the start of a busy month and a blast from the past

So the next 4 weeks are going to be a bit busy. As well as my normal job i have a few cakes and treats on the books but my reward in the end is a visit to the family in Rocky and then an awesome girls weekend down the coast.
So what's coming up in the kitchen over the next few weeks? This week a set of sweet treats for a Saturday High Tea style tasting for the girls from the lovely Miss Karen's bridal party with the mothers. They will be tasting the treats Karen has selected for her vintage style Sweets Buffet at her up coming wedding.
Then next week I have another High Tea themed cake, this time a pretty pink teapot with a selection of pretty cup cakes. I picked up the most amazing fondant mould shaped like vintage brooches (the kind your grandmother had on her dressing table) to create very girly cup cake toppers from Cakes Around Town. These ladies have some the most tempting moulds I have seen! They will be all displayed on a one of a kind cup cake stand that hubby is kindly helping me build.
A couple of days later I have a very very funky and fun Moshi Monster 'Jeepers' cake - cute little tiger - to make. After that it is straight on to sweet horse themed cake - looking forward to hand modelling  a cute sugar pony. The craziness is then rounded out by a very special cake for a very special ladies 65th birthday. Shhhh can't tell you much but I can say that it features lots of modelling, lots of hand painting, some beautiful sugar flowers and a generous splash of vintage nostalgia.

But while I have day off and am able to collect my thoughts, let me share with you an old friend. This was one of the first cakes I did to set my business in motion. A cute giant cupcake for my friend Leila's gorgeous little girls.

this sweet cake was a chocolate and vanilla cake with coloured fondant 'cup' and 'icing' topped with chocolate modelling fondant drizzle, pretty butterflies and sprinkles.

 The butterfly's were set to dry on cardboard to give them that floating look and the cute cherry is from red fondant.  Marbled fondant made a great  cover for the cake board.

Went down well at fun party in the park - everyone wanted a butterfly.

xoxo

Have Pops, will travel

This week I had a great deal of fun creating a 250 cake pop display for Suncorp's 10th Anniversary of their local call centre. Two days straight of baking, crumbling and rolling went into the awesome display.

So what does the cake for 150 of those cake pops look like? well here is a shot of all 9kg of it!

First my most popular flavour "Cinnamon Donut" - home made cinnamon donuts, cinnamon butter cream and white chocolate with a sparkly crown of pastel yellow sanding sugar.

The cute little black boards give a fun touch (thanks to my awesome handy man hubby for creating the display boxes and cutting and painting the black chalk boards).

The second flavour was "Strawberry & Cream". These started with a centre of Strawberry French Jelly encased in vanilla cake with vanilla butter cream and a blush pink chocolate coating. Topping them off were a pair of cute dark pink and white hearts.

Not surprisingly the pretty pink confections were the first to go!



 Next came the chocolate flavours - "After Dinner Mint" and "Triple Choc Bomb".
After dinner mint featured a rich chocolate fudge cake blended with chocolate ganache butter cream, peppermint cream and crumbled Nestle Peppermint Crisp bars. Dipped in milk chocolate and topped with a disc of white choc with a jade green circular choc transfer pattern (looks quite like the Suncorp corporate Scarf print) and a white choc '10'.

The 'Triple Choc Bomb'  features a decadent kahlua ganache truffle encased in rich chocolate fudge cake and dipped in dark chocolate with an edible gold swirl on the top.

 At the special request of my boss (how could I say no) the yummy gluten free "Paleo Pops" allowed those on special diets to still enjoy the richness of the pop-fest.

This was the set up at home ready to load in the back of the car to take across the venue.....and this was the set up-



 What great night!

xoxo

One cool Monkey....

When Jess (huge Macaron and Cake pop fan) asked if I could make a monkey cake for her partner Corey's (Corz) birthday my thoughts ran straight to the Paul Frank monkey faces. Corz is a huge music fan so it seemed natural that his monkey should be rockin' a huge pair of retro inspired headphones.
So here is what we did.

 Our Monkey, lets call him Charlie, started with a chocolate cake base filled with a delicious thick cookies and cream butter cream. top that with a layer of chunky crushed Oreo cookies then do it all over again.

 Two cakes were used to create Charlies face, the top carved for the upper head. Both were covered in rich choc ganache then covered with a light and dark chocolate fondant. His awesome red headphones where black fondant covered donuts (yumm) and shaped fondant band.

Charlie looks pretty happy chillin' on his blue cake board don't you think.

Hope you had an awesome birthday Corz.....look forward to next year  - I hear you have a huge challenge for next time Jess. Bring it on!

xoxo

Thing1 and Thing 2

When one of the ladies from work ask if I could make a Dr Seuss cake for her daughters 18th birthday I couldn't wait to get started. Ashleigh is a big fan of Thing 1 and Thing 2 so it was only fitting that they burst from the top of the cake in celebration.

Every good cake starts with a solid smooth ganache. The ganache encases a rich chocolate cake with chocolate fudge filling.





 To allow plenty of drying time I created their heads around a Styrofoam ball and set them aside with a handful of red and blue stars ready for later.

The cake was covered in thick stripes of red and white to represent the Cat in the Hat's top hat. The crown of the hat 'exploded' ready for the little tricksters to be added.

 The red skivvies and arms sat to dry for while as well.

 The look quite happy bursting out in celebration surrounded by stars and sparkles.

 A text message from her told me that there was one very happy birthday girl!

xoxo

Samuel's Ark

In may this year my wonderful friends Jodie and Michael asked for a fun Noah's ark themed cake with some cakepops for Samuels christening. Straight away I knew exactly what I wanted to do and this is how it all went...

it started with a styrofoam base, the 'dummy' cake pop was to ensure that proportions were correct..

Each layer was then iced with pale green fondant and green bushes (for the animals to hide in of course)

 Then it was time to cut and add the cute bunting to each layer. Love the candy colours.

Hide a few Zebra's, Lions and Elephantsin the undergrowth..

Then it's time for the ark...

 Then off to make cake cake pop, a base delicious red velvet and cheesecake buttercream..

turned into cute barnyard animals (the sheep were my favourite)

 

Add it all together on the day with extra pops in cute tins on the side and this is what you get...

Amazing cake, amazing day. Hope I get to do another like this one day.

xoxo

Rainy days and fondant....

It's another busy two weeks of cakes and fun but this rain is driving me crazy. Rainy days and fondant are not the best of friends. Fondant picks up every little bit of moisture that is in the air giving it a a tacky surface so the trick is to get it as dry as possible so that the moisture can't be absorbed. I get very strange looks from people when I tell them i put my freshly iced cakes in the oven but the dry warmth of the heat light in a fanforced oven works it's magic quite well iff you give it enough time.
So next on my list is a cute hightea inspired teapcot cake with matching cupcakes, another Moshi Monster cake (a little orange tiger) and this week 250 cake pops for a work function.
I am excited about the cakepops and have been waiting for this week to roll around. With the help of my amazing hubby I have made my deep display trays and today picked up the polystyrene blocks to go inside (after a covering of tissue paper). The chalk board signs are drying in the craft room, the sticks and bags counted and recipes ready to go. Hopefully the fun and delicious display will wow the crowd.
This weej I had a lot of fun making bright Disney insired cake for little Dom's 3rd birthday.  The bottom layer is a vibrant swirl of red/blue/yellow and green vanilla cake and the top layer a yummy chocolate sandwiched with layers of cookies and cream filling. Iced in bright disney colours with lots of stars it features 3D 'Mickeys' around the sides. To top it all off a bunch of bright starry cakepops complete the look...

yumm...
xoxo

Getting Started

Slowly getting started with adding the littel bits and pieces to the blog. This first featured cake was created for Olivia's 7th birthday. She asked for a Moshi Monster cake of her favourite MM Cuteipie.
This is the original image of Cutiepie.

The cake itself was a swirled confection of Pink an dpirple vanilla cake with a lush pink bubblegum buttercream. trimmed then coated on a vanilla butter cream and white chocolate ganache she was then coated with a chocolate fondant for the base.
To create the bubbled top cakepop halves were pressed onto a dome shae then lightly buttercreamed and layered with white fondant.
Wheels were created by wrapping mini wagon wheels in black fondant with 'white wall' tyre centres.
Eyes, mouth and sprinkles were cut from coloured fondant and a bright red dipped cakepop 'cherry' was inserted in the top.
A cute sign finished off the look.

Delivering the cake was a great deal of fun, as we stepped up to the front door we were greated with squeals of 'That's my cake' from the very excited birthday girl.
A winner all round I think.

XOXO

Welcome

So I have finally set the new bog up ready to fill with yummy recipes, pictures and all thinks cakes and parties. So keep your eye on this space over the next few days as I add some of my latest creations and finds just for you.