Kids and Novelties

Other than kids birthdays, I do find myself making lots of 30th birthday cakes, especially for Kids at Heart. Take, for example, this Lego cake for a friend who's also my son's best adult friend (other than his own dad of course!) because of their shared love for Lego.

Made lots of kids cakes last year too: 

 

I often find myself decorating cakes til the wee hours of the morning, and the cake below was no exception. Even though I had a darling friend who helped me punch the tiny circles, I still only completed the elephant-themed cake above at 3 in the morning. Mostly because we had to do the middle strip THREE frickin' times because it kept falling off due to its weight. That's THREE HUNDRED TEENY WEENY CIRCLES to cut out, people, THREE HUNDRED!

But it was worth it, I was really pleased with the result when I looked at it with fresh eyes the morning after (albeit having had only 4 hours of sleep!) and I think the client did too!

Hi Sarah,

I just wanted to send you a quick note to say thank you for the beautiful cake and cupcakes! They looked absolutely exquisite, and tasted just as good! It was Henry’s first taste of chocolate, so I am afraid that we have now set the standard very high!!!

Thank you again, and I hope that you and your family have a very happy new year.

Best wishes,

Brigid

FYI, I'd based the cake on the invite Brigid had created for her 1 y.o., Henry, who's a bona fide rock star. The invite had a photo of him rocking a pair of baby sunnies, I could imagine him cruising the park in his Bugaboo!

Rosettes and Ruffles

OK I admit it.

I'm a terribly inconsistent blogger. So much has happened in the past few months - in caking and in my personal life - that I haven't had time to post pictures of cakes! But they're all up on the Buttercup Bakeshoppe facebook page, and that's probably where I'm most consistent in updating information and pictures.

Here're an edit of Buttercream cakes I've had the pleasure to create since the last time I blogged:

 

 

This last ruffle cake's one of my favourites, not least for the fact it's for a gorgeous girl whom I've watched grow up - I still remember bobbing for apples on her 5th birthday and now she's turned sweet 16! (The little birdie's a 3D rendition of the cookies I've made before here and here.)

Peppa and Ellie

More cakery from the last few weeks...

Drippy chocolate ganache over a vanilla-bean frosted cake

Another elephant & spots-themed baby shower!

I matched the ellie's ears and the tiny spots to Rachael's baby shower invitation.

A rich, dense and moist carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

Peppa Pig themed, for a little girl's 2nd birthday!

More than meets the eye

Well, then! Here's a quick recap of what I've been up to lately; I've been baking so much it's been hard to keep up with posting them on the blog! Good problem to have though, I reckon ;-)

A simple RVCC cake (red velvet & cream cheese) for a last minute order.

 

And last weekend was my son's 5th birthday!

He wanted this:

Um, no.

So I made this instead. I really wanted a black cake board for the backdrop, but didn't have enough black fondant, or even black construction paper in the house! In the end, I just settled for baking paper.

I'd printed out the logo, used it to cut out thick fondant pieces, 

and bevelled the edges for more dimension. Big thanks to hubby for the suggestion!

And for his kinder party the next day I made these cookie monster cupcakes that have been popping up on cake blogs everywhere! Here's my take:

Meee....wantt....COOOKIEEE!!

 I'll post a tutorial on it soon, it's super easy!

And since we're on the topic of Super heroes...

All the designs were supplied by the client; I believe the cake pops were from Sweet Cheeks Tasty Treats, and cake from Unique Creations by Angie.

And something different - a red and gold themed Oriental cupcake tower!

RVCC cake with encased in white chocolate ganache, and sprayed in edible gold paint

 Made the branches from chocolate fondant; hand-cut flowers and hearts.

The cake atop the tower - 200 RVCC babycups!

I loved making this cake, I think I really am at my happiest sitting at the bench molding fondant and creating things...anything fiddly that I can make with my (blessedly small) fingers I just love to do! Fine motor skills FTW!

Owl cupcake topper TUTORIAL

Here's a tutorial on how I made the owl cupcake toppers:

First I drew a circle using a circle cutter roughly the size of my cupcake.

 Then I drew the picture of the owl within the circle.

Finally, I traced its shape onto card stock & cut out the template.

 

Roll out some yellow fondant.

Cut out the owl's shape using the template.

Cut out grey fondant using a small flower cutter.

Doncha love the combination of grey and yellow?

 

These "flowers" will be used to form the owl's eyes...

...like so!

I used a bit of water to stick the fondant together.

 

Next I used my smallest circle cutter to cut out the "whites" of his eyes,

 

and stuck them on. Repeat for the other eye.

Next, roll out some black fondant. 

All the fondant eye components were rolled pretty thin.

I used a piping tip to cut out the "blacks" of the eyes.

 

 

All the different parts ready to be assembled. 

(Oh yes, keep them under cling wrap so they don't dry out!)

Stick the black eyes on.

This part requires nimble fingers.

Roll out some teeny tiny balls of white fondant between your fingers to highlight the eyes.

 

Then roll even tinier balls for the highlights again.

Stick one under each of the first two balls.

That's how it should look.

For his nose/beak, roll out some peach or orange fondant and cut out

with an oval cutter with pointy ends. 

(This cutter came in a set with a tiny heart, spade, diamond, club etc.)

Use the pointy end to cut into the oval and...

 

...voila! A beak! 

 Stick it on gently.

 

Cut more ovals as we'll use them for the feet too, like this!

Lay two next to each other, then stick a third on top.

For the 40 cupcakes I made, I cut up about 240 of them (with some help of course!!)

Here're a few of them:

 

 

Once the feet trios are made, use your small circle cutter again to cut out the bottoms.

(Teehee...doesn't it look like a barrel trying to run away?)

 

 Cut the feet, stick them onto the owl and tadaaa!!

 Owl cupcake toppers!

 I also made a little "girly" owl using pink fondant for the belly:

 

Here's how they looked, side by side:

 

 The finished cupcakes! 

 Hoooot hooooot!!

There! Hope you enjoyed the tutorial as much as I did making these cute lil' hooty owls!

PS. And see you at the Southside Handmade and Vintage Market on July 28th! Me and Peek Sweets will be there selling our wares.