Cat in the Hat cake

Do you love cake, and adore Dr. Seuss?
Do you struggle to bake, but only gawk like a goose?
Then, I have a surprise, that may well please,
Just feast your eyes, and take a gander at these!


Here is the Cat in the Hat cake I completed this afternoon. The bottom tier is 2 x 8" inch round stacked cakes and the top tier is 3 x 4" inch round stacked cakes. The flavour was choc marble mudcake with double choc buttercream frosting.

All the figurines are made from flower modelling sugar paste and the black markings are created using edible black pen.

I loved making the twins the most, they were so cute!!

Cakes, cakes and more cakes

Well I can't believe May is almost finished and June is lurking around the corner. Here is some of what has been keeping me busy the past two weeks. First up this lovely, simple wedding cake made from fruit cake for the top tiers and mudcake for the bottom. I was a bit nervous making this cake as I had never stacked 3 square cakes before and the cake had to be driven 1.5 hrs away to its final destination. My cake teacher helped me stack the cake (so it was nice and secure) and I was very pleased with how it turned out.

Next was my daughter Annike's grade 1 teachers birthday cake. I loved making this cake as I could make whatever I fancied. The top tier (which was for the teacher) was made from chocolate butter cream sponge filled with choc buttercream icing and the "dirt" was Orea biscuit crumbs. I then covered the "cake pot" with terracotta coloured white choc fondant (I used Wilton Copper and brown to make the terracotta colour). The flowers were made from flower modelling past and wired and taped. The students all received a spider, worm or flower cupcake which they loved to bits.

Here is a close up of the flowers.

and a close up of the worm ;-)

I also made a baked cheesecake and cupcakes for 1 friend's birthday (no photo's, as it wasn't fancily decorated lol) today, as well as a Cat in the hat cake which I'll show you later, once it has been picked up. So stay tuned, I'll upload the photo's later in the evening.

Happy Mother's day

Ok, ok, I know its officially tomorrow, but since I plan to stay in bed as long as I can and enjoy every moment of being spoiled by my girls I know I won't get a chance to show you what we have planned for the day. This Mother's day my eldest daughter Anya asked if we could do a mini high tea using my lovely china, so here is what we will be enjoying together. We chose the colour palette lavender, lilac, mauve and green. Cupcake stand on the bottom tier of the tea cart is from Shoppe with Lily.

This is what is calling my name from the fridge, a lovely Rhubarb, ginger and blueberry baked cheesecake. Can't wait to tuck into this!!

We baked some heart shaped sugar cookies covered in embossed fondant.

Mini flower posy which I popped in my mercury glass vase (vase from Bed, Bath & Table)

I LOVE my tea, so what is a high tea without my favourite teapot! I looked through my treasures and pulled out all my favourite pieces for the tea cart.

We also made some yummy lavender and vanilla cupcakes.

Ah yes, a nice hot cuppa of my favourite tea (English breakfast)

The sun started shining so we moved the tea cart outside onto the balcony where I can sip my tea and enjoy my garden.

Stunning bunch of flowers we arranged for the tea cart, a mix of mauve roses, mauve and lilac Lisianthus, white and purple Freesias, big fluffy Chrysanthenums, green carnations and purple Hydrangea. It smells heavenly!

Simple white chocolate and Pistachio mudcake with Pistachio buttercream icing.

Here is one of the lovely gifts I will be receiving tomorrow, a gorgeous Jane Austin book since I love to read.

Lavender macarons were also on the tea cart, although my skill is improving they still look a wee bit......errrrrrr.... rustic lol

Another gorgeous gift for me, vintage minty jar filled with mints and a lavender pin cushion with custom embellished tacking pins because another one of my hobbies is to sew.

Had to have that first cupcake since there is enough to go around for tomorrow lol

The girls made these for me, embossed paper satchel filled with lavender pot-pourie and yarn covered bangles/bracelets. (Clever girls!)

And these cute bottles I bought for myself, so to me from me! Snaffled them up from St Vinnies for $2 ea, except for the jewel encrusted bottle stopper perfume bottle, that one I bought from Bed, Bath & Table.

Last but not least a small bag of bath salts (again Lavender) I intend to enjoy one of these days.

Hope you all have a wonderful Mother's day and are spoiled rotten by your loved ones.

xxxx

Celia & Istvan's wedding cake & cupcakes

This past Easter long weekend I had the pleasure to finally put together and complete this lovely wedding cupcake tower for Celia and Istvan. I am very happy with how it turned out. Not only did I make the cake and cupcakes, I also created a custom cupcake tower for everything to be displayed on and hand cut all the cupcake wrappers (to match the paper I used around the pillars of the tower).

The top tier was gluten free coconut cake covered in coconut buttercream and then iced in white fondant. The orchid and lily cake topper is all made from flower modelling paste, only the ribbon was not edible.

The cupcakes were milk choc sponge topped with choc fudge buttercream and embossed white choc fondant and orange & almond cupcakes topped with orange buttercream swirl and then all topped with fondant orchids.

Happy Easter everyone

Happy Easter everyone!! Hope you all had a fantastic long weekend with family and friends. We had a quiet day today with our 4 girls with lots of Easter crafts and an egg hunt in the afternoon.
This Easter I was inspired to create an Easter table for our family based on Mandy Sutcliffe's characters "Belle & Boo". I purchased Mandy's book "Bubbles Before Bed to do book" especially for Easter and was so in love with all the gorgeous drawings and activities that I knew a Belle & Boo Easter table would be a hit with my daughters. The Easter table is actually quite simple with lots of crafty items that any crafter can replicate, all you need to do is go through what you already have in your cupboards and perhaps look at your old furniture in a brand new light. I re-used our old drawer unit (I used it for my nieces bird party last December and it now sits in my eldest daughter's bedroom) and gave it a green coat (Dulux celery) of acrylic paint followed by crackle medium to make it look more vintagy.

I had an old wine box lying around which I covered in celery green Kona fabric and then wrapped in left over celery wool. This was used to give my flowers more hight on my table.

The cake was very easy, bottom tier is choc mud covered in milk choc fondant, top tier raspberry buttercake covered in embossed raspberry fondant. The topper is a wooden Boo brooch I bought from the Belle & Boo online shop, while the cuff of the bottom tier cake is just fluffy wool wound around the cake several times (I first popped a cardboard (or you can use acetate) "collar" around the bottom to avoid fluff sticking to my cake) and then finished of with a crochet flower brooch I already had (look familiar Selina? lol).

Gorgeous blue hydrangeas mixed with pale pink carnations in one of my vintage tea pots, I used this as my table centre piece. I was lucky enough to get the very last hydrangea for the season as they now don't flower anymore.

Cute hand knitted hunting egg bags with Belle & Boo badge attached to each bag, yep hand knitted by me! Those who know me know I do NOT knit, so it was quite a challenge to knit these simple squares and then fashion them into bags :-) But I did it!!

Wool covered MDF letter E, I saw this clever idea on Bump Smitten, so hop on over for a free tutorial. Ceramic bunny from Bed, Bath & Table.

Boo cupcakes, pistachio cupcakes topped with Rose flavoured Persian fairyfloss. Boo topper created using Dress Up Belle & Boo range.

Boo cookies on sticks, all hand cut since I couldn't find a cutter that looked like boo. Milk bottle from Shoppe with Lily, make sure to visit Lilian, she has AMAZING items for dessert tables and if you can't find what you are looking for just ask her! Belle & Boo dress up dolls from the Belle & Boo online shop.

One of the Easter crafts we did was colour eggs in gorgeous pastels. Now as some of you may know I struggled to find white chicken eggs since it seems they don't sell many here in Melbourne, in the end I used white duck eggs from the Asian grocer which are the size of a 800gr chicken egg and colour beautifully. Very happy with our results!

Rose flavoured macarons, not my best results but they would have to do ;-) Tag from Belle & Boo (came with my Boo wooden brooch)

What the Easter bunny left for the 4 girls this morning, all in a lovely canvas Boo repeat bag.

My gorgeous flowers with a Lindt bunny yummmmmmm Will have to hide these away from the girls ;-)

Lemon baked cheesecake & cupcake set

I made this lovely cake set last Sunday for a father/daughter combined birthday for one of the mums in my mother's group. The cake is baked lemon New York cheesecake with lemon white choc panels while the cupcakes were mini lemon baked cheesecakes topped with butterflies, roses and blossoms.

Close up of the cheesecake cupcakes, aren't they cute?

Anyone want a glass of coke?

This is one of two cakes I had to make for 2 people leaving a company. The coke cake was a choc sponge cake frosted in choc fudge icing with black choc fondant, the coke label is made from edible paper. It's actually not that difficult to make, I baked 6 individual 4" cakes since its the same size as the coke bottle and the coke bottle top was shaped and then held in place with a wooden skewer and choc fudge ganache. This is to feed 15 people since the cake was the actual size of a 1.5ltr coke zero bottle.

Next up is this dairy and gluten free Moose cake, probably a bit more challenging to make due to the fact that almost everything on the planet contains gluten! In the end I rang around and even double checked with companies who made the colouring paste I was using to check if it was gluten free.

Orange cake gluten & dairy free

250g of Tablelands dairy & gluten free canola

1 3/4 cups brown sugar

4 eggs

2 cups of Orgran selft raising flower (gluten & dairy free)

1 cup of Pauls Zymil dairy & gluten free milk

zest of 1 large orange

1/4 tsp of whole vanilla bean

Cream canola & sugar till well combined, then add your eggs one by one, beating after each addition.

Now sift in the 2 cups of flower and add the zest, vanilla and milk. Gently mix till combined.

Pour into a greased and lined 8' inch round tin and pop it in a pre-heated 180 degree oven. My oven is gas so it took 65 minutes to bake, make sure to check it after 50 min to see if its done.

Let cool and then frost with orange frosting

Orange frosting

2 cups of pure icing sugar

2 Tblsp orange zest

3 Tblsp Tablelands canola

enough Zymil milk to blend the frosting into the consistency of thick whipped cream

Beat 1 cup of icing sugar with all the canola and a small amount of Zymil milk for 5 min till whote and fluffy, gradually add the remaining icing sugar and enough Zymil milk to make a thick spreadable frosting.

My husband thought the bottle was real, he almost picked it up!! lol