Not a cupcake, but so tasty!

The lovely Virginia who i made the Planet Cake baby cupcakes for a couple of weeks ago asked if i could make some rum balls for Christmas. I love to bake no matter what it is so naturally i said yes!

Virignia requested 40, and i made a mixture of traditional Rum(less) Balls, Bailey's Truffles and White Chocolate Coconut Truffles. The truffle recipes are from the December Good Taste magazine and they are divine! I hope Virginia and her family enjoy them, i know we will!

Im quite happy to say that this is my last lot of 'baking' (although, there was no baking involved with rum balls and truffles!) for the year. I have loved the orders i received from work mates these last few weeks but also happy that Christmas is here and i get to enjoy time with the family.

May you all have a lovely Christmas! Eat lots and enjoy this lovely time of year.

Another order for Christmas Cupcakes!

I have had quite a few orders lately from people at work which i have been thrilled about!! I love the fact that i can make cupcakes for people i know, it takes the pressure off a little and they are usually quite happy for me to choose the design.

These cupcakes are for Jen who is having her family Christmas tomorrow. Her sister is going skiing for Christmas so some of the cupcakes are based on a white Christmas, and the others have a traditional Christmas theme.

The cupcakes are my my favourite vanilla cupcakes - Planet Cake recipe with white chocolate ganache, yum! I brushed white shimmer dust onto the stars which gave them a gorgeous sparkle, if only it would show up well on the photos!

I found a pic of flickr where they used two cupcakes in the middle with HO HO on them and i loved this idea! I designed the snowmen, trees, stars and gingerbread men.

I was really pleased with how these turned out, and hope Jen and her family will be too! :)

An order for christmas cupcakes

It was a good sign when Sonja (who ordered the Planet Cake lady beeltes a few months ago) asked me if i could make some Christmas cupcakes for her son's to give to their teacher's. It's great to know when people are happy with what you produce for them. I really enjoy 'cupcaking' and it's a great feeling when people enjoy and appreciate what you do.

Sonja requested 16 cupcakes, a mix of chocolate and vanilla and was happy for me to design them. I purchased some mini christmas cutters a few weeks ago and used them on the weekend to make the cupcake toppers. I loved making these, they took me a couple of hours, but i was in my zone and everything went well :) I piped a red buttercream swirl on the cupcakes and topped each of them with a christmas topper.

Tonight was going to be a busy night - cupcakes and our puppy's last puppy pre-school class! So, here are the cupcakes, boxed and ready for Sonja tomorrow. And i couldnt resist posting a picture of our gorgeous puppy JoJo!

Baby Shower cupcakes

I mentioned last night was a busy night didn't i? :) Well another work colleague also requested some cupcakes! These were to take as a gift to her nephew's wife who is having a baby shower on Saturday.

I was thrilled to be asked to make cupcakes for a baby shower because i have been wanting to make the Planet Cake baby cupcakes for a while, and this was the perfect opportunity!

I made the bows, dummies, hair quiffs, beanies, eyes and nose on Wednesday night to save time because i knew Thursday would be a busy night. And im so glad i did! Although i only had to make 6, they were very time consuming. BUT i still loved making them and i'm so happy with the final result. It's such a gorgeous design.

I gave them to my colleague today and the people that had a sneak peak loved them too :) After a long night, i'm feeling quite happy :)

A mix of birthday cupcakes!

Last night was a busy night, but im not complaining! A colleague of mine asked if i could make some cupcakes for her niece's 8th birthday. It was lovely being asked and ofcourse i said yes!

Ella, the birthday girl knew exactly what she wanted! A very simple but pretty and girly flower cupcakes. I showed her some pictures i had saved from flickr and she chose a design. I have never met Ella but she seems like a very thoughtful girl because she requested spider cupcakes for the boys, how sweet!

I found a design for the spider cupcakes on flickr and so we based on spider on that but i think ours looks much cooler he he. Danny was wonderful and made the spiders. The legs are strips of licorice and the body is just a big ball of fondant, gosh, the kids are going to be bouncing around tomorrow!!! He even made a red strip down the back to resemble a redback spider :)

And as you can see, the cupcakes for the girls are cute and dainty, to suit Ella's personality i have been told.

I gave the cupcakes to my work colleague and she was thrilled, she really liked them. I have only recently started making cupcakes for people, so it's so nice to see the customer happy :)

More birthday cupcakes!

This week is a busy week for birthdays! My sister in law, brother in law and two work colleagues! I nominated myself (again!) to look after a birthday morning tea for Stef. My team mates are such lovely people who i get along with very well, so i am more than happy to make something special for their birthday.

The cupcakes are vanilla with white chocolate ganache, yum! I used an embossing mat to create the lovely pattern on the base and topped these with fondant flowers using different sized daisy cutters. Very simple, but pretty.

Happy birthday Stef, i hope you have a lovely day!

Cupcakes for a colleague's 50th

A work colleague turned 50 on the weekend and a few team mates have planned a simple morning tea for Tuesday to celebrate. I put my hand up and was also nominated to make cupcakes :)

I have a bunch of cupcake pictures saved from the internet which i use for inspiration, but going through them i realised that they are mostly all girly cupcakes! It's actually quite difficult to come up with a manly looking cupcake. But i did have one design which i liked, so i used that and changed the colour scheme.

The cupcakes are vanilla with white chocolate buttercream. I havent baked cupcakes since halloween so I was looking forward to tonight! On Thursday another work colleague is celebrating her birthday so i get to bake and decorate again on Wednesday night :)

An order for Halloween Cupcakes

I think sharing my cupcakes with work mates has finally paid off! :) One of my work mates asked me if i could make some halloween cupcakes for the weekend, she has a 19 month old son and they are having a little halloween party at home. I can just picture a bunch of little kids dressed up as monsters munching on cupcakes, so cute!

She left the design of the cupcakes up to me which was nice but requested a vanilla cupcake base as it is what most kids will eat. I decided to go with ghosts and pumpkins after finding a couple of tutorials on the internet. People are so kind and generous to share their ideas, i love the cake decorating world :) I made the pumpkins and ghosts on Wednesday night and let them dry over night, and used the following tutorials:

Pumpkins http://thefrostedcakencookie.blogspot.com/2009/10/tuesday-toppers-pumpkin-jack-o-lantern.html

Ghosts http://www.abakedcreation.com/2009/10/ghosts-of-cupcakes-past.html

Husband had a wonderful idea of using fishing wire for the pumpkins and it worked alot better than using a knife, what a man :) So i will let him take credit for the pumpkins. And i just love the idea of using lollies under the ghosts, the kids will love the surprise I'm sure!

It was quite warm tonight and the swirl wasn't working as well as it should so im not 100% happy with them. It wasnt holding properly, especially compared to the swirl on the pink ribbon cupcakes i made recently. I just hope they dont all droop over night or i will be taking the morning off from work to re-do them!!!

I wanted to use black for the icing, as when i think of halloween i think black! but as these were for little kids i didnt want to make them too scary :)

Happy trick or treating everyone!!

Pink Ribbon fundraiser

One of the offices in our building is holding a Pink Ribbon Breakfast on Wednesday 21st October, but as i will be away from the office that day, i wanted to do my bit to contribute so i decided i would make some cupcakes and cookies, sell them to my team mates tomorrow and donate the money to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

The cupcakes are my fave, yummy vanilla, topped with a pink (ofcourse!) buttercream swirl and then a disc of white fondant with a pink ribbon. I actually bought a ribbon 'mould' but the fondant just kept sticking to it, so i made the ribbons myself by cutting a thin strip of fondant and folding over. I haven't used buttercream on cupcakes in quite a while and i must say i missed using my 1M tip! I love the swirl!!

I had lots of fun making the cupcakes and cookies and can't wait to sell them off tomorrow!

Butterfly Effect

I was having troubles coming up with an interesting title for these cookies, and then with very good timing, i remembered the movie 'butterfly effect'!

I have a 'butterfly cookie' folder saved on my computer with a bunch of gorgeous designs which i have collected from the net so i decided it was time to christen the butterfly cutter i bought about 2 months ago!!

The net is just fantastic, it provides so much inspiration for people like me who arent very creative! My favourite design is this one http://www.cakejournal.com/archives/how-to-decorate-cookies-with-rolled-fondant/ Just gorgeous and not hard to make at all! I will actually be doing these for someone in December :)

Since these were for the joy of my nieces, i had to do them in pink! I copied a couple of the butterflies (i hope this is allowed!) from a very talented person on flickr, but i still added my own personal touch to them.

I used the embossing mat which i purchased at the high tea cupcakes course, and i just love using it! It gives such a lovely finish, especially when dusted with shimmer dust...it really accentuates the swirls.

My nieces loved them, especially the 9yr old. Her bedroom wall is covered with butterflies! They were both very impressed with how i got the 'swirly design' on the fondant....i had them going for a little while but finally confessed that i used the embossing mat :)

High Tea Cupcakes

This morning i headed over to Cake Decorating Central in Castle Hill for the High Tea Cupcakes class. I had lots of fun and learnt so much at their basics cupcake class a few months ago so decided to give these a go too.

Aside from making the cute fancy hat, i didn't really learn any new techniques, i guess because i learnt quite a bit at the first course and i have also been doing lots of cupcakes lately, but it was still fun and we all left with very pretty and girly cupcakes.

Oh, i should mention that i could have learnt how to make a particular type of large rose (pictured in the bottom centre) but after failing many times i gave up and decided roses arent for me he he.

We have a family birthday tonight so i will take them to share, but the birthday boy is turning 50-something so i don't know what he'll think of these girly cupcakes :)

I brushed some shimmer dust on the cupcakes, and it gave them a gorgeous sparkle...i hope it shows up in the photos!

Mum's Birthday Cake

Tomorrow 7th October is my mum's birthday. My mum has always been the most sweetest, honest, caring and loving mum one could hope for and i love her to bits. I love her birthday because it means we get to spoil her a little more, but she is so amazing that she really deserves to be spoilt every day.

Seeing as though cake decorating has become my new hobby, i thought that this year part of my present to her would be a cake. I knew it would take me quite some time and it just feels more special giving her something which has required time and patience.

This was my first cake on my own!!!! I was relying on what i had learnt at Planet Cake's Basics 101 to get me through! I decided on the Giant Cupcake cake from the Planet Cake book. I was a little nervous to begin with and asked myself many times why i didn't pick a simple round cake!

It was almost impossible to get a perfectly smooth dome but i did the best i could and the fact that the dome had 2 layers of fondant (the brown and the white) meant that a few little bumps miraculously disappeared :) I had heaps of fun and really enjoyed the whole process from baking the cake, ganaching and covering with fondant.

I was really pleased with how the cake turned out. Im so excited and cant wait to bring it to the table tomorrow night when we'll be having a small family birthday dinner.

I feel much more confident having done a whole cake on my own and am ready to tackle some more designs. A round cake should now be a breeze right??? Let's hope so!

Happy Birthday mum, i love you xox

Happy Birthday Renee

My lovely friend Renee turned 28 on Friday and decided that she would have a small outing with close friends on Saturday night. Renee has always been so greatful of the little treats i have made for her and being her birthday i decided to make her some pretty cupcakes. I decided on my favourite vanilla cupcakes with white chocolate ganache...such a yummy combo!

I had alot of fun making these cupcakes, and really loved the design, which i dont take full credit for by the way! I had found something similar on the web recently, but i gave these a personal touch :)

We had a lovely dinner at Chinta Ria followed by some yummy cupcakes. Happy Birthday Renee, may you always be happy xo

I had 3 cupcakes left over and seeing as though we were having family over today i decided that rather than eat them all my myself (he he) i would decorate them as the dragonfly cupcakes from the Planet Cake book. My youngest niece was flicking through the book on Thursday and pointed out that the dragonfly's were her favourite. She was so surprised and happy and almost sneaked one out before lunch! :)

My first order!

When I started my blog I sent it out to a few people at work who were interested and supportive. A couple of weeks ago the wife of a work colleague asked me if i could make some lady beetle cupcakes for their son's upcoming 3rd birthday. I was so excited but also a little nervous - my first order and my first time baking for someone outside my family!

Once I got started on the cupcakes with the help of my wonderful assistant (yep, husband!) I remembered how much I enjoy baking and decorating and the nerves were gone. I was so pleased with how the cupcakes turned out and how they tasted too - I couldn't do an order without doing a taste test to make sure they were perfect!

So here they are, packaged in their box, ready to go. I hope to get more enquiries from people at work, friends of friends etc because this is truly what i love to do :)

New Gadgets!

On a couple of the blogs I visit I had been reading about a new product called BeaterBlade+ a new beating attachment for the KitchenAid.

The standard KitchenAid attachment does a standard job - it mixes well but you have to stop the machine quite often to scrape down the sides...can get annoying and is quite time consuming! The BeaterBlade has rubber scrapers along the edge of the plastic attachment which are supposed to mix and scrape down the sides of the bowl at the same time. Could this be possible?!

YES! I used the beaterblade to make the father's day cupcakes an cookies on the weekend and i didnt have to stop the machine to scrape down the bowl once! It really is wonderful. I highly recommend it.

I ordered the BeaterBlade+ through Kim from FullyBaked. BeaterBlade+ retails for $55.95 and i received free postage with my order. Please feel free to contact Kim: fullybaked@bigpond.com

I also found an online site that had cream Robert Gordon cupcake stands, yay! I'm sure i will find an excuse to use it soon :) Please visit http://www.isaacandmai.com.au/ if you are interested.

Weekend Baking

Aside from Father's Day i haven't had any other event to bake for :( On the weekend i decided that i had to bake something, anything! So i decided on cookies which i would put in little cellophane bags and top with a bag topper.

My husband and i popped into office works and found some gorgeous paper, which was on sale, yay! I downloaded a template for place cards and used this as the bag toppers, they are the perfect size!

I used my Avanti Cookie Press which my husband gave me for my birthday last year and made very cute looking round cookies. We had a production line going on Sunday night...my husband cut the tags, i put the cookies in the bags and then we stapled them. It was a fun little project!

I took most of them to work on Monday and everyone loved the cookies and the packaging. I'm sure i'll be doing this again in the near future, with the help of my husband again ofcourse :)

Father's Day Cupcakes

This is my first post since August! We have been extremely busy this past month as we have just moved into our new home, so it has left little time for baking. But we are settled in and Father's Day was my first opportunity to bake again :)

I had been using the Planet Cake cupcake recipe but my cupcakes always seemed to rise and crack at the top. Sure, it was fun cutting off and eating all the top bits, but its much more gratifying seeing beautifully domed cupcakes come out of the oven :) For my birthday a very good friend of mine spoilt me with two wonderful cupcake/cake books: Debbie Brown's 50 Easy Party Cakes and the Women's Weekly Kids' Little Party Cakes. Debbie Brown's book has some wonderful designs for birthday cakes but I think ill use the the Women's Weekly book more regularly as the cupcake designs aren't just for kids and it really has some quick to prepare but still gorgeous looking cupcakes. It really is a wonderful book which i highly recommend.

Back to my cupcake recipe dilemma, i decided to try out the very popular Women's Weekly Basic Buttercake recipe, which was in the book i received. And im now converted! I had the most perfectly sized and domed cupcakes come out of the oven - and this was the first time i had used the oven in our new home! Im definitely sticking to this recipe.

Back to Father's Day, my father in law loves chocolate (hmmm who doesn't!) so i decided to go for a chocolate buttercream with some simple fondant shapes on top. Gosh it's much easier to make cupcakes look pretty for girls than it is for guys!

The buttercream was delicious, i tried the recipe from the Crabapple Bakery Cupcake book. How do i know it was delicious? Well, apart my my taste buds telling me so, my brother-in-law never eats sweets but i begged him to try it and he was very impressed :) I think im starting to convert him he he.

I have been looking to buy a cream Robert Gordon Cupcake stand but they are sold out everywhere! So the cupcakes were just transported to my in-laws house in my cupcake courier and they didnt even make it to a serving plate as our niece and nephews just dug in!

Planet Cake - Basics 101 Exploding Stars cake

I booked into the Basics 101 course at Planet Cake in June and had been eagerly counting down the days and finally the wait was over!

I arrived at the Planet Cake headquarters in Balmain a little early on Sunday morning and admired their breathtaking creations in the window - and yes, i took photos of everything! We kicked off at 10am with Jessica and Marianne. They were both wonderful teachers, extremely helpful and really made it a fun day. The class was made up of 11 cake lovers who were eager to learn more about this wonderful art and take home the skills to be able to re-create what was taught.

We were taught how to cut a cake into layers (much harder that it looks!!), layer it with gorgeous chocolate ganache, cover the cake and cake board with fondant, create cut out decorations and put them on wires.

Everyone's cake looked wonderful! It was like a rainbow of cakes with each student choosing a different combination...see the group photo for evidence!

A huge thank you to Jessica and Marianne for your support and guidance throughout the day. I cant wait to recreate this cake again at home...may need to have you on speed dial! :)

Bumblebee Cookies

What did i do when my husband was at a work function on Wednesday night? What else but BAKE!

I had left over cookie dough from when i made the beetle cookies and decided that my Wednesday night project would be the bee cookies, again from Planet Cake. As i did with the beetles, i made the bees into cookies instead of cupcakes.

I prepared and cut all the fondant on Tuesday night, so Wednesday was just a night of decorating. The bees are the cutest little things! It makes it hard to eat them!!! I took half to work on Thursday and the other half to my neices. My 9 year old niece was fascinated and took 3 to school the following day to show off to her friends. How special do i feel? :)

Heart Cookies

While baking the round cookies for the ladybirds i had some left over cookie dough so i decided to cut out some heart shaped cookies. I decorated these with fondant and gave them to my husband as a little thank for all his help in the kitchen!

Ladybird Cookies

Since i had so much fun with the bow cupcakes, this weekend i took on my 2nd decorating project from the Planet Cake book - the ladybirds. The Planet Cake ladybirds are designed on cupcakes but i decided to make ladybird cookies instead, just for a change :)

Yep, i roped my husband into helping me make these aswell and we both had lots of fun making them together. We shared them with family on Saturday night and everyone was so impressed!

Our 3 year old niece was so eager to bite into a cookie that we had to bribe her to finish her dinner! She showed the most appreciation and you know you've done a good job when you get the thumbs up from a 3 year old!

Planet Cake's Bow Cupcakes for my Birthday

When i booked myself into the Planet Cake course i discovered that they had recently released a cake decorating book for beginner's which i was thrilled about! I headed to my local library, borrowed the book and in the mean time dropped hints to my husband about wanting the book for my birthday :)

For my birthday in July I decided to make the pink and black bow cupcakes on the cover of the Planet Cake book - simple, classy and classic. I thoroughly enjoyed working with ganache and fondant and learning lots of tips and tricks from the book. A big thank you to my beautiful husband who helped with the bows....black fondant is quite wet and hard to work with, i couldn't have done it without you!

I must add, the Planet Cake cupcake recipe was a hit! The addition of lemon zest and the moisteness of the cupcakes really sets them apart from other recipes.

I'm loving all the fun I'm having with fondant!

And yes, i did receive the Planet Cake book from my very attentive husband :)

My First Post AND Cupcake Decorating Course !!

Welcome to my first post!

In early June, after arriving from the most wonderful 5 weeks holiday in Europe with my gorgeous husband i decided this would be the year when i begin to explore my passion for baking and decorating. I love to bake and enjoy sharing my treats with my husband, family and friends, and lately work colleagues too!

I searched the web for beginner courses and stumbled across the wonderful Planet Cake website. I immediately booked myself into the Basics 101 course after seeing the wonderful creations that past students have created. I was so eager to learn some cake decorating techniques so in the mean time I enrolled into a cupcake course with Cake Decorating Central because, well, who doesn't love cupcakes!

I headed to Cake Decorating Central in Campbelltown on 16 July and arrived a little early which meant i spent some time AND money in their lovely and well stocked store!!

In our 3 hour course we decorated 9 beautifully coordinated pink and white cupcakes using a number of different icings and techniques. I never imagined i could learn so much in so little time! My proudest moment was seeing how simple it is to make roses and flowers! No doubt i will be making these again soon!

I must thank the lovely ladies at Cake Decorating Central for introducing me to a variety of decorating techniques and giving me the confidence to decorate. I thoroughly enjoyed the class and would recommend it to anyone starting out.

And i must add that no decorating tool kit is complete without sparkle dust! We brushed this onto our cupcakes once completed and it gave them a gorgeous shimmer and sparkle!

My favourtie cupcake is the one on the bottom left.

I hope you have enjoyed my first post !