Happy Birthday ME!

A late post, my birthday was on Sunday and I got to share it with all you lovely fathers out there.

A lovely day was had delivering a elmo cake, relaxing, eating and drinking alfresco at my parents house with lovely family and really wonderful friends.

Now almost a week later, I am gone on a lovely Lindermans 2007 Shiraz surprisingly brought over by an even lovelier neighbour, tucking into a tub of chocolate ice cream. Wow what a week, better get back into the kitchen and turn the oven on.

Re reading this its interesting how many times I have used lovely, maybe that's what happens after the better part of a bottle of red . . . hmmmm.

Make Up Case Krispy Cake

A perfectly pink cake, but it's not cake. It's the ever yummy Rice Krispy Treats covered with fondant. The birthday girl just doesn't like cake . . . even my cake. I made her a castle last year (check it out). I can't believe that its been a year since I made the Starry Castle, wow.

I can not claim this design as my own, the birthday girls Mum was looking through some of my cake books and just loved Debbie Brown's make up case from 50 Easy Party Cakes, so we made the case by I updated the look of the cosmetics, using lots of black colour paste and luster dust, and glitter. Just like my real ones in my case. Well maybe the colours are not quite so bold. And I am more of a green girl, but we can talk about that another day.

Debbie's board is a flat colour whilst mine is hand embossed with various sized flowers on pink fondant.

I have included the Rice Krispy recipe for you, and it can be formed into just about any shape, very fun.

Kellogg's Rice Krispies Treats Original

3 tblspns butter or margarine

10oz packed regular marshmallows

6 cups Rice Bubbles/Krispies

1. Melt marg or butter in large saucepan over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat.

2. Add Kellogg's Rice Bubbles/Krispies cereal. Stir until well coated

3. Using buttered spatula or waxed paper, press mixture evenly into 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan coated with cooking spray. Cut into 2-inch squares when cool. Best if served the same day.

Source: Kellogg's Rice Krispies - Recipes to make with kids. www.ricekrispies.com

Chocolate Wildflowers 60th Cupcakes

The brief for this 60th Birthday cake was pretty specific, the birthday girl loves chocolate, loves strong colours and loves native flowers and was happy to oblige.

Cutting cake - Classic Chocolate cake torted with dark chocolate
glaze, and finished with the same glaze. Styled with freestyle chocolate Australian Wildflowers, gum leaves and just a touch of green edible glitter

Cupcakes - Classic Chocolate & Vanilla, topped with dark chocolate glaze, styled with
freestyle chocolate Australian Wildflowers, gum leaves and just a touch of green edible glitter.

All that glitters . . .

On my blog is edible, especially these Spiced Cupcakes topped with fondant, white jimmies and gold balls.

These were made last minute for my Mum's birthday, I seem to spend all my time a creative effort on other peoples cakes, not my own family's. So these were created from what I had in my cupboard, just waiting to be used, my only hurdle was that I had only one egg. Must get those chickens laying again.

Very very tasty, perfectly sweet with a cup of strong tea.

It's been raining

Australia is suffering from drought, not that it looks like it in this picture. This is the view from out front yard, I think that we are pretty lucky.

Homemade Rainbow

Dragon Fly Cake

Made for my lovely SIL's 50th, is a mad about Dragon Flies and is an extremely talented mosaic'r so the cake design just stemmed from these two starting points.

Bottom layer torted Chocolate Butter cake and Banana cake with Nutella Italian Buttercream.
Top Layer torted Chocolate Butter cake and Coffee cake with Nutella Italian Buttercream.

You can see more photos on my flickr photostream, I have another mosaic ed cake to post, fingers crossed I'll get it up today.

P.S. A lovely person on flickr asked - 'How long did this take?'

Too long! The decorating started at 8.45am with torted and crumbed cakes, and hour off for lunch and finished at 6.10pm, with me jumping in the shower, scraping the icing off my hands, washing my hair, slapping on some make-up and getting out into the kitchen to take some pictures (boo night photography). To get to the other side of town by 7.30pm. We made it just! Then it was cosmos and blackjack, until 11pm, and a drunken drive home (I wasn't driving) and silly texts to my best friend. Waking up the next morning thinking argh now I have to clean up. Long story to a simple answer, it took about 9 hours.

Men don't do pretty . . . cakes

Men don't do pretty . . . cakes, so when I was asked to create a 60th Birthday Cake for a friends Dad and the brief was marbled chocolate cake, the logical answer to me was to create this cake.

And also I wanted to have 60 candles but without burning the house down. I love how this one turned out.

Two tiers of Classic Marbled Chocolate and Vanilla Cake, torted with Oreo Biscuits and Cream, covered in dark chocolate ganache. Styled with 60 handmade dark and white chocolate transfer candles and a two toned chocolate 60. All edible, all good. Serves 35 - 50 depending on your slice size.

Superhero & Villain Cupcakes

Choose your cupcake, are you a Superhero or a Villain?

This is the ideal setup for a Superhero vs. Villain Fancy Dress Party, the birthday girls dressed up as the Villains Medusa and Bonnie (from Bonnie & Clyde) maybe Villains are sexier?

I created a series of mini cupcake toppers using the chocolate transfer method:

Superheros included: Superman, Sheriff, Robin Hood, Batman, Flash Gordon

Villains included: Medusa, Bonnie, Scream, Joker, Green Lantern, the Devil, Dracula

In hind sight there were so many more I could have added and this setup / design is adaptable to many different formats.

The cupcakes themselves were 50/50 vanilla and chocolate, with 50/50 vanilla and chocolate frosting.

A great suggest that was made later was halo transfers on angle food cupcakes and the devils on devils food cupcakes.

Review - Just Cupcakes, Melbourne

The kids and I decided to go for a drive this month to visit a wonderful Farmers Market at Yerring Station. The main reason for going was to go and check out and meet one of our fellow Flickr members and alround nice lady Just Cupcakes! We couldn't leave without buying some to sample, and unfortunately some was just not enough.

The pink one in the front White Chocolate & Raspberry was my favourite, lovely texture, and the frosting is not overly sweet.

Top left was a Mud cupcake, a lovely lightly crumbed mud cake, more a cross between your classic chocolate cake and a muddy mud cake. Didn't make me scream for a glass of milk but throughly enjoyed.

Top Right, Vanilla Cupcake, just what you would expect from a vanilla cupcake, moist, fine crumb with a tasty not too sweet frosting, mind you we fought over the chocs on top.

If you are in Victoria and need cupcakes Just Cupcakes is the lady to call check her photostream outon Flickr.

Funky him . . . .

Pattern Dashing by Knitty

Knitted by moi

Tea by Bussells

Anzac by moi

Mug by Mawell Williams

Art Nouveau Wedding Cake Tower

Just what Purple Tiger from flickr ordered for her wedding. The over all design was created from her stunning b/w art nouveau influenced invitations.

Elegant and Devine, dark chocolate mud cake, covered with special vanilla buttercream and encased in chocolate rolled fondant. Styled with handrolled swirls, delicate handmade leaves and flowers, and edible sugar pearls.

The next two layers consisted a selection of white or dark chocolate mini mud cakes, decorated in the same intricate style.

What do you think?

Still flat but hopefully getting over it . . .

If you are still visiting after such little action, then thank you. I do understand if you have moved on to more consistent bloggers, I understand the attraction. As you may see I have done some mid winter cleaning (getting a head start on spring) and hopefully this will give me the boost I have been missing.

I haven't been idol though cakes and cupcakes have been slow but it has given me time to knit, yes I know kit, there have been gloves and scarves and even a bag flying off of my needles in the last couple of months, like cupcakes fly out of my kitchen.

I'll be back tomorrow to give you a large serve of the baked goods that have been created and an update of the month to come.

In the meantime check out my new gloves (Pattern - Fetching from Knitty) and oh so chic nail polish (Lincon Park after Dark by OPi).

Secret Family Recipe - Self Saucing Chocolate Pudding

It's getting colder and I am getting the munchies.

Oh and this is one of my favourite dishes, its a green and dark cream straight sided pudding basin by Denby.

Kentucky Candy

I received this lovely package from Jessica via swap bot, the other day and the kids went crazy with their begging.

ANZAC Biscuits

It was ANZAC day Friday (26th April), a very important day for us in Oz.

ANZAC biscuit
noun:- a national biscuit of Australia, purportedly invented on the war fields of the First World War. The recipe can vary but the essential ingredients are rolled oats and golden syrup.

ANZAC Day
noun:- ANZAC day in Australia, April 25th, the anniversary of the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli in 1915, is the national day of remembrance for Australian Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen, killed in wars overseas.

Ok I admit it . . . . . I'm flat

I have fallen into one of those blogging slumps that many of us get into, you just don't feel like letting people out there, in. At the beginning of 2008 I made a resolution to say 'NO' more often and to look after 'Self and Family First', and I think that I have been getting a handle on that. But unfortunately it has meant that blogging has taken a backseat.

Alex started school at the beginning of the year and it is taking me a while to get used to being a full time school Mum, there is so much to learn. Alex who was so ready for school, hasn't looked back, and is beginning to develop school attitude, which if it wasn't so different to his normal easy going persona, it would be funny.

I did go to Perth and had a wonderful time, but got back and felt really flat, and flat is how I can explain how I have been feeling for a long time. My camera battery is also feeling flat, so pictures have be few and far between but to recap the last two months.

The Cake and Cupcakes have still been coming out of the kitchen but at a much more sedate pace than this time last year. I do have orders for 2009 but 2008 is scarily quite. Mind you I have been enjoying the stress free weekends. Lets hope the pace picks up a bit over Winter, and if it doesn't I am planning a series of display cakes, just for fun.

In my last post I mentioned that Transformers were taking over my kitchen, well they brought their All Spark, which is 'the power force that created the Transformers, or something' (definition provided by Alex!).

And when it is cut open, you get Classic Vanilla Pound Cake, torted with Honeycomb buttercream. Sounds good to me. More pictures can be found here.

Easter was full of chocolate, Mr. E. Bunny does a wonderful job at breaking our health eating plans, and is very helpful with putting kids and adults alike into sugar overload. I helped the teachers celebrate Easter by providing them with cupcakes on the last day of school.

The best banana & macadamia Cupcakes, topped with chocolate fudge frosting, styled with sugar paste bees, yellow sprinkles, royal icing flowers and edible glitter.

And for those who could not do without their morning coffee hit I provided deliciously lite coffee cupcakes, studded with crushed Macadamias, frosted with espresso buttercream, and styled with a chocolate egg and a dusting of espresso powder and edible glitter.

This year I have made a commitment to myself to make the majority of presents, so friends and family received vanilla and chocolate sugar biscuits as Easter gifts, instead of over priced store bought chocolate. Unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures, but these will give you a good idea. Sam was a great help with the decorating of the biscuits whilst Alex was at school.

Well I have to walk a friend kid to Kindy, I'll be back soon to tell you all about the Black and White Wedding Cake & Cupcakes that I was creating earlier in the year.

Away

Ok so it's pretty obvious that I am somewhere else at the moment. I many not be technically away but I have been mentally away from my blog. My appologies to all, I am sure you can all relate. But on a good note, I am 3 1/2 hours away from jumping on a plane to Perth for a 4 day weekend to see my bestie girl, and I am hoping that will get me back in a good mind set and you will be all inundated with posts and inspiring cakes.

I have been busy, caking, dealing with Christmas, school holidays, Summer, A starting school for the first time, more cakes, lots of chocolate brownies, and Transformers taking over my kitchen and stealing cupcakes.