread cookies then decorate them.

Enjoy!

Tiramisu Trial

Tiramisu

I have a busy weekend coming up! A tiramisu for a 21st. Since I've never made a tiramisu before, my mission was to have a trial run of it first. I wouldn't want to ruin this for a 21st birthday.

My colleague shared her recipe with me and it was an easy recipe to follow. My problem was finding the sponge fingers - I know I can make it myself but I wanted to follow the recipe to the letter so I went in search of the elusive sponge fingers. After going through 3 supermarkets, I finally found it!

I didn't think the recipe would result in me using up 3 different containers! I took one to work, had one at home and will give the last container away.

Enjoy!

Pirate Cake

Before

After

It's been a while now since I last posted an entry but i'm back!!

I made this cake here for Miss S's cousin, Alec. I hope they enjoyed the cake last night after dinner.

This is my first cake after my week at PC. I was still waiting for my tools to arrive so I had to make do with whatever tools I had in my kitchen and it turned out better than I had hoped for. I've finally got my tools today - yippeedeedoodah so you can pretty much guess what i'll be up to for the next wee while.

I've put a before and after picture of the chocolate mud cake I had made for Alec's birthday. The ganached cake was a result of 2 hours of hard labour which included extra time to 'fix' the dent I had made by accident. That was the hard part, the fun part was covering the cake!! Then only to forget to sharpen the edges and cover the bottom edges of the cake.

Enjoy!

Project Macaron #3

Finally! Here it is - the purple shade I was after for so long.

The photo does not do it any justice but I did it, I finally managed to work out how much colouring I had to add in and let's just leave it at that.

Today's macarons have a blackberry jam filling. Yes - I know, I cheated a little. I ran out of time but I really wanted to make purple macarons for Nish's morning tea. It was either that or raspberry brownies.

I think I've finally worked out the 'right' consistency so the piped out macarons don't spread on the tray while it is drying.

I did have another go at using the silicone mat Nish had lent me but this time the macarons look deformed! You know what happens to deformed macarons? - they get chomped up by the resident cookie monster (me!)

Project Macaron #2

If it's one thing that I can't seem to get right, it is colouring the macarons! I've tried the method of adding the gel colour to the sugar syrup. Judging by the amount I had used and the shade it was I thought I would at least get a light orange shade but no I was wrong. It came out more light caramel than orange.

Back to the drawing board.

Before I forget to introduce the macaron - it's supposed to be an orange coloured macaron with chocolate passionfruit ganache in the middle. The ganache is a keeper although this won't be something I would be making too often as the passionfruit cost me $14!

I managed to work out the consistency of the batter so my macarons turned out 'perfect' rounds.

My colleague lent me her macaron sheet and so I just had to try it out. Conclusion - Easy to use!

Lets' Celebrate Fiona's Birthday!

This second cake is for Fiona, it was her birthday earlier in the week.

I wanted to make a cake which was light and fluffy so I settled on making a red velvet cake covered with cream cheese icing.

Do you like the quilted look?! I do. I made the quilted look with the help of my new 'diamond design' tool and am so impressed by it.

Rugby Jersey Cake

First off the baking line - Jimmy's belated birthday cake.

Jimmy is an All Blacks fan so the creative department of my brain was given a rest. The toss up was whether to make a jersey or a rugby ball. The jersey won - I was too scared to attempt a rugby ball shaped cake since my cake carving experience is nil.

This is my first 'carved' cake - this was a lot easier than I had thought it would be. Yippeeee! But I was let down by the black icing - it just wasn't going to do I wanted it to do and had lots of cracks/tears.

The cake is a caramel mud cake with white chocolate ganache.

I'm just wondering if I should bake another rugby jersey cake to take into work on Monday

Project Macaron #1

I am hooked on these yummy little treats and so I have decided that I will try mastering the skill of making macarons (I am not sure how yet!).

Project #1 : Plain macaron with white chocolate ganache

It was easy enough to make the plain macaron but I am still experimenting with the 'best' way to colour the macarons. I thought purple would be a nice colour but to my disappointment it turned out more grey than purple.

I used white ganache for the filling and since I know the recipe off the top of my head it was the quick and easy. The white chocolate is a little too sweet for me but I know of someone who would gobble these up in one sitting so she's got a box heading her way.

I'm just wondering what I'm going to do with all the leftover egg yolks?! I could attempt making my favourite desert of all time - Creme Brulee or maybe some lemon curd to go with project #2?

A cake full of tulips

Flowers & a cake for the lucky birthday girl - Ele.

Ele is lucky to have some wonderful friends who organised for me to create this cake for her birthday today.

This is a chocolate mud cake slathered with lots of chocolate ganache for the chocolate lover who ordered this cake.

I was testing out my new tool to get straight and smooth sides when ganaching and it's an awesome tool! The cake looks great after using this tool. If you're wondering what it is, it is a try square!!

Banana Toffee Cupcake

There's a surprise farewell morning tea tomorrow for a colleague who is moving to Taranaki at the end of the week so I whipped up a batch of banana cupcakes topped with toffee buttercream for tomorrow.

I still have a bit of the buttercream leftover but not for long! Yummy for my tummy.

I was also making a tulip from scratch for another project but my tulip just doesn't resemble a tulip! So frustrating - I might go buy myself some tulips to 'study' before I make my next one.

Purple Power

Anisha's Purple Flowers

Here's the last birthday cake for the week! 

This cake is for Anisha, she loves anything purple so I made some purple anemone flowers to put onto her cake. I had to get another secret squirrel to find out what cake she likes and I had to wing it as I've never made a caramel mud cake before. I hope it turns out yummy!! 

I'm already thinking about what to make next, banana & toffee cupcakes or macarons.

My New Apron

I almost forgot to show you what I received in the post last weekend!

My long awaited kiddie sized apron from Nestle. I had totally forgotten about the apron until arrived!

I was too late with my order for the apron with "Pretty" embroidered on it so "Temptation" will be without it's other half. :(

Double Birthdays

Leilani's Sailing Cake

Mat's Golf Course

My weekend was rather busy with having promised to make 2 cakes for work tomorrow.

I had to change the design plan for one of the cakes so it became rather plain since I didn't have enough time to bake another cake today, ganache it AND decorate it for tomorrow morning.

I was originally supposed to create one cake this weekend but I was asked by a colleague to bake a cake for another colleague's surprise morning tea tomorrow morning so that made it a rather busy day for me today.

Leilani loves to sail so I decided to create a cake with a yacht and put her initials on the spinnaker (or sail? I can't remember which is which after a long day!) and the golf themed cake is for Mat. The original cake for Mat was to be a boxing ring but I had a wee bit of a problem so I had to improvise. With the help of my sister-in-law, the creative wizard we had some coloured sugar for the 'grass' and I created the little golf ball and flag. If I had more time I would have put some details around the side of the cakes.

Chocoholics Delight for a 21st

I was kept busy for most of today making Bray's 21st birthday cake and cupcakes.

The cake was chocolate mud with coffee and the cupcakes were chocolate with orange...all ganached with dark chocolate. I must admit that I could hardly taste any of the orange I had put into the mixture.

Stella asked that I put a turtle onto the cake and so I did. I know that it's anatomically incorrect but hey, it's supposed to be 'cute'. I hope the birthday boy likes his cake and cupcakes.

Apple Crumble

Here's what I did with the left over apple from my apple & honey cupcakes for SPCA Cupcake Day. Apple crumble with custard - the perfect mid week treat.

Before I continue on, thank you to all those generous friends & work colleagues who bought cupcakes off me to help raise money for the SPCA. With their support, I raised $175 for the SPCA. Those animals are going to love them so much!

Onto another story about the SPCA Cupcake Day fondant animals I made. A friend of mine kindly gave the fondant animals from her cupcakes she bought to her colleague to put on her daughter's birthday cake. It took a good minute for me to work out that those fondant animals on the cake were made by me. I initially thought "OMG, did I just create the exact same animals as someone else?". Time to start popping those fish oil capsules.  I'm happy that my animals were used more than once.

SPCA Cupcake Day

I did not post this last night because it was far too late at night and I was exhausted from making fondant animals all weekend. I knew procrastination would catch up with me! I was a little lucky when a friend popped by to return some cutters she had borrowed and ended up helping me cut bits and pieces out to assemble Miss Chickie.

There was an unfortunate accident of a bunny rabbit losing it's head and was relieved that I had actually packed an 'emergency repair' kit into my bag today.

These little cuties sold out in about 45 minutes of me sitting down at my desk at work and I had to turn some people away. I wish I had made more as I hate turning people away but I only have so much time in a day to make these little animals.

Another Addition To The Family

Mr & Mrs Piggie

Procrastination must be my other name, given that it's taken me this long to create another animal for my SPCA cupcake day collection.

Only 2 more to make and the 'family' is complete, although I can't quite decide which other 2 animals to make. I've already decided that I'll only be making 36 cupcakes for the SPCA cupcake day this year, these little cuties are quite time consuming to make.

If you would like to get your hands on one of these (or a few) of the cupcakes which I will be making for the SPCA cupcake day please e-mail me [claudia at prettytemptations.co.nz]. Cupcakes will be $5 each and all the proceeds will be going directly to the SPCA.

Any suggestions anyone for the last 2 animals?!?

Lemon Curd Cake

For those who have been listening go on about a lemon curd cake I've been meaning to make, well, here it is now.

This is the second cake I made - the first attempt was not so successful and I gave the recipe another go.

This recipe is time consuming to make. I made the lemon curd from scratch and made a lemon Italian meringue buttercream to go with it. Very very lemony but I liked it - I'm not sure what  my guinea piggies think of it. One of the 3 guinea piggies has had multiple slices, so I take it as a "Pass".

Home Sweet Home...

I got a little side tracked over the weekend and did not finish my intended project of making animals for the SPCA cupcake day. *smack my hand*

I ended up baking cupcakes - coffee for mum and a mixture of red velvet & caramel for T&C. Mum rang at 3 pm to say she needed some cupcakes urgently for a birthday do she was invited to so I frantically went about baking and icing a dozen cupcakes by 5 pm.

Terence & Christy had asked me a while back to bake some cupcakes for their neighbours - I finally did it with some bad luck with flowers falling apart when I was packing them into boxes... :( but everything worked out fine in the end!

Now, back to my previous project - fondant animals.

Meet Miss Chicky & Ellie

I was reminded that the SPCA Cupcake Day is drawing closer and I freaked out. I 'had' a plan to try making some fondant animals to go with the cupcakes before the day itself but I'm not sure what happened to that plan!!

Tonight was supposed to be for baking some vanilla or caramel cupcakes but I left it all for creating Miss Chicky and and Ellie. If I have some time tomorrow night - which I doubt I will, then I will try making some other friends for Miss Chicky and Ellie.

A Red Velvet Present

It's been a hectic last couple of weeks - hence the silence from the resident bakeaholic.

I had one of those weeks where nothing I did went right. I attempted to make lemon cupcakes but it turned out to be rockcakes. So, to right the wrong I made a batch of red velvet cupcakes as a present to console myself that the week can't get any worse.

We went to the Food Show today and it was foodie heaven! I thought I'd be there for maybe 2 hours - I ended up spending 5 hours there and it almost cleared my piggy bank out BUT I did get to watch 2 demonstrations which made me really hungry and left with bags of goodies.

Before I forget - Do you like the new look of my blog?! I certainly do and it is all thanks to Myla - the Blog design whiz from Design Me Pretty. She did an awesome job and if I could send her some cupcakes I would!

Caramel Macarons

Caramel Macarons

Macaron Tower

I spent the weekend trying out a couple of different macaron recipes, I never knew macarons originally came from Italy! Did you?

The first method I experimented with was without 'cooking' the sugar and the second experiment I had used an Italian meringue recipe to make the macarons. The first method was easier but the end result was not so aesthetically pleasing and the method where I had used the Italian meringue turned out much nicer.

With the Italian Meringue method, it was a little more fiddly and time consuming but it was well worth the extra effort. The batter was smoother and not as runny so trying to get 'uniform' sized macarons were easier.

I can't wait to sink my teeth into some of these yummy macarons tomorrow when they are ready.

Italian Meringue on your left versus Uncooked Sugar on your right

Christine's Birthday!

We celebrated Christine's birthday today singing songs for a good 3 hours! I pity the souls who may have heard us sing, especially since I still have a horrible voice from the flu.

I haven't baked in 2 weeks!!! Can you believe it?! 2 weeks of no baking because I was sick with the dreaded flu!!

And since we were celebrating Christine's birthday I decided I'd get off my lazy behind and take the effort to bake her a cake.

This cake is a honey & pear cake with honey cream cheese icing.

Chocolate Vegan Cupcake

Choccy Vegan Cupcakes

My new toys

I borrowed a book from the local library and found a chocolate vegan cupcake recipe. The recipe was quick and easy to make plus the icing was...let's just say finger licking good. My next mission is to make it look a wee bit nicer than the quickie job I've done tonight.

My new butterfly plunger cutters arrived this morning so I ripped open the packaging and tested my new toy out.

So much for my list of cupcakes to bake from my previous post. I have all these recipes I would like to try out but there is only so many hours in a day and so many my guinea pigs can take before they have a cupcake burnout.

Thank You Cupcakes

  

The weekend went by too quickly and I was definitely suffering from Mondayitis at work today, the only cure for it is to create something pretty & delicious but a BIG pile of laundry awaits so no baking tonight.

I did however, manage to go along to a cake decorating event on Saturday. The ladies doing the demonstrations were amazing! Next to these whizzes I'm a baby who's just learning to crawl. I had my wallet cleared of all cash too - I simply couldn't resist buying more little 'helpers'.

I made some some "Thank You" cupcakes for a friend's work mate and used my new 'helpers' to create the flowers for these cupcakes.

The cupcakes are caramel with caramel icing and honey & pear with honey cream cheese icing.

What shall I make next?

1. Black Forest Cupcakes
2. Green Tea Cupcakes

3. Chocolate Mud Cake with a Chocolate Mousse Filling covered in Chocolate Ganache

Fairy Cake

Claire in her garden

It's mid month now and I have just realised that I have not posted anything since the 1st.

Here it is, Claire in her garden of flowers and butterflies.

I was 'experimenting' with a new white chocolate mud cake recipe I found online and this is what became of the cake. I'm just not sure if I would want to cut the cake up!

My next project will be a chocolate cake with chocolate mouse filling. I'm getting hungry just thinking of it!

Claire - The Sugar Fairy

Claire - The Sugar Fairy

Here I present to you, Claire - The Sugar Fairy.

I am thinking of creating some friends for her to keep her company so watch this space!