Novelties

It's been a deluge of Novelty Cakes recently. Ok maybe not a deluge, but these cakes have been keeping me busy, and I hope you like them!

This was a cake I made for a friend's two year-old, who loves trucks!

We popped his favourite dump truck on top and I created the uprooted tree out of fondant,

and made soil out of crushed Oreo cookies!

"Now...what are we gonna do about this mess?" 

 

Another friend liked the look of the previous cake so much she asked me to make one for her son, 

who was turning two as well! We popped his favourite Duplo men on top, and I created the Lego brick wall.

I love creating stories out of their favourite toys!

This one was a doozy.

I'd been planning this for months for a client's order. 

It was for her daughter's birthday, which had a magic theme!

Guess how old she's turning? ;-) 

And these tiger cupcakes were for her school classmates.

It was a massive week!

Girly baby shower

Here's a little something I did recently for a girly baby shower :)

Girly pram cookies

Birdie cookies - these have got to be my most popular requests, they come in all sorts of colours!

Ruffle cake with hand-stamped & hand-written placard in edible ink.

 

These are actually buttercups (regular-sized cupcakes), 

for which I've tried a slight variation for the petal blooms

Don't forget, I'll be teaching BUTTERCREAM TECHNIQUES at Thread Den next Tuesday (9th October - click here for details) and MAKE YOUR OWN FONDANT OWL the following Tuesday (16th October). Classes include tips, handouts and a Kit of your own to take home with you!! What are you waiting for? ;)

Joy

Before I go ahead with the latest post, thanks to the lovely Kate & Rose, I just found out we had a teeny tiny mention in yesterday's Sunday Age!

You can read the full article here: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/about-town/ware-to-go-20120602-1zof3.html (scroll down to the "Arts and Crafts" section). Our friends from the Southside Vintage market and North Melbourne Market got a lovely mention too!

Now back to cakery!

I got a lovely "thank you" recently from a lovely client, Shikha, for whom I made cupcakes for her mentor as a goodbye present.

"Your cupcakes were amazing, they were a HIT and all the teachers were so impressed that they've taken your phone  number...I've passed out your number and your website as well to them. Thank you so much!"

It's ALWAYS SO GREAT to get positive feedback, and NOTHING makes me happier than to make something I love for people who appreciate them as well! 

 These cupcakes were Red Velvet with cream cheese, and topped with black & white fondant birdies.

Nothing says Thank You better than a baked treat don't you agree?!


Ooh and in case you're wondering, these are the cookies-and-cream babycups the article was talking about!

 

Cookies and cream soldiers! Tennnnn HUT!

White wedding

Last December, I was contacted by N, who was getting married to J in May this year.

It's such a lovely story really, she's the sister of an old friend of mine, and we spent months shooting emails back and forth discussing cake designs, flavours etc., generally reconnecting after all these years.

When we finally met up for the cake tasting we discovered that J had actually proposed to her with my cupcakes (which sell at a cafe in Southbank), so it seemed terribly fitting that she had contacted me separately to make her wedding cake...I love serendipity, don't you?

Anyways, back to the cake!

She wanted an all-white one, with stenciling and a white peony rose on top.

Gah!! My heart skipped a beat...all-white cakes are notoriously hard to achieve because there's very little room for error. In fact, the simpler the cake, the harder to perfect because there aren't any bells and whistles you can use to cover any mistakes.

I accepted with trepidation, and also agreed to make her bonbonierre - white and green birdie cookies in Super Choc and Vanilla Bean - for her guests to take home. All 120 of them!

 

Top tier of the cake

 

All-white peony rose

 White-on-ivory cake. It weighed a tonne - 3 layers in each tier with chocolate ganache.

Royal icing stenciling.

I reckon the bottom tier weighed about 5 kgs...and there another one for the kitchen to cut up too!

Green birdie cookies in Vanilla Bean, to match the bridesmaid's dresses

White birdie cookies in Super Choc - theme colours for the wedding were ivory and green

Spots and what-nots

I got a call a couple of weeks ago from a friend of a friend who wanted a cake for her daughter's first birthday.

Just as a little glimpse into my process, this is how ordering a bespoke cake with me usually works:

1. I get a call/email from a client.

2. We discuss themes, colours, budgets.

3. She sends me some pictures and ideas that she likes.

4. I do some preliminary sketches.

5. We go back and forth until we finalise a design, flavours and size/quantity.

6. I give a quote, and if she's happy we go ahead!

It does take a small amount of effort, but I love seeing how it comes together in the finished product.

So with this cake P liked the colours pale pink, black and white, and bows and spots. After a little discussion, I drew a sketch and sent it to her, and she liked it :-)

Here's the final outcome:

 

The cake was carrot cake (I make mine with walnuts, sunflower seeds and sultanas, all the yummy goodness!) 

with cream cheese between the layers, and surrounded by white chocolate ganache.

The cake weighed a tonne!

Decorated with spots and balls for the trim

 And an oversized bow. Cute!

She also ordered an assortment of babycups along with the main cake, and I just thought these red velvet ones were just too adorable!

These would be perfect for Mother's Day (in 2 weeks time!) ;-)

On a side note, Celine from Peek! Sweets and I will once again be selling our wares at the North Melbourne Market this Sunday April 29! It's 10am - 3pm at the Lithuanian Club on Errol St. - indoors, so we're sheltered from the freezing cold!

xoxo

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of meeting the lovely Elli from Elle's Kitchen (elliluca.com) at a super secret product "ideation day".

I can't reveal much about it, save to say that it involved a certain food product that's made of pastry, savoury and often conjures up images of grown men screaming at other grown men chucking an oval ball around a large field.

But enough about my weird dreams. ;) The "ideation day" was truly fun! The 20-something people there were made up of people who worked for different arms of the company, plus people they called "bright sparks" -
foodies, bloggers, web designers, function managers, even an architect. All to bring a different perspective from outside the industry. And I reckon the day was quite fulfilling, it really challenged me to think outside the box, and to re-evaluate flavours and methods and recipes I've come across. Even think about new packaging ideas etc.

And it was interesting to see and hear what it took to take a new product range from idea to fruition. Months of research into understanding current consumer tastes and impressions, ideation, product development, getting the final product onto the shelves, and you STILL don't know if it'll take off or not, it the public will embrace it. Quite the long journey from paddock to plate eh?

Anyhoo, I'm pretty excited to see if anything we came up with actually reaches the supermarket shelves. I'll probably be reacting pretty much the same way my son does when he gets a new toy - jumping up and down, pointing and screaming in excitement, while curious onlookers wonder what this nutjob's doing at their local supermarket and if it's safe to look away and ah, THERE are the eggs I'm looking for...

Aside from all this behind-the-scenes look into the food industry, the last couple of weeks since returning involved heaps of baking!

 I had some left over Red Velvet cake after making the Wine Bottle cake (see below), 

so I made a mini stacked version for a mum at my son's kinder.

First up, a ruffle fondant cake for a child's Christening.

(The final version had bunting on it, waiting for the client to send the pic it to me!)

The layers of ruffles took longer than I thought!

I reckon it took me about 2 hours to get them ruffled and stuck on.

Last minute heart attack: the ruffles, having dried overnight, broke off as 

I was putting the cake into the box! Had to quickly roll out more ruffles to replace!

My Wine Bottle cake for a friend's 30th.

Since I couldn't afford a Grange, may as well make him one. Out of cake!

It was a terrifically HOT day to use cream cheese frosting as an underlay for the fondant instead of ganache.

The "bottom" of the bottle kept bulging out...

I was pretty glad the cake board I made to look like an oak barrel turned out well.

(Marbled the fondant, then scored it to look like wood.)

 And made the "label" with edible ink (sigh, my hand just couldn't mimic the Grange font properly...)

Hand-stamped words below though!

I reckon I should have coloured the "label" so it truly looked vintage, with the cracks in it.

 And finally, a beautiful rustic buttercream cake for a friend's wedding!

 

Chocolate fudge cake with raspberries and Vanilla Bean buttercream

It was a GORGEOUS grazing lunch reception at the groom's family farm.

Fresh flowers provided by the bride's mum! Beautifully simple...

See you THIS SUNDAY, March 11 at the North Melbourne Market!!

Cupcake tower & Fire trucks galore!

Here're a look at some cakeing I've been up to lately.
(Tip: Click on any image to bring up the gallery for easy viewing)

My first proper cupcake tower for a wedding:

 

The bride's bouquets were made of peonies, so I made this large loose Peony for her.

Her theme colours were cream, baby pink and hot pink!

And here's a birthday cake for a little boy's second birthday - a vroomy red car and who doesn't love a fire truck?!

Partle educational as well - remember the emergency number!

The dessert table at the party set up by the birthday boy's mum!