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!