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!

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.

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".

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.

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!

A Big Bunch of Flowers

I've been busy in the kitchen with making these cupcakes.


There's a few different flavours - carrot, red velvet and my favourite orange & almond. I had run out of time to whip up a batch of the white chocolate cupcakes! 


I made these cupcakes for a local temple's 10 year anniversary celebrations last weekend. The flowers took me quite a few nights to make and by the end of it I was all flowered out BUT the most important bit was that I enjoyed making the flowers.


I was supposed to have had the afternoon off from work to finish decorating the cupcakes and have them delivered by 4:00 pm before the 'Friday after work stand still traffic' but an external work meeting went right into overtime and cut into the precious hour I needed to pretty up the cupcakes so some of the cupcakes does not look like i've put much effort into them.


I've got heaps more of the flowers I made so I am going to whip up a batch of cupcakes, pretty them up and give some to my family.

                        

New Year Blooms

Chinese New Year Blooms

If only you could taste these cupcakes! They're so yummy...Orange with passionfruit buttercream. Since Chinese New Year is coming up soon, I thought I'd add some pink blooms to finish off.


I wonder if it will go well with just vanilla cupcakes. 


My brother's birthday is coming up soon and he wants a sponge cake with fresh cream icing...so, guess what I'll be experimenting with next?! I've never made a sponge cake OR decorated a cake with fresh cream so this may get interesting.