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!

Caramelicious

I finally decided to try out a new caramel cupcake recipe this weekend. I made most of it in the mini size and some in the regular size.

The caramel didn't quite go 'wow' with this recipe - back to the drawing board to look for another caramel cupcake recipe. Perhaps I could add a few drops of caramel extract to add more flavour to it - make mental note to get some of the extract.

I was also going through my cupboards in the kitchen and decided to use up 'leftover' cupcake liners so I ended up with these orange coloured ones - I really don't like the colour, hence why they were the 'leftovers'. Wish I had photoshop to change the colour of those cupcake liners. The colour of the flowers are new to my lil' collection, as you can see I have a thing for pastels. I was thinking perhaps a blue rose - I'll get onto that as soon as I have coloured my freshly made flower paste from a recipe given to me by Miss J.

Enjoy!

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!

A busy week in the world of Planet Cake

Front of cake

Back of cake

What came back with me to Auckland

I took a week off from life in Auckland and headed across the ditch to Sydney, Australia to do a week long course in cake decorating at Planet Cake with 2 brilliant teachers - Jessica and Luigi.

This course was a birthday present from my husband - I'm so spoilt! So, I bought the top tier back to share with him :)

It was 'hard work' but I enjoyed every single minute of it my time in class and have learnt so much from the 2 very talented teachers I had. I had Jessica teach me in the beginners course and was secretly hoping she'd be teaching me again in the intermediate course - luck was on my side and I did get her again :)

I designed the cake in the pictures and had a bit of help from the teacher with putting it all together. It took 3 full days from design to completion and I enjoyed every part of it - except of course for the back pain from standing most of the day. This cake is made out of 5 cakes. All the flowers are hand made with love!

This course has given me so much more confidence in designing cakes and putting it all together. I hope to be doing more cakes like this in the future. I would love to just sit in the kitchen and practice making more of those jumbo roses and peonies!

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!