Another first

My uncle Greg celebrated his birthday yesterday while visiting from USA. I volunteered to make him a birthday cake, Australian style! This was my first ever time making a sponge, and of course I filled it with Allan's Flat strawberries and freshly whipped cream.

 

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Cookie!

 

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Jaylah's Christening

This is probably the most formal cake I've done, we used the booties off Liana's baby shower cake which made it a bit special, and my home made set square really helped me get the quilting better than last time, on the handbag cake. Who would have thought that geometry skills I learnt in high school would come in handy with cake decorating!

 

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Carrots are healthy... Right?

My first ever giant cupcake, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

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Baa-kaching!

Two cakes this week, and boy did my KitchenAid get a workout whipping up some buttercream! They were both chocolate mudcake, the money bag had chocolate buttercream and the sheep's wool is all vanilla buttercream. The sheep party has 8 kids going, so the sheep has 8 little vanilla cupcake friends - how cute!

 

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Bursting at the seams

Hayley's hens night cake is NSFW, so if you would like to see it you'll need to CLICK HERE

The cake was a gluten free chocolate mud cake with dark chocolate ganache. to make it gluten free I just use my usual mudcake recipe with Orgran gluten free flours, and add an extra egg to hold it all together. I love people's reaction when I tell them it's gluten free, they are usually pleasantly surprised, and hardly believe me. Some gluten free things aren't that fabulous, but I reckon this mudcake rivals any other.

 

 

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Ty Story 3 - to infinity and beyond!

Oh Liana, why must you torture me!? I can't complain though, I did get more than enough notice for this one - months!

The latest request was for a Buzz Lightyear cake. Have I told you lately I hate doing faces? Well I don't rally hate them, I'm just not confident with them, the slightest mistake and they end up looking a bit, you know, special... It worked out ok, and I think it resembles Buzz pretty well, even if it's not perfect. I love how he's bursting out of the cake.

Inside this one is what is now Liana's standard order, white chocolate mud cake with vanilla buttercream.

Oh, and its not a typo, it was meant to say 'Ty Story 3', because it's for Ty's birthday!

 

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Happy 60th Birthday Mum

Orange syrup cake with candied oranges and marscapone cream was my contribution to Mum's 60th high tea, which we held at Must Love Dogs B&B in Rutherglen. Chris and Charles were wonderful hosts, Chris made biscuits, cupcakes and her famous scones and Charles made us some yummy sandwiches. Ruff, Millie and Some of Mum's closest friends joined us to wash it all down with some freshly brewed coffee and tea.

Everyone learnt a bit about the house's history, from being a pub, to a place of worship, and even a brothel. Chris decorated one of the guest rooms with a lovely red Murano glass pendant light before finding out about it's sordid history!

I hope everyone had a pleasant afternoon, especially Mum! Happy birthday!

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Inspiration

I often stumble across beautiful cakes, whether on the internet or in magazines - not to mention talented cake designers and decorators, but I have just discovered Maggie Austin. I had never heard of her before I read that she made the cake for Ryan Reynolds and Blake lively's wedding, which was then driven 8 hours from Maryland to Boone Hall Plantation in Mt Pleasant, where The Notebook was filmed.

I haven't been able to find any pictures of the actual cake yet, but Maggie Austin cakes are known for their elegance and touch of Haute Couture. Below is a portrait of Maggie with one of her designs, but check out her whole gallery yourself here

I can see myself using her cakes for inspiration and ideas in the future, even her logo is divine!

Wood Fired Oven Awesomeness

I ventured down to the Community Wood Fired Oven at Hovell Tree Park to see Tobie Puttock cook today. He was here as part of the Write around the Murray festival. I'm really glad I went. The food he cooked was beautiful, he was a great speaker and I even picked up a couple of tips. I can't wait to cook something out of his cookbook, 'Cook like an Italian' which he kindly autographed for me!

We enjoyed some chickpea pancakes, roasted capsicum, ricotta and of course the filetto di manzo arrosto in crosta di sale e erbe - beef fillet roasted in herbed salt, which I can't wait to try at home.

It's a girl!

Thanks for asking me to do your baby shower cake Casey, I hope you had a wonderful day.

I just love these gift box cakes! This one is white chocolate mudcake with vanilla buttercream - yummy!

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Lia Ballerina

One of the benefits of being the daughter of a wannabe cake decorator is that you get to be the lab rat. This is probably also one of the downfalls depending on how you look at it.

Lia's request this year was Angelina Ballerina, so I reluctantly agreed to attempt it, knowing that if it didn't go to plan I could always revert back to the original request of a unicorn. I also wanted to try those cute piped rosette thingies, and a little surprise inside.

All in all I was pretty happy, albeit with a couple of things I'd to differently next time. Lia was wrapt so I suppose that's all that matters!

We've brought her new bike to the park and I'm writing this while she alternates between playing on the equipment and riding her bike up and down the path. Happy 4th Birthday Lia x

 

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Squee!

Mini cake!

 

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Pasta Resistance

Home made wholemeal fettuccine

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Dani's Baby Shower

This one was a pleasure to make, I love the oversized bow and the little building blocks. Sometimes cakes just turn out exactly how I planned and I love it!

I hope you like it girls! Chocolate mud cake with dark chocolate ganache inside this one.

I just had another idea. Off I go to write it down...

 

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M1M

My first macarons!

 

Need I explain? I had my first go at making macarons today, and I think I was pretty successful. Ok, I'll admit a few weren't salvageable but it was more to do with the baking than the execution and they were still yummy (I ate too many, I feel sick. Sugar overload sick.)

Next time I think I'll make plain ones then once I have the recipe tweaked I'll try the new flavours I have invented! Watch out Zumbo!

Oh and go Andy!

 

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Cake on my mind

I have been thinking about cake all day today!

Lia's fourth and Mum's 60th birthdays are both coming up, so I have a couple of ideas for their cakes and I even ordered something to make them on eBay today.

I can't wait for Masterchef tonight, Adriano Zumbo is on. I wonder what he'll make them cook, we already know it will include macarons in some way. His creations have so many elements to them, some of the techniques are quite simple, but the whole thing is complicated by the sheer intricacy and scale of the whole thing.

I have a recipe in my head for a macaron I haven't seen anyone do before so maybe I'll attempt that this weekend.

The farmers markets are on too so Lia and I might go and grab a few things and have a cook up this weekend. I can do virtually all my shopping there, I just love it!

I think I need to make a bucket list... you know, of things I want to do? Visit Zumbo, do a course at Planet Cake, visit Carlo's Bakery in New Jersey (Cake Boss) not to mention all the other chefs, cake decorators and bakeries, restaurants, destinations - I want to visit every continent, 3 down, how many to go? 4? That's not enough!


I have so much going on in my head - can you tell? And not just cake stuff! I also have my family, work, my running goals, study, and the list goes on.

Phew!

I love cake

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Home made meat pies

Ok, Shane made them. But I made them look pretty. I want to make our own puff pastry next time, stay tuned!

 

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How much notice do you need for a cake?

Courtney called me on Monday and asked how much notice I need for a cake. 'I want an alpaca cake' she said. Ok Courtney. For future reference, I like to have at least a week!

 

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Accountant's cake

Happy Birthday Fleur!

Fleur asked me for a calculator cake for her 30th birthday, little did she know I would make her actual calculator!

I got an edible image made from a photo of her calculator, then cut up the parts I wanted to make the keys, switches and screen. It all turned out really well and people were having trouble locating the cake because they thought it was just a childrens toy sitting on the table.

This one was Lindt white chocolate mud cake with vanilla buttercream.

Neigh!

This little guy turned out so cute I just couldn't wait to put him on the cake before I shared him! Thank you so much to yourstrulytx from YouTube for a great tutorial on How to make a fondant pony!

I'll post another pic once he's on the cake x

Craig's Handbag

Craig wanted a handbag so I made him one. The end.

But really, this was for a lady who he works with, the lady who usually organises everyone else's birthday cakes, so they thought she deserved something special.

It was really fun to make and I've been hanging to use this recipe - flourless orange and almond cake with rich dark chocolate ganache... Jaffa!

This is my first post from my new iPad so let me know what you think! - can you tell the difference and is the photo ok?

 

Liana's Baby Shower

Thank you again to Liana for asking me to do yet another cake!

This time it was for her baby shower and she pretty much let me come up with the ideas this time. I had originally decided to do a gift box cake, but yesterday I was googling baby shower cakes to work out what message it should have, and came across this one and thought it was really cute!

I used Lia's tutu when I was taking the photos, another idea I got from a wonderful cake decorator who I follow on YouTube, mackandnorm (Andrea). And who also gave me an idea for Lia's birthday cake - can you work out which it is?

Anyway, here's how Liana's cake turned out. I didn't stick the booties down in case she wanted to keep them. Let me know what you think!

It was white chocolate mud cake with purple vanilla buttercream, yum!

Food that looks like food!

It's only a month late but I've just finished Shane's 30th cake. We've been so busy we haven't had time to celebrate.

Behold - The hamburger cake!

Tall Cake

This one was fun! Two 20cm round cakes, one white chocolate, one chocolate mud, stacked on top of one another to make one tall cake. Covering it and getting it smooth was HARD! Note to self: Search YouTube for How to video on covering a tall cake!

Allira is Lia's dance teacher and the Starling on top is the logo for her dance academy.

I shouldn't even be putting this photo up because it's completely out of focus, but I am anyway, just so you get the idea. If anyone from Allira's party is reading this can you please send me a better photo so I can put it up here!

Golf Ball Cake

I love when I finish a cake, step back and think 'I made that'. I make all my cakes from scratch and I'm proud of it.

Nana nana nana nana

Cars

When I was asked to do a McQueen cake, I thought to myself noooo not another little red car! I had seen an awesome Cars themed cake on YouTube/Flickr so I suggested that instead of doing a cake in the shape of McQueen, I use that idea and do a scene with McQueen and Tow Mater. It turned out just how I imagined.

I used buttercream under the fondant on this one and I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to get a smooth finish, I never would have achieved that a few months ago, practice makes perfect (or at least better than before!)

Tastes and Transformers

This week I was so excited to be invited to go to Tastes of Rutherglen with a friend. I haven't been since my hens day nearly five years ago and it's much more of an event now, run a lot like the Winery Walkabout but with more of an emphasis on food and the whole culinary experience.

The Transformers cake all came together really well, I wasn't very imaginative with this one, I just used a picture off the internet for inspiration and the picture on top is an edible image. They asked for it to be wheat-free and I just used my normal recipe but with gluten-free flours and an extra egg, Shane ate the bit I cut off to level it and it met with his approval, he said you could hardly tell the difference. I did a test run a couple of weeks ago and got a message from my friend's mum, who has tried a few gluten-free cakes, saying it was easily the nicest she's had.

I really need a good camera, this photo was taken with my phone.