A Beach Party

I know I know! I've been slow with updating of any sort.

Truth be told that I have not baked much in the month since I have been back. When I finally had an order for some Hawaiian beach theme cupcakes my beloved Kitchen Aid decided to throw a tanty. The paddle attachment was stuck and I couldn't get it out to wash and make the cream cheese icing to go with the red velvet cupcakes. I tried with all my might for about 30 minutes, cursing my bad luck. I gave up and my Kitchen Aid is now at the local Kitchen Aid Hospital awaiting surgery. I ended up borrowing mum's trusty Kenwood - 22 years old I might add.

It's got me thinking, maybe I should get a Kenwood to replace my Kitchen Aid. 22 years and mum has never had to take it in for repairs. 3 years with my Kitchen Aid and it's packed a sad.

All this drama was a little too much for lil' old me.

Anyway, back to the original story of these cupcakes. Miss M ordered these cupcakes for a Hawaiian Beach theme party for Ms K's 29th. Her actual birthday is tomorrow but they're having the party today. I hope the weather holds up for their BBQ. I made a sunbed and added a cocktail umbrella to one of my designs, the next is a stylised hibiscus flower and you can't go without a surfboard at the beach, so that was my third design.

Enjoy!

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.

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.

Animal Kingdom

These cute animal cupcakes were made about a fortnight ago and they're all gone now. The cupcakes were a delicious vanilla with chocolate fudge icing.

Vroom vroom race cars

Big mama & little baby race cars

Twin race cars

I had planned a whole afternoon of making race car and race track toppers for my banana walnut cupcakes but we'd spent the day with a couple of friends instead so I only managed to make two whole race cars. Not to mention the gluten-free orange cupcakes & macaroons which was on the list of things to make this weekend...sigghhh. Hopefully next weekend I have some free time.

I'll try to finish it off tomorrow but we'll see how it goes. I may have gobbled up all the cupcakes before I finish making the race cars and race tracks. Yum yum yum.

Not the best colour scheme I know but I didn't make enough blue for the cars so I had to settle with the yellow which I made too much of.

The world of Sesame Street

 This is my first attempt at making Cookie Monster and Elmo cupcakes as a request from my baby brother. 

Cookie monster was a walk in the park to create but Elmo proved a little more challenging. Finding Elmo a nose and a mouth was experimental to say the least! Someone had to eat up the leftover noses which were in different colours.