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.

So I’ve been pretty busy on the cupcake front. A few weeks ago I did some fun peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes.

More recently trying a new lemon-cranberry recipe (using fresh lemon and cranberries) which were pretty yummy I think.

I have also opened an Etsy shop, mainly because I’ve been making homemade lip balms, tote bags etc…which I want to sell but I thought I would start with a series of photographs to raise money for the relief efforts in Japan. So far I’ve raised over $100 and I’m hoping that selling more photos will bring me closer to raising much more money for the Red Cross.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/em102?ref=pr_shop_more

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!

In celebration of the World Cup finale, LP, LM and I got together Saturday morning to decorate some cupcakes. I wanted to incorporate soccer, red (for Spain) and orange (for Holland). We also used green for grass and some soccer themed cake decorations to finish it off.

I will post some more photos later!

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 I had a great cake challenge – a Clockwork Orange cake. I did plan the cake to be simple but it still was quite challenging – especially the thin lines for the ear and the eye.

Some initial challenges with the cake layers, even with extensive evening icing made adding the fondant very difficult but I am happy with the results.

Once I completed stage one I added stripes in the lower half and then circles on the top. I wanted to mirror the eye a little bit but also include my signature polka dots that I incorporate into almost all my cakes somehow.

The head wearing the bowler hat was a great challenge and I look forward to tasting this chocolate, chocolate-coffee buttercream icing with a single layer of candied cherries. I was hoping that this cake would be reminiscent of a black forest cake…we will see!