So this weekend I made cakes for my brother-in-law’s 30th birthday. Since he’s an avid footy fan I decided to do a jersey cake. First I made a layer of Nanny’s Chocolate cake and my vanilla cake recipe.

First I shaped my cake into the jersey.

I dirty iced the cake with a vanilla buttercream icing

I did a layer of white fondant in 3 pieces to create the main shirt and the 2 sleeves.

I made a stencil and painted the logo – I hand painted the smaller details.

I decorated the cake with the teams colors and incorporated aspects of the real jersey.

I was very happy with the outcome of the cake. The second big challenge was making a cheese cake, which I haven’t done in YEARS!! I got some advice and borrowed a pan from a co-worker and was very happy with the results.

It was a vanilla cheese cake with a raspberry sauce.

So I’ve been on a little break from blogging over Christmas but I’m back and hoping to do more artistic and creative stuff in 2012.

First cake of the year was a baby shower cake for my cousin. I had some technical issues decorating at my Nanny’s house but overall I was happy with the cake. It tasted good and I think it was whimsy and fun. The bottom was vanilla bean and the smaller cakes are my Nanny’s chocolate cake recipe.

So lately, I’ve not been doing a lot of photography but have been baking up a storm! With Christmas just around the corner a friend and I did some Christmas baking this weekend. I started with my candied nuts and homemade turtles.

Before this I made some chocolate red velvet cupcakes for a friend’s 40th, here were the results:

I used a fondant mold to make the cake toppers. The icing was a creamcheese with vanilla bean.

I added some shimmery edible luster dust.

Not everyone enjoys the taste of fondant so I did a few just with a small touch.

Due to the large number of sad bananas in my house I also made some banana bread this weekend.

So here is the first batch of candied nuts. I like to give these out as part of my homemade Christmas gifts.

This is sort of a long posting. I’m going to try and start doing regular postings again – hopefully this will get me back into more regular photography and other hobbies that have fallen to the side with all the baking.

This weekend I had a lot of fun making my niece Grace’s birthday cake. She and my other niece LOVE Mickey Mouse. I was inspired by the Mousketere hat and made this cake for her.

I recently got a copy of my grand-mother’s chocolate cake recipe (in full disclosure this is the second time I’ve received it because I accidentally lost it the first time). This has become my favorite chocolate cake recipe as it turns out moist and is great for shaped cakes (like the hat). I used some Manner chocolate ganache and then covered it with a new home-made fondant recipe that uses white chocolate.

Every day I think about what is happening in Japan. If you are able please donate to the Red Cross – they have dispatched 80 medical teams to the effected area and our friend in Tokyo has seen first hand the good works they are doing. I hope that if you are able you will donate here. Visiting Japan was amazing – the people were so welcoming and helpful, the cities and sites extraordinary and just generally lovely. Please help!

Recently on a tv show I saw some cake ideas that reminded me of my childhood and I thought…I want to make those. And so it came to be that at a recent Girls Night In Stella and Dot party that I made cupcakes but also cake cones.

When I was younger my mum would bake cake in ice cream cones but since I couldn’t remember how she did it I just baked cake in a square pan, but only making a thin layer. Then using a circle fondant cutter I carefully cut out circles (I saved the scraps to push into the cones.)

First I put a blob of icing into the bottom and then put a piece of cake.

Then I put in a piece of marzipan or drizzled caramel and icing.

Then I put another piece of cake.

Finally I topped them off with lots and lots of vanilla buttercream icing.

I cut out various little fondant ‘confetti’s – flowers, circles and hearts and put them on the cake cones and cupcakes. They were popular at my party and I think would be really great for kids parties, like they were when I was younger. I think if I do a cake for a child’s birthday I would definitely consider doing cake cones.

That’s it on the cake front for a while but it was really fun to be doing so many cakes/cupcakes again!

So it’s Friday – another week has flown by. This weekend we will be hosting a World Cup soccer finals party. I’m very excited as LP and I have gone shopping to get Spanish and Dutch inspired beverages and food. Tomorrow I will be working on some food preparation and cupcakes for the party with LM and LP. Of course, one must have soccer cupcakes for a soccer party. I’ve come up with some ideas for the cupcake toppers and hope we can skillfully execute them.

I will post some photos once they are complete!

This weekend was a busy one with completing one project and also completing 2 cakes.

Here are the final cakes:

First cake up my drum kit cake which used the 4 direction colors: red, black, yellow and white. I was trying to incorporate geometric shapes, music records and notes and a drum kit on the top. I was very pleased with the result. The lower tier was a chocolate with chocolate buttercream icing and the top tier was vanilla with vanilla buttercream icing.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week I’m making two cakes  which I’ve been really excited about.

Tonight I worked on both the cakes but came close to completing this cake. My Hello Kitty Rock star cake. This cake was requested by a co-worker for her daughter’s 4th birthday. Read the rest of this entry »

So my New Year started off and running! I’ve got lots of projects on the go and I’m really excited about them.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to make some flowers for an event – corsages and boutonnieres. It was fun working with flowers again and I was really happy with the results (Wordless Wednesday this week).

I’ve also been working on a photography/writing project which hopefully I can talk more about soon – so stay tuned. Read the rest of this entry »

Today GSL and I worked on our 3rd collaboration cake for her grandparents wedding anniversary. She arrived early and we set to work making different buttercream icings.

We wanted the cake to have a Christmasy feel and look like gifts – GSL wanted the top tier to be a gift and I thought it would contrast nicely with a quilted second layer.

I was really happy with the finished product and I really hope GSL’s family and grandparents like it too!