Butterfly Cake for Aria's 1st Birthday~

I met a lovely lady at Amsy's 50th. She asked me if I could make her daughter's first birthday cake which I obviously couldn't say no to! I love making kids birthday cakes- who am I kidding, I just love making cakes in general!

Aruna~Aria's mum wanted a chocolate cake with cherry filling, very very moist and with a purple, pink and white butterfly theme. She sent me a picture with what she wanted- I think she ended up with something completely different yet in my opinion (bias) beautiful and styilish. Note the decor in the wings and the antenas! so cute!

She sent me an email on monday morning saying: "The cake was lovely. It was just perfect in fact. It was moist, not too sweet but at the same time tasted great. Everyone loved the cake including the Birthday girl. Thanks for making the great Cake." Now THAT makes my day!

Now on my way to planning a snowflake wedding cake for lovely Milyn's brother in law! Nothing like a challenge!!

Baby shower Cookies

Cata is having a baby! I only have a few Colombian friends in Australia and one of them, Cata happens to be pregnant! She is going to be mum to a beautiful baby girl called Isabella. I thought I'd like to do something special for bomboniere for the baby shower so I made some little white and pink botties! She loved them... they were indeed very cute, I wrapped them in celophane and tied them with pretty pastel ribbons~ they were a hit! They were delicious as well: honey cinnamon yum! :)

The joy of covering a cake!

This is how it all starts... I have tried different masking techniques and personally I prefer buttercream on the crumb of the cake, it is pleasant to eat and gives a smooth finish to the fondant or sugar paste. Smoothing the cake is a

bit tricky if you get air bubbles... however is it not impossible! With a pin in hand and loads of patience you are on your way to achieving a smooth, velvety, flawless cake~ that sounds so poetic!

You will get more and more confident as you practice and practice and practice... what do I tell the students? results are all about 80% trying!!!

Using your hands is OK, but not ideal as you get nervous and sweat and since sugar is hygroscopic (absorbs/loves moisture) the fondant gets overly soft and bumps and dents start to appear~ all of a sudden, your cake is not so flawless :) it is best to use two smoothers...

I usually trim off after I have smoothed quite a bit and then hold it with my hands for further trimming.... I feel like a taylor!

The truth is I love everything Wilton!! But I also have a excuse to be so obsessed with it -A really lovely lady who owns a cake shop in Rydalmere (Sweet Deliveries check it out!) gave me a small piece of advice, use the right equipment for the right job... you will save yourself time and tears! By the way I don't know her name ~ I should ask next time... She is very generous with her knowledge and is all for young women like me to embrace the love of cake making and decorating! Love free advice ;)

Truth be told once I am in the final decorating stages of the cake I am ready to give up... And I say... " I don't want to do a cake ever again!!!!" hahaha! as if I stick to that. The cake love returns once I have a specific decoration in mind and my imagination runs wild, I breath cake, sleep cake, dream cake until I get

to do another one!

There is always loads of washing to do... sticky equipment thanks to the icing sugar, very tired eyes and a grumpy wife for James. Thankfully he is very graceful and cooks me dinner during a "cake week" and is always very encouraging with his comments regarding all the details... also having worked as a Civil Engineer for a bit has been very helpful when it comes to assemble the tiers together! He is a gem! :)

So here it is! the final product... a cake inspired by Sally's favourite colour, red! she is gorgeous and girly but not too girly ;) ~ she is full of life and colour!

Happy 30th Sal!!! :)

The dark knight!

James came to me after having had a work meeting and asked me how would I feel about making a Dark Knight cake for Rasem's (one of his clients) 5 year old son... I thought! Easy black suit, utility belt no worries eeeeasy!! And then he said: "oh it's an eggless cake, he is allergic to eggs, soy and sesame seeds!" bring it on! I had been asking for a challenge so it seemed like a good idea.

I did a practice run with a chocolate eggless cake recipe I found on the internet! Loved it! Delicious and soft and spongy! The way to test it also was to bring some to my vegetarian students so they could give me thumbs up! and they did! They all asked me for the recipe! Unfortunately the cake was too spongy so couldn't hold a tier on top to do the whole suit so we did a round one 10" and little individual cupcakes which apparently according to the reviews from Rasem were a hit! I covered them with basic chocolate buttercream and then topped them with black chocolate fondant and silver-ish batman logos stenciled on top... Very cool!!! Happy days! Love making kids birthday cakes! It is so rewarding!

The recipe was such a hit I have been sharing it all over the place... it is soooo easy to make... mix dry ingredients with wet ingredients! how easy is that!

Small beginnings

I have been playing with fondant! It's fun fun fun! It starts with (RTR) ready to roll sugar paste, then you proceed to knead the dough with corn flour/icing sugar until it is nice and smooth, then you colour-roll-shape-cover or pipe!

My friend calls it "play dough for adults"... I suppose she is quite right. Its relaxing yet stressful all at the same time... It's my new hobby and future business!

I started by covering a cake... February-Valentines Day! so yeah... love heart themed!

Then I started trying to mould fondant which is even more fun!! This is my first attempt, its a birdie... a blue bird? I tried to get some inspiration from wilton, their website is unreal and extremely helpful!!

Now, I went to work telling everyone how excited I was about my new discovery (fondant that is) and one of the guys at work asked me where to buy a Bumble Bee Cake- Note: A Transformers Cake... I thought?? mmm can I pull it off?! I have no problem with the baking (the actual cake is a doddle to make) the decoration is the hard bit.... so I said I will do it... and he agreed yes!!!!!!! I sold my first cake... With a lot of thought and help from husband James I ended up with a very good looking cake for 7 year old Jeremy!