Selina's kitchen tea

So this is what little ole-me has been up to this week! I've been one very busy bee. I was invited to a friend's kitchen tea this afternoon and when I saw her lovely pink boxed invite I just knew I had to get her something equally special to celebrate her upcoming wedding. Since I will be making her main wedding cake next month I thought I'd give Selina a small tester cake to try out today so she could not only see what the cake would look like but also how it would taste. Ofcourse I just couldn't give her an undecorated cake ;-) so that was my excuse to whip up a lovely pink "camelia". Well it was meant to be a peony, but since I did not have a peony petal cutter I used my rose cutters instead and came up with this funny flower. Funny thing is I used a golf ball in the middle so the petals would keep their shape while drying and by George did I have a hard time removing the bugger after I was done! The cake is a simple caramel mudcake iced in vanilla butter cream icing. Cake stand made by me using crystals, lace and fabric getting my inspiration from the Marth Stewart website. Have a peek, its very easy to make. Funny thing is that I matched Selina's kitchen tea decor so closely its scary, like we read eachother's minds lol

Next was Selina's pressie, she wanted bedlinen or lingerie/sleepwear but after much searching everything looked either skanky, smutty or cheap. Well out came my trusty sewing machine and a visit to Lincraft where they had lovely satin and lace on sale and I whipped up my very 1st nighty. The picture is a bit crappy, as it looked really lovely in real life (and fitted!) and best of all it wasn't too hard to make. Even the husband was surprised I managed to make it myself and couldn't believe how lovely and luxurious it looked. I even had time to whip up some sleeping shorts in some Sandi Henderson fabric I had lying around but ran out of time when I wanted to make a matching top and knickers (next time!). This was all boxed in a matching (what else (rolls eyes)) pink box and ribbon. Hope Selina likes it.

Yummy vanilla sponge cuppies

So the girls begged me to make them some dessert last night and the suggestion of cupcakes were met with squeels of delight. I've made these vanilla butter cream cupcakes before but wanted to try and make some cupcake wrappers. Yes you can buy them from Paper Orchard but at $1 per cupcake wrapper I thought that was a bit steep. These ones were made from large Paper Doilies and were really easy to make, you just need some scissors and glue and viola a very pretty looking wrapper. These wrappers are all the rage now at weddings, I'll try and make some more next time out of Christina Re paper and use one of her filigree cutters, I LOVE her range.

So the recipe for these cupcakes are

125g butter softened

1 tsp vanilla essence

3/4 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1.5 cups self raising flour

1/2 cup milk

Make sure everything is at room temp before you begin.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius and line your cupcake pan with cupcake cases.

Beat eggs till nice and pale yellow and fluffy then in a seperate bowl cream the butter, essence and sugar till almost white and creamy.

Add beaten eggs to your butter/sugar mixture and gently stir till combined, don't overbeat.

Sift in flour and add milk, gently combining into mixture, use a wooden spoon, or spatula. Devide mixture (about 2 tablespoons of mixture) into each case and pop in the oven for 18 min (I have a non fan forced gas oven). Its about 12-15 min baking time if you have a fanforced oven. Let it cool in the pan for 5 min then remove.

It fits!!!

This week I tried to sew a pair of pants for myself. I've made some baby pants about 3 years ago and it was a disaster lol but back then I had no sewing machine so sewing was tedious and slow. I had some lovely Heather Bailey fabric lying around and whipped up a pair of Capri's. Wasn't that difficult really, although I anticipated stress on putting the pieces together. As long as you follow instructions and label your pieces it should be no issue. We are going to Cairns for a lovely holiday in September, so am motivated to make a couple of colourful, tropical Capri's and shorts for me to wear.

Anya's 9th birthday

So last but not least it was my eldest daughter Anya's 9th birthday, so once again lots of baking. She wanted a plain madeira cake with butter icing in orange and pink. Theme was flowers and butterflies.

Mum's 60th

Then it was my mum's 60th birthday where we spent a few days at Docklands in a swish 3 bedroom apartment just relaxing and celebrating with close family. Ofcourse mum had to have a lovely cake, so after weeks of preperation I baked a small chocolate mudcake iced in vanilla buttercream and covered in pink fondant, the roses were also pink fondant (my very first flower fondant creations). The cupcakes were inspired by Kylie Lambert from Le Cupcakes, chocolate mudcake and vanilla sponge topped with embossed fondant on some and vanilla or cherry butter cream icing on others, topped with fondant pearls, hearts or flowers. The cupcake stand was made from scratch using cakeboards, foam dummy cakes and Heather Bailey "Painted mum" fabric.

The same fabric was used to wrap all my mum's gifts.

A very busy July

Phew, July is finished and boy has it been a busy month for me. Firstly it was my youngest daughter Liandra's 1st birthday and we had a lovely farm party on the 4th July. It was luckily a sunny day and all the children had fun patting the farm animals and riding ponies. For her birthday I made my very first farm animal cake, I had never made fondant figures before so it was my 1st attempt at making animals. The cake was a two tier chocolate mud and caramel mudcake (top tier choc, bottom tier caramel) and iced in green vanilla & buttercream icing. I made all the animals, flowers and fencing out of fondant two weeks in advance, so on the day I just had to ice and decorate the cake.

I also made 36 matching cupcakes, half of them were chocolate and the other half vanilla sponge. Each one was decorated with fondant farm toppers that I made two weeks ahead of time.