Recipe Time - Rich Chocolate & Buttermilk Cakes

So as promised here are two of my fail safe favourite moist cake recipes. Perfect for cake pops, sculpted and tiered cakes.

First up my favourite rich chocolate cake recipe. Chill this cake for a great carving medium.

My buttermilk cake is great base cake. Add you flavours of choice and get a perfect texture every time. If adding a liquid flavour that is more than 1tbsp as 10g plain flour for every tablespoon of liquid.

Please use my recipes and enjoy your baking.
xoxo
Sugarpie

Beautiful Blue Bird Cake Pop Tutorial

I adore these cute little birds which sold out quite fast at the Queens Park Handmade Markets last weekend. Thought I might share the process with you.

You will need:

• Crumbled cake
• Buttercream
• Melted White Chocolate coloured you favourite bird colour (I used ChefMaster Blue Candy Colour)
• White modelling chocolate
• Gel/Candy colours (I used ChefMaster Candy Colours -  Pink, Yellow and Blue)
• Small Black Sugar Pearls
• Heart or Blossom cutter
• Small Petal or Tear shaped cutter
• Petal Veiner or toothpick
• Paper Lolly sticks

Using a nice dense cake (I used chocolate mud with honeycomb crumble) and not too much buttercream, shape your small balls of cake (about 30g) into a tear drop shape bending the 'tail' up slightly. Chill then attach to your sticks with a little melted chocolate in the colour you will use for the body. Put aside to chill while you make your bits and pieces.

 To prepare the wings, beak and heart you will need white modelling chocolate. Never used it before? Visit www.craftsy.com and see some of their great tutorials or search www.youtube.com where you can find plenty of free videos. I plan to add some modelling chocolate tutorials to my blog at a later time so stay tuned.

Colour a small amount yellow (if you don't have the right candy colours you can use normal gel colours to tint the modelling chocolate, I would not recommend liquid colours as they make the chocolate too sticky), a small amount pink and a medium amount the same colour as your melted chocolate you have chosen for the body.

How much is a small amount? When I make 50 pops I use a piece the size of a ping pong ball for the beak and hearts - this will give you enough to play with. For the wings I use a tennis ball sized amount.

Rolling the chocolate is easiest done on a silicone matt. If you find it sticks use just the smallest amount of copha (Crisco in the US) on your hands and the mat.

For the beaks pinch off pea sized amounts of yellow and roll between your fingers to make a small cone. Put them aside to firm up as the temperature of your hands will make the chocolate soft.

Roll out the pink and use a small heart cutter (or a flower if you don't have a heart shape) to cut one for each bird.

Roll out the blue and use a small petal or tear drop shape - 2 for each bird. I then used a magnolia/lily petal veiner to get the feathered look. If you don't have access to a veiner you can use the tines of a small fork or a tooth pick dragged gently from the rounded end to the point to get a similar texture.

Then comes the fun part! Dip your bird in the melted chocolate and carefully shake off the excess. While the chocolate is soft add the beak and eyes to the rounded 'face' end.

Use a toothpick to pick up a small amount of melted chocolate and attach the wings to either side of the body. Place the wings rounded end forward and bend the pointed end of the wing out slightly away from the body

Use another small dot of chocolate to attach the heart to the back of the bird.

 

And there you have a flock of pretty birds ready for any type of celebration.

Have a few 'wings' left over.........just add a beak....

Hope you have as much fun making these feathered friends as I do!

xoxo
Sugarpie.

Kate & Matthew - a romantic black and white wedding.

When my lovely friend Vicki's daughter Kate and her fiance Matthew asked me to make their wedding cake I was thrilled. The beautiful couple had decided on a very romantic black and white theme and wanted a tower of 'gift boxes' to treat their guests to for dessert.

Using one of my favourites - white chocolate and fresh raspberry mud cake I set about baking 120 individual cube cakes ( I love my Alan Silverwood Mini Square Pans), covering each one in white chocolate Italian Meringue Buttercream.

 

Each cake was then covered in antique white fondant and decorated with a black chocolate fondant band, bow and edible black diamante ( I buy mine from www.cakesaroundtown.com.au). The top tier was panelled with a 50/50 blend of white modelling chocolate and antique white fondant to give it more stability. The band and bow where ten added along with a pretty brooch centrepiece to match Kate's wedding bling.

 

And just a few pretty pictures in the function room at Picnic Point (such a lovely backdrop).

A special thank you to my ever helpful hubby who very patiently sat and folded all the cake boxes!

 

More weddings to come in the next few weeks :-)

xoxo

Sugarpie