Handi

Short post on the cake I made taking a two-day class at Handi's Cakes.

I wasn't able to take that many pics as we went along, but this is how it turned out: A two-tiered chocolate mud cake with chocolate ganache in blue fondant. With a large peony rose and stenciling.

 Handi with all the class's cakes.

 The final result!

Caking

It's been awhile since my last post - a whole month! - so let's get right into it!

August and September has been a whirlwind of activity, taking classes, baking, markets, the lot!

Here's a cake I made for my friends' wedding, based on their wedding invite. It's a dummy cake, which they used at the guestbook table, and it's covered in peach fondant, with black fondant rolls.

(Tip: click on an image, and all the other images will form a gallery so it's easier to view!)

All the lacework's hand-piped with black royal icing.

The wedding invite

The guest-book table. Gorgeous isn't it?!

 

I also made some kids' cupcakes for the children's dessert table, along the lines of her theme colours:

 Kids' dessert table

The kids' dessert table had all these wonderful food packs with their names, and lollies in jars, even showbags to take home! Funny thing was, a couple of grown-ups nicked some of the kids' cupcakes to eat!

Buttercup & Peek on Made by Hand

 Just in case you missed the episode...

It's here on our Media page.

You can find more episodes of the terrific series here at Made by Hand.

Disclaimer: By the time the TV crew came by to film us, we'd already SOLD OUT of everything! Leaving 3 very lonely cupcakes to say hello; it's not entirely representative of our range of yummy treats. I guess you'll just have to pop down to the North Melbourne Market this Sunday (Aug 21) and see for yourself! *wink*

Made by Hand

Exciting news! A couple of months ago we were interviewed for an episode of Made by Hand, a Channel 31 programme that profiles creative Melburnians who make a living from their craft.

So far, they've covered artisans such as glassblowers and painters, milliner Richard Nylon and the incredibly talented Gwendolynne (who made two of my friends' wedding dresses...they were gorgeous!) Two weeks ago they featured Thread Den, the girls behind The North Melbourne Market.

Well, guess what? Next Wednesday at 8.30pm, tune into Channel 31 and you could spot Buttercup and Peek making a special little appearance in the North Melbourne Market segment. Hopefully we've made the edit, and haven't ended up on the cutting room floor!

Funny story: After we were interviewed, it was the producer's turn to shoot her "talking head". She started asking questions, and I just plastered a smile on my face because I thought the cameras were rolling. It went on for awhile  before I realiased she was really, actually, asking me genuine questions!

"So how long have you two been at this market?"

*Plastic smile*

"I mean, have you been selling here for awhile?"

*Plastic smile*

"Um, is this something you've been doing long term at the marke....oh goodness! We haven't started filming yet, sorry you must have thought...."

*Eyes widen* GAHHHHH!!!

Good God, how embarassing! Of course everyone just burst out laughing.

Anyhoos! If you're interested in the episode but can't watch it on the telly, it'll be up online at 9pm (Melbourne time, next Wed 17th August) at their website.

Art Collective

Over the last half-year and more I've been hoarding inspiration.

I've cut out (well, ripped really) clippings from magazines, bookmarked (and stalked) fascinating dessert and fashion blogs, traipsed through style files and imbibed all the colour and artistry of the avant garde.

It's amazing! I have so much I want to experiment with, but often feel I fall short, especially technique-wise. So I'm always up for a challenge, and while I don't play around with as much with the structure of cakes (have yet to venture into 3D carved cakes like this one), I do like to experiment with its form (for example, my typography cakes).

Anyways, I recently had the tremendous opportunity to work with Rowena Martinich, an amazing abstract artist whose works can be seen all over the physical and cultural streetscapes of Melbourne. We met at the Design Made Trade exhibition a couple weeks back, and I was immediately drawn to her use of bright, neon, fluorescent colour. It's so vivid and simply demands your attention. We got to talking, one thing led to another, and ta dah! A cupcake collective based on her work, Acid Tempest, for the launch of her exhibition Colour Storm.

I think what was running through my mind was whether I would be able to capture the essence of her work, which is often presented on a huge scale - sometimes several stories high on the side of a building! - and re-present it on my small canvas. And an edible one at that! It certainly takes the idea of art-as-consumption to a literal level; the "art" becomes corporeal.

All right enough talk, here're the pictures!

Chocolate fudge cupcakes dipped in dark chocolate ganache.

 

Mouthgasm.

Preparing the royal icing for "painting". 
I thinned the mixture with water to create a runnier texture.

Holy cow, I can't believe how bright the colours were! 

I can't believe I managed to source fluoro food gel! 

What a week it's been...

Phooooeee what a week it's been! Last week I reckon I made just about 10 kilos of cake in various shapes and forms - cupcakes, cakepops, round cakes, mistakes, you name it! I think I've gone through about 5 kilos of flour, 15 eggs,  3 kilos each of butter, sugar & icing sugar. Phew!

I made an anniversary/birthday cake, products for the North Melbourne market, a hundred Babycups for a wedding, cake pops for another birthday, yet more cakepops and a mini RV cake (the size of my palm) for a friend, and Buttercups for the weekly Guava Bean order.

Have a look:

By Wednesday, I'd made the RV cake, and then promptly realised that it was burnt on the outside because the inside took so long to cook. SIGH! Bake to the KitchenAid...

By Thursday...

 

 The letter 'i' fell out of alignment, but it worked perfectly with the heart below.

Just added a 'u' and I made lemonade!

 

 It was also the client's husband's birthday, so the placard on the other side held the other greeting.

 Friday...

Made the little blossom babycups you see above in peach, pink and cream as part of another client

And then Sunday was market day with Peek Sweets with about 100 babycups in assorted flavours, 20 cakepops, and about 70 gingerbread people (yes, we're pretty politically correct here at the Bakeshoppe. Why should men have all the fun of being dismembered and consumed limb by limb?!) Plus I also made a mini RV cake (silly me, forgot to take a photo!) and cakepops for my darling friend Wenona.

Celine, my partner-in-crime made whoopie pies, an Amish-American cross between a cake and a biscuit with marshmallow in between. Apparently, the story goes that kids cried "Whoopie!" whenever the cake was made because it tasted so good. I loved it - all dark chocolatey goodness with choccie chips, but I gave the marshmallow middle a miss - I've never been a fan of marshmallows.

All in all, a terrific week. And I'm COMPLETELY spent.

Rufus

Is it irrational to get attached to a pet you've created? I know I sound like a complete nutter, but just look at him!

Look at his BIG BLACK EYES and don't tell me you haven't fallen instantly in love with him!

Anyways, to put the whole lot into context, this was a cake I made over the weekend for a father-daughter celebration. The little one-year-old loves puppies, so I decided to try my hand at 'modelling'. Here's a very brief look at the steps I took:

1. Colour your fondant - you'll need brown for the puppy's body, black and white for his eyes, and a little dark pink for his tongue.

2. Take a large piece of brown fondant, and roll out his body in a slightly conical shape. Roll two smaller balls for his legs, with one end thicker than the other. Flatten the thicker end, fold the ends to meet, and attach to the sides of the dog's body. Use a knife to impress the "paws". Repeat with longer ends for the two middle legs.

3. Next, roll a small ball and flatten it for his collar. Then roll a large ball for his head, with a thinner end that you'll flatten onto itself for his snout. Use a small circle cutter and leaf veiner (or any other tool that has a dipped edge) to impress and indent his mouth.

4. Attach the head onto the body by spearing a small piece of spaghetti through the body and collar, and spearing (gulp!) his head at a slight angle to it - gives him some character!

5. Indent a small hole at the back of his body, and roll a piece of pointy fondant and attach as his tail. You can make it curly, or straight and pointy, which I did, it's up to you!

5. Next, make two small teardrop shape balls, flatten one end, attach the corner and let the ear flop over itself. Tweak so they have erm...personality?

6. Roll a tiny teardrop shape of pink fondant for his tongue, impress with leaf veiner and attach to his mouth.

 Arf! Arf!

 

 My work area

 The finished cake!

Since the cake was also for the father, I decided to use brown lettering for "Happy Birthday", and trimmed the base with tiny pink Scottish terriers. Although a friend of mine did say that from a distance, they looked like a row of pink porkies...HUMPH.

You can see the other Puppy-themed cakes I've done here.

By the way, it's MARKET WEEK!! See you this Sunday at the North Melbourne market!!

(Gah, I totally forgot to post about the Southside Market we were at, mostly because I forgot to take pictures, but here are some very lovely ones from their facebook page, do check them out!)

Eat your words

Living with a partner who loves design has its advantages. For example, I've been exposed to many areas of design - furniture, interior, industrial, typography - where I would not normally have tread. And I've been really excited about interweaving these areas with baking.

Anyhoos, I'm pretty stoked I got to try this out recently - melding typography with cake art. I don't really think it's been done before (correct me if I'm wrong), and I'm really happy with the results:

 The cake was stamped with individual tiny letters - took me about an hour, even with help!

Flavour: Chocolate mud cake with cookies n' cream buttercream

Exterior: Dark chocolate ganache and white fondant

To put the cake into context, it was an early celebration for my sister's birthday. She was here for a visit, and I wanted to make a special cake for her. Since she's a journalist, and words are her world, I thought a nice personal  letter would be extra special! (Of course, she did say afterwards that she'd expected a "newspaper" cake - psssshh, what, have I got no imagination?!)


This really takes custom-made cakes to a whole new level, no? It's great (I feel anyways) because it's really personalised, and you can put pretty much anything on it - thank you, happy birthday, even a marriage proposal! All to make a significant moment even more unique. Plus I love the fact that each cake has someone's personal journey etched into it. :))

PS. It was delicious to eat my words.

June Market

Had yet another fun market day with Peek! Sweets on Sunday at the North Melbourne market, as well as Pleasure, Little Treasure, and the darling Odd One Out.

One of the great things that have come up from doing these markets are the friendships I've made that have been slowly growing over the last couple months. These market girls are such a riot, and it really makes the time speed past when you're oohing and aahing over each other's wares, or cracking jokes. Such a fun bunch!

Anyhoos, here're a couple pictures from the market...enjoy!

My Vintage Vanilla cupcakes - how pretty and ladylike are they?!

 Gorgeous Anne from Pleasure, Little Treasure showing off my Missy Mao Mao apron.

 Our little setup - 'twas rather squishy since we had a smaller table this time

 SO...we've got: 

Cake pops (red velvet, chocolate fudge, peanut)

Babycups

Buttercups

Apple bikkies

Gingerbread people

Buttercups 

(red velvet, vintage vanilla & vintage chocolate, carrot cake)

  Babycups! 

(chocolate, vanilla, peanut butter, cookies n' cream)

 Apple bikkies with an attitude.

(I infused apple tisane and cinnamon into the batter and icing - YUMMO!)

 We also sold babycup samplers, which really takes the guesswork out of choosing :)

 Peek-a-licious! Don't you just love those rainbow colours?!

A very satisfied customer

Don't forget, our next market's on July 10, at the Southside Handmade and Vintage Market,

Urban Hotel 35-37 Fitzroy St., St Kilda. See you there!

Adrienne the Explorer

Over the last weekend I had the pleasure of creating a customised Dora the Explorer cake for a darling little girl.

Her name's Adrienne. She is the most adorable googlygigglytinylittleballofenergy. And always very well-dressed, I might add, thanks to her very stylish mum (a good friend of mine). Yes, us fashonistas must stick together, no? Myself and the three-year-old... ;p

While I wasn't quite brave enough to attempt making a 3D model of Dora, the 2D version still came out rather nicely.

 The words were painted on with food colouring, 

although the brushwork needs to be worked on LOL...

I had plenty of help from my very handsome and handy hubby (alliteration!), who did the heavy lifting:

 

He came up with the very brilliant idea of "cartoon grass", which he helped cut out and I stuck onto the sides of the cake:

We also made cake pops for the party, and yes, once again superhero hubby made the stand! We used ribbon and a styrofoam cone which you can buy from any craft store:

Flavours were Red Velvet with white chocolate coating, and Choc Fudge with pink coating & dark chocolate drizzle. YUMMO! Cakes were mixed with cream cheese frosting, then *lovingly* dipped.

 As you can see, the Birthday Girl really liked her pink pop!

 Feeding frenzy!

Inside the cake: Red Velvet, dark chocolate ganache, Choc Fudge cake.
Completely demolished...the natives were hungry!