Mum's Birthday Cake

Mum put in a request for her birthday back at the start of the year.  She had seen a cute cake my aunty pinned on pinterest and asked if I could recreate it for her.  Now of course I couldn't say no.  I love to make cute cakes!  Plus when the women who has made you all of your amazing birthday cakes for the 25 years of your life asks for a cake you deliver!

Now if this isn't the cutest little cake ever I don't know what is!  Look at those little pigs bums poking out of the mud.  Adorable!  The pigs were the hardest part of making the entire cake.  I have never modelled with fondant before so I was just winging it.  I made the pigs a couple of days prior to mum's birthday so they were set properly before putting them on the cake.

I used the Planet Cake Chocolate Mudcake recipe again and made two 8" rounds.  I then made a simple chocolate ganache to cover the cake and for the mud on top.  Now the original cake used kit kats around the outside but I used those cadbury chocolate fingers instead.  It took 2 packets to surround this cake.  The ribbon around the outside is both decorative and helps to keep any loose biscuits from falling off the cake.

And that, my friends, is that!  This cake is really quite simple!  The pigs are a new terrain for me but they are pretty simple given they are just balls of fondant basically.  If you are wanting to try working with fondant and don't want to take on covering a whole cake this design would definitely be a good place to start.

Dad's Tip Truck Birthday Cake

Cake making is something I love!  I really enjoy the whole process so whenever family birthdays are coming up I get very excited planning cake ideas.  Saturday was my dad's birthday so I started planning ideas for a cake a few weeks ago.

Dad drives a tip truck for work so when I saw a cake similar to this one I knew I had to make it for him.  It is a 3 layer chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream icing.  I covered the outside in milo to look like dirt.  The truck was from Big W and I simply placed it in the centre and filled the back with maltesers and chocolate coated honeycomb.

One tip for anyone who might want to make a similar cake - honeycomb melts!  It takes a little while but once it is exposed to the air it starts to melt.  So I would suggest making the cake up until the point of adding the lollies.  Then just before you have to present the cake add these to avoid them melting too much.

I am so happy with how this cake turned out.  Dad really loved it and has added the truck to his collection.  The next birthday in the family is my mums so I think I better get planning!

Pinata Cake

Last week I baked a cake for a friend of a friend of mine's mexican birthday party.  The initial text I got requested a mexican birthday cake and said "i'm thinking donkey pinata chilli moustache cactus!"  We settled on pinata after seeing these cookies.

I used my white chocolate mudcake recipe as it makes a nice dense cake that works really well for carving and shaping.  First I did a thin crumb coat with vanilla buttercream before piping my colours on in vanilla buttercream with a star tip.

I am really happy with how this cake turned out and both my friend and the birthday boy loved it!  And for anyone wanting a good white chocolate mudcake recipe I have shared my go to recipe before here.  Be warned though that this is a very sweet cake so best for those with a sweet tooth.

52 Weeks Happy (10/52)

There are a few main things making me happy this week -

1 - Baking! I love to bake and I am always happy being in the kitchen.  This week I made healthy banana muffins and baked a chocolate cake which I turned into a cow print cake for my niece's birthday.

2 - Sewing! I am loving getting bake into sewing this year.  Last year was a bit of a bust on the sewing front due to my pregnancy.  This year I have really gotten back into it and I am so glad that I have.  It's so satisfying seeing completed projects that I have made myself.  This week I finished a lemon print skirt (post to come), my tessuti competition fabric arrived and I finished my Sew for Victory project.  Hopefully the weather is good this week so I can get some pictures to share.

3 - Family! Watching these two together brings me so much pleasure.  They are so cute to watch together.  Imogen is a massive daddy's girl and Corey is so sweet with her.  He is an amazing father!  The start of the NRL season gave me an opportunity to get Imogen into her roosters jersey that my aunty bought her.  I had to send this pic to my aunties and uncles as they are massive roosters fans.  My cousin's gorgeous girlfriend gave birth to the most perfect little boy last week.  They named him Max Joseph Smith and he is adorable.  I can't wait to watch him and Imogen grow up together.

Cow Print Birthday Cake

Today is my niece's 16th birthday and her mum asked me to make her a birthday cake.  They live 1 hour west of the Gold Coast and she works at a dairy.  When she leaves school she wants to move to inland Australia and become a jillaroo.  She has even bought a few calves off her boss that she is rearing and going to sell when they are older.  So when her mum suggested a cow print cake it seemed like the perfect idea.

I made a basic chocolate mudcake for the base and covered it in chocolate ganache and fondant.  I used white fondant for the base and then cut cow splotches out of black.  Corey already thinks I am a funny little city girl but he thought I was even funnier when I asked him what shape the splotches on cows are!  The rope is also made out of fondant.  I thought I would just buy brown fondant but this is actually chocolate fondant.  Like it actually tastes like chocolate! I didn't even know that existed.

I am really happy with the cover on this cake.  It is the best cover I have ever managed to get and I think that is definitely thanks to the cake class I did.  I really learnt a lot in that one day class and it has made me a lot more confident when working with fondant.  I would highly recommend anyone wanting to learn more about cake decorating does a class at a local cake shop.  I came away with so much new knowledge.  I am so happy Corey bought me the class for Christmas!

Chocolate Chip Mint Layer Cake

This past weekend my sister arrived home from living in Melbourne for the past year and I decided to give myself the weekend off my diet because I reached my first goal. After the sad events of the last week I decided we all needed some cake so I picked one I had saved in my pinterest cooking board and whipped it up.

The recipe for this cake can be found here.  The only change I made was to do 3 layers as I used a smaller cake pan and the batter fit in 3 tins instead of 2.  One tip if you are going to make this recipe is that the icing is very very sweet so try to only do a thin layer.

But in saying that  this cake was gobbled up by my family very quick so it must not have been too bad. So if you are looking for a cake to whip up this weekend that not only looks good but tastes good give this one a try.

Rainbow Sprinkle Cake

If you follow me on instagram then you would have seen that I was working on a cake over the weekend.  It was my niece's 17th birthday yesterday and my sister-in-law asked me if I could make her a cake.  Of course I jumped at the chance.  Any excuse to bake and I am in!  She requested a rainbow cake and I decided to try out a sprinkle covered cake as well that I had been wanting to do for a while.  I was a little bit excited to finally get a chance to try it.

After covering the cake I decided it needed a little added touch so I made a quick fondant bow to go around it too.  I think it just makes it look a little bit more interesting.

Cutting this cake was the most nerve wracking thing I have ever done.  All I could think was if this cake doesn't look good inside I am going to be devastated.  But the collective gasp from my niece's friends as I cut out the first slice made it all worthwhile.  I love how this cake turned out! It has got to be one of my cake making highlights.

The other great thing about making a rainbow cake is how pretty the whole process looks.  Heres a few pics I shared on instagram that you may have missed.

I really hope I get another chance to make a rainbow cake because they are so much fun!  Or maybe next time I will do an ombre one.  That would be fun too!

Corey's Pacman Cake

Every year Corey requests a cake for his birthday and every year they are random requets.  Last years request was a strawberry milkshake.  This year he ran through a few requests from a gumball machine to a pool table and finally settled on pacman.  He may have only wanted pacman himself but instead I decided to do the entire game after seeing these cupcakes.

To make things easier for myself I decided to make a square cake instead of cupcakes.  I also decided to go the whole hog and make ganache instead of doing my usual buttercream.  I also changed up the cake recipe and used this recipe instead of my normal chocolate cake.

This cake recipe was a massive hit!  My brother in law ate 5 pieces of cake to himself in the space of about 15 minutes.  There was only 1 piece left over at the end of the night which I gave to my sister in law to take to work in her lunch today.  If you are looking for a good chocolate cake recipe I suggest giving this one a go.  It is nice and firm to decorate with fondant but it also stays really moist.  I baked the cake Friday and yesterday it was still super moist and delicious.

Now I must admit that making this cake stressed me out a little bit.  The heat this past weekend did not make the fondant super easy to handle.  Also the black fondant rubbed colour onto the other pieces which was really annoying.  In the end I think the cake turned out pretty well.  I wasn't 100% with it yesterday but looking at the photos today with a fresh mind I am pretty happy with my efforts.  I need to remember that I am self taught and still learning so things aren't going to turn out as amazing as the professional ideas I find off the internet.  One day I will hopefully get to that standard.  And in the meantime I am happy to keep practicing because who doesn't love an excuse to make a cake!

Anniversary Cupcakes

Corey and I don't usually buy presents for our anniversary because we prefer to use the money to go out for dinner or stay somewhere for the night.  This year we spent the night at the Marriott over the weekend.  If you follow me on instagram you may have seen a photo of our gorgeous view.  It was awesome!

Since we don't buy gifts I always make Corey cupcakes or cake instead.  This year I made some cupcakes.  I was going to make them all the same but then decided why not have a play around with a few different ideas.

I made a batch or vanilla cupcakes and used normal white Queen fondant from the supermarket.  The pink fondant is a new thing I discovered at Spotlight the other day.  Usually when I need a lot of a coloured icing I buy Satin Ice.  If I only need a small amount I colour it myself but sometimes that can be a pain in the butt.  Certain colours never turn out right and I find it hard to get the exact colour I am after.  The pink icing I bought is called Fondariffic and comes in small 8oz tubs.  At $8.99 it worked out the same price as buying another gel colour and saved me the hassle of colouring the icing myself.

I have been wanting to make bow cupcakes for ages so I couldn't resist throwing a few of those in as well.  I think next time I make them I need to make the strip for the bow portion longer.  They were a bit hard to fold and keep together.

I really love decorating cupcakes! Fondant is like adult playdoh and then at the end you get a yummy treat.  I want to refine my skills a bit more.  I have covered a cake with fondant before but I would love to work my way up to sculpted cakes.  I was reading through my Planet Cake book last night and I think I am going to try and work through the projects in there to build up my skills.  I just need to find some occasions to make cupcakes for otherwise I am going to end up eating millions of cupcakes and turning into the size of a house!

Orange Pound Cake

As a part of the apronalong everyone was encouraged to do some baking and share a recipe.  I did some baking but it wasn't ready in time for photos so I am sharing it today instead.

Lately my cooking has been based on what is in our cupboards already.  I used to find recipes online then duck down to the shops and buy ingredients and whip it up that same day.  It's a bit harder to just pop out to the supermarket these days so I have adapted.  We had a bunch of oranges in the fridge that weren't being eaten so Orange Pound Cake it is.

I used this recipe and I must say I was very impressed.  It didn't seem like it had a lot of orange in it so I was concerned that the flavour was going to be a bit plain.  I was pleasantly surprised that the flavour was quite strong.  Corey even said that as soon as you opened the container I had it in you could smell the orange really strongly.  If you have oranges that need to be used I would highly recommend this recipe.  My next cooking adventure (when I get time) is going to be oatmeal and raisin cookies to use up the raisins sitting in my cupboard not being eaten.

Vintage Caravan Cake

Last weekend we had a belated celebration for mum's birthday as she was on the Central Coast visiting her brother on her actual birthday.  Mum & Dad came to our house for dinner and we had soft chicken tacos and this delicious cake.

 

Mum and Dad are always talking about when in a few years time they are going to pack up and go travelling around Australia in a caravan.  Mum loves vintage caravans so I thought this would be the perfect cake for her.

I got the idea from this cake and it was pretty simple to recreate.  All it took was some fondant, a licorice roll, some food safe pens and one silver cachous.  I named the caravan Pos because that is my mum's nickname.  All her brothers and dad call her Pos and all my cousins call her Aunty Pos.

The cake was white chocolate mud cake and it was delicious!  I had to make Mum and Dad take the left overs home so I didn't spend the week eating cake.

I'm really happy with how this cake turned out.  This is the last birthday in my family before Squishy comes along so who knows when I will get to make another cake like this.  I have an idea for a nice simple cake for Corey's birthday in November and I am just hoping that I can manage to make it for him around looking after Squishy.

Sushi Cake

This past weekend was my friend Lex's birthday and I got to make him a cake.  Lex loves his sushi so I immediately thought of making this cake tutorial that I first saw about 12 months ago.  I have been wanting to make it ever since but didn't know who to make it for.  I was pretty stoked to finally have a chance to make it.

It was pretty easy to put together and it didn't take very long at all.  The only issue I found was that the green portion of roll ups is not as wide as it used to be so I had to use a bit of the yellow portion around the bottom.  To try and make up for this I tinted the icing under the roll up green to try and make it look a bit more green then yellow.

I did make one slight change as well.  I was a bit worried with how the jelly would go because I didn't want it to melt in transit.  So I sent an email to the lovely Cathie of Melbourne Epicure and she suggested making gummies with jelly which is basically just jelly with extra gelatine so they set hard and don't melt.  Cathie was kind enough to share some links with me and I ended up using  this recipe.  It worked perfectly but I wouldn't suggest making them to eat.  I made Corey try one and they tasted pretty gross.  They were a bit too hard and the extra gelatin diluted the flavour too much.  But I didn't mind I just wanted it to look right.  Lex was so impressed when he saw the cake so I was pretty happy.  There is nothing you can ask for more than that!

Veggie Garden Birthday Cake

For dad's birthday we had dinner on Friday night with some family and friends at my parents house. I decided to make a birthday cake. Dad is super into his vegetable garden at the moment so a veggie garden cake was a natural choice. The idea came from Australian Women's Weekly More Cake For Kids. This cake was so easy to make and turns out super impressive. If you know anyone that loves to garden then trust me they will love this cake.

The cauliflowers were my favourite part of this cake. They were made using raffaello chocolates and green fondant.  Everyone was fighting over who got to eat the raffaelo's and dad somehow managed to hide one away until Sunday.

The carrots were orange fruit sticks and ming leaves and the tomatoes were jaffas and green icing.  The book said to use fondant but I was having trouble getting the crosses to stay on the tomatoes.  Instead I just whipped up a simple icing with icing sugar, water and green colouring and used it for both the crosses and the vine.

I love making birthday cakes and I am already planning what I can do for the next birthday in the family which is my mum's.  I have a few ideas but trying to decide which I can actually pull off!  I can't wait till next year when I will have an extra cake to make for Miss Squishy's first birthday.  Is it wrong that I am already thinking of ideas for her first birthday party???