Liandra's Christening

It was my youngest daughter's Christening day today, we finally bit the bullet and had her Christened just two months shy of her 2nd birthday. I wanted to make something simple for her Christening cake, I didn't have time to make anything fancier so this is the result. I just made a single tier (double cake)coconut cake, covered in orchard icing, the rocking horse was handcut from petinice and I used some stamps and royal icing to make the flowers and sadle. I also tried writing on my cake for the 1st time, so "wrote" a lovely Christening verse using edible textas around the circumfrence of the cake. It probably would have looked more spectacular had I popped the cake on a fully iced and be-ribboned cakeboard, but alas I had no time for that either. It tasted yummy and the girls loved it, which is what counts the most I suppose.

Happy Easter

Look what I knocked up in a jiffy for Easter, this yummy Raspberry mudcake covered in white fondant and stippled with Royal icing. I made the fondant birdy a week in advance and "painted" some flowers on with red and blue edible colour paste. The tail was just made out of left over ribbons I had in my stash, but you could make that out of fondant too if you like.

Raspberry mudcake

250g butter
1 1/2 cups of caster sugar
1 x 85g packet raspberry jelly
1\2 cup canned raspberry or fresh raspberries pureed
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup self raising flour
2 eggs beaten lightly

METHOD
Preheat oven to 160 degrees and line the bottom and sides of a 18cm round deep (non springform) tin. (I line my tins with brown paper and then baking paper)

Combine butter, caster sugar, raspberry jelly, pureed or canned raspberries and water in a saucepan and stir over low heat till butter has melted, transfer to large mixing bowl and let cool for 15 minutes.

Whisk in flours and eggs and pour into prepared pan

Bake for approx 1 hour, then open oven door and rotate the tin and also place a circle of baking paper on top of the cake (stops it from rising unevenly and splitting) Close oven door and bake for another 30 min, check cake to see if its done. Stand cake in tin untill completely cool and remove and store till needed.



I searched high and low for a nest and stumbled upon Kataifi (ka-ta-i-fee), its a shredded dough the Greeks use for sweets (and savouries) You just shape it into a nest, brush some melted butter on it and pop it in the oven for 10 minutes at 200 degrees celcius. I also sprinkled mine with caster sugar to make it sweet. I was contemplating making bird nest cupcakes but it would have been too much to eat (along with the cake), I've made some extra nests so might use them with choc mouse and spare Easter eggs as a dessert this week. Hope everyone is enjoying their Easter, I know I am ;-)

Yes you may contact me

I've been asked by several people how I can be contacted if they have any questions, the best way is via email sajena@iprimus.com.au
Oh and to answer another question, I am based in Melbourne.

Owl cupcakes

Oh how I LOVED making these, I had a blast experimenting with different patterns and embosing mats. I made this set of 6 cupcakes for Anya's yr 4 teacher as it was her birthday today. Three were vanilla buttercream sponge cupcakes and three were chocolate cupcakes. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find an owl cutter online anywhere, well not one I liked so I made some sketches and created my owl "stencil" out of cardboard. It just meant more work for me as I hand cut each owl. The patterns on the owl were created using rubber stamps, embossing mats or coloured paste with water.

Since I was already busy making the above box of goodies I also created this tester box for a potential customer who is deciding on a Christening cake for her daughter. Once again the birdies were hand cut since I don't have a ready made cutter available. The white stiples on the owl was made using royal icing and a number 1 tip in an icing bag.

Baboushka/Matryushka Doll cake

This week I was asked to make a Baboushka cake for a 4th birthday party and boy did I have fun making it! I baked a large rectangular white mudcake which I shaped into a doll and iced with vanilla buttercream and fondant. A garret frill cutter was used for the "broderie anglaise" frill on the apron and the name was painted on with edible paste colour, background stippled white polka dots. The rest of the cake was handpainted in floral and polkadot design.

I had a pretty nerve wracking moment when the edible transfer paper didn't want to co-operate while trying to trace the name onto the apron (paste was still too soft) so instead I had to scribe the name on before hand painting in the letters. My hands were shaking so badly I had to take a tea break before resuming the painting lol

Happy birthday Miss Parker

This week was Miss Parker's birthday (Annike's prep teacher) and the theme was birdies (red and aqua). The cupcake wrappers is from The cupcake wrapper co, ofcourse in birdie pattern ;-)
The cupcakes were made from butter vanilla sponge and iced in vanilla buttercream with fondant cake toppers. I used a birdie template to make the toppers and a letter press template to cut out the name. Each topper was then handpainted with food colouring paste.

Close up of one of the birdies, my inspiration came from Nievie-Pie cakes in the UK

Wedding canvas

I am so happy with how this canvas turned out, its a gift for a friend who was attending a wedding and wanted something a bit different. My brief was simply, I want a canvas with their name and wedding date on it, I had complete artistic license (yay) to paint what I wanted. I played around and thought of doing a silhoutte with the couples details painted at the bottom of the canvas, I quite like how simple and classy it looks (but don't be fooled as it was a lot of work ;-)) without looking overdone or kitch.