Pastel Rainbow and Clouds

Bird's eye view of the cake

Over the rainbow

   

It has been such a long time since I last posted. My excuse? I had a little baby girl sometime in September last year so she has been keeping me on my toes and no time for caking. Well, I lie. I do have a bit of time but that is to tidy up the house after her and whatever else that needs done. I don't know how my mum did it with us and now I know that I've got my own wee little one I really appreciate all the things my mum has done for me - not that I didn't before.

Anyway, before I fill you in on my life story for the last year I better start on the cake I made this week for Anya's 5th birthday.

Anya's mum requested a simple cake and had given me all the freedom to design something for Anya. Do you know what this does to me?! I had so many ideas going through my head I ended up with doing something 'plain' so it would be a safe design. *Sigghhhh*

I only found out this morning that Anya was having a pirate themed party at Chipmunks!! *Kicking myself in the leg* If I had known, I could have done a pirate ship cake or a treasure chest or even a treasure map cake...the list goes on.

I did know that I would like to put the tutorials from Lesley at The Royal Bakery to some use so I incorporated the clouds and '5' into the design of the cake. I hope I did her tutorials some justice!

This is my first attempt at painting on fondant, it was a little nerve wrecking as I was worried I would make a mistake and that would be the end of it for me. Can you imagine how time consuming it would be to rip the fondant off the cake and re do it all?

There is a slither of hope that I can bake a bit more after my little one starts at daycare but I will also be back at work part time so maybe not. We'll see how it goes.

Enjoy!

Buttercream Ruffles

I made this cake for my friend Jean since it was her birthday last weekend. I have to be honest and say that I didn't want to make a cake covered in fondant for her since she does them so beautifully herself anyway.

I got the idea of using the petal tip to create the ruffle look on the cake from Google Images. It's a really simple technique and it's so quick to do! Here is a video tutorial I found on YouTube if you would like to give it a go.

The cake is caramel mud and covered in salted caramel buttercream. It was a tiny 4" cake but by the time I had added the ruffles on . I don't know if she liked salted caramel but it was a recipe I had come across and thought it would be worth a try. The only thing I'd change would be the cake - I would make it a lighter cake rather than a mud cake.

This is getting me all hungry now.

Enjoy!

The Last Minute Rush...

I had to work a full day yesterday and had about 1 hour to decorate mum's birthday before dinner! Talk about rushing it. With limited time, I decided to cut out blossom flowers and left them to dry while I did the basketweave on the cake. It has been almost 2 years since I last did the basketweave (if my memory is right) and was amazed I had even remembered how to do it. Not the best looking cake but it was definitely YUM!

I couldn't cover the cake in fondant because the cake was a coffee cloud cake - a nice light sponge cake the way mum likes it, the fondant would have flattened the cake. This is my second attempt making this cake and it's not as difficult as I had anticipated it to be. The first attempt was successful and I decided to give the guinea pigs at work a treat.

Enjoy!

Dora - The Explorer

A work colleague came up to me late last week and asked if I could make her daughter's birthday cake for preschool. It was a chocolate cake - I omitted the coffee to make it a bit friendlier on the wee lil' toddlers. I don't think the day care is going to appreciate any cakes which gets the kiddies zooming around for the rest of the day.

I made a 2D Dora to go with the cake - as requested by my colleague. My attempt at making the 3D version of Dora failed miserably so I made a last minute decision to make a 2D Dora. If that failed, I would have been driving out to the shops to get a plastic figurine of Dora to stick onto the cake.  I think it's about time I practiced making more figurines or perhaps take a course on making figurines so I don't get myself into these dilemmas!

It took me a good 2 hours of cutting bits of fondant out to put Dora together...I'm not 110% satisfied with it but I hope Anushriya is happy with it. She is after all, THE customer.

Next project on the list? Vegan mango cupcakes! I'm going to try with gluten free flour too!! Cross my fingers this will work.

Enjoy!

Present Box Cake

Chantelle's celebrating her 40th this year - it's been and past but she's going away with some of her closest friends and family to celebrate over the long weekend.

The colour of this cake is no doubt one of her favourite colours and what more fitting than a cake as a present.

The cake is a moist chocolate mud cake covered in a rich layer of dark chocolate ganache. I'm getting hungry just thinking of the cake - yum! I know she would have loved the red velvet but the cream cheese icing will definitely not last until Saturday unrefrigerated. Notice it's a 'red' cake she was originally after!

Happy 40th Chantelle!

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!

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

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!!

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.

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.

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.