Red & White Part 1

I've just noticed (while looking through my cake photos) that I've done three wedding cupcake towers in red and white! I know it's a popular combo, but still, that's just under 50% of all the wedding cakes I've done. So I've decided to do a series! I know. So early in my blogging life. Who would have thought I had a series in me yet? It's crazy, it's madness.........but here it is.

Cake One
This one was my first cake, fresh out of decorating class, and was for my best friend :). I handmade 80 tiny sugar roses for the tops of the cupcakes, that's 800 tiny petals cut and shaped (I would never do it again, but I was young and naive).

I was very happy with the top tier and the roses (handmade and edible).

There was a couple of mishaps but I recovered (and that is a skill in itself) and the cake was done and delivered to the venue the day before the wedding (I was the maid of honour and wouldn't have had time to do it on the day).

That was nearly three years ago now- how time flies when you're having fun :). I will post the other two cakes soon.

White Choc Goodness

Just a quicky ;) made for a lady I work with who has helped me out alot!!!!!

White choc mud with white choc ganache, white choc panels and two tone curls. I love the stripy curls but definitely need to work on my technique to make them more consistent!

xC

Happy 70th

Men can be hard to make cakes for, they don't like flowers and swirls, bling and sparkle. Safe bets can be alcohol, sports or technology but failing these, as a broad category, ideas can be hard to come by.

This cake was ordered by a friend for her father's 70th and I was given free rein on design (which can be both a blessing and a curse). I have been spending alot of time recently mulling over bas- relief designs and decided to try to incorporate the concept into my design. I'm happy with what I came up with. I used a combination of fondant and royal icing to achieve the raised elements. The cake is marble mud with milk choc ganache.

Stamped in Cake

Unusual cake requests are my favourite. I love when I have to plan it out, think through the aspects and trial elements to ensure they will come together for the final product. I was chuffed when I sat down with a friend for lunch late last year and she mentioned she had recommended me to friend of hers getting married in January who had an unusual idea for her cake. Unfortunately the floods that terrorised Brisbane earlier this year postponed the wedding, but finally, on the weekend just gone, everything was good to go!

The couple wanted the top tier of their wedding cake to be a stamp - the groom is a mad stamp fanatic and the bride thought it would be the perfect (and possibly only) opportunity to slash into a stamp. The cake was finished off with two bunches of brightly coloured flowers at each end of the stamp and red ribbon bordering each tier.

When that opportunity did come, cutting through the stamp and flowers revealed delicious carrot and mud cake, smothered in ganache - yum yum yum. I very much enjoyed making this cake and hope it was exactly as the couple imagined :).

Retro Black and White

I love this cake, it's from Debbie Brown's 'Cakes to Inspire and Desire' book - I highly recommend it. The cake wasn't beautifully executed, in fact I totally underestimated how long it would take me. It wasn't for a special event, in fact it's assembly, disassembly and eating took place unremarkably. However, it was one I needed to make, it's just so cool and retro and I knew that I could be waiting years before someone commissioned me to make it. Unless I made it for my own birthday and as previously mentioned, there is a looooooooooong list of cakes I want to make for myself. So again, it could be years before I got a chance to make it.

So when my mum said she was hosting an impromptu get together - I piped up that I would make dessert and got to it. It was waaaaaayyyyyy to much cake for the 20 or so people at the get together - they got through two of the small tiers and we forced cake on the guests as they left (we didn't have to push to hard). The bottom tier and third tier are choc mud, the second tier is caramel mud and the fourth tier is white choc mud.

I hope I get the chance to make it again, perhaps in different colours? Perhaps for my 95th birthday.

Fresh Autumn Wedding

What a beautiful time of year to get married! I love weddings....and making wedding cakes allows a small glimpse into all kinds of different weddings :)

Ironically, when I got married, I didn't love weddings and went for low fuss, DIY options wherever possible. Appallingly, the event coordinator at our wedding venue hadn't actually met me until the day of our wedding but did know my mother, husband and the friends doing our music and decorations quite well. There were particular aspects I had specific ideas about (the cake obviously) but as far as decorations and food went, I wasn't that worried.

But now that the wedding stress is not mine, I love seeing the finished product, the gorgeous venues, colour schemes and decorative touches.

This wedding had a purple colour scheme (my favourite colour) and the venue and decorations were stunning. The Bride originally sent me a picture of a cake she liked and I used this as the basis for my own creation - I hope they loved it!

I didn't get a picture of the side, but I think the piping around the butterflies turned out really well. I hadn't planned to add it until the last minute but I'm glad I did - it really added something to the cake.

I also made personalised toppers for the couple and they wanted their dog transformed topper style as well - so cute!

It's the first time I've made an animal topper and I think it turned out well. The photos were taken at night, hence the light wasn't great but I couldn't be bothered to put together 'the set' again the next morning to take more photos - the props are heavy!

It was also the first time I got to properly use my cake cover........

When we were building the cake cover, my Dad repeatedly asked me if I needed a cover this tall and I assured him that this was the height I would need if I ever did a large cake..............um..........turns out, unless I'm doing any 15-20 tier cakes in the future, I probably don't need a cake cover this tall - my bad! So I've come up with a great idea to make it more versatile :D Dad will be thrilled!

On top of the world....

This is the cake I made for my sister's 21st last year (I figure I might as well revisit old cakes in between current projects). I love making cakes for family because I get total design discretion (sometimes I take it, even when it isn't given).  This cake was a combination of at least four or five techniques that I had seen and was dying to try.

This gorgeous topsy turvy is a combination of cherry-ripe, jaffa and choc-peppermint muds - great flavour selections - all smothered in rich chocolate ganache mmmmmmmmmmm. I would have preferred a little more tilt on each tier - but overall I think it came together well. My favourite part is the globe, I so enjoyed making it, I've been thinking about how I can incorporate spheres into more cake designs ever since. It was also my first time doing the quilting design - so glad I first did this on a family cake - learnt a lot of things!

The topper is my sister - dressed as she was at her party holding a freakishly coloured cocktail. I love doing personalised toppers :)

She's got the the whole world.......at her feet........

My third follower

So, I jump on blogger tonight to check that my blog's still sitting there (exactly where I left it three days ago) and I find I have a THIRD follower. I'm speechless! This is HUGE! So huge I've incorporated CAPS AND bold writing into this post....will the excitement never end?????

So, in honour of my third follower (who is my only non-family follower -  although my family followers are not to be dissed, they founded my follower base, followed me when no one else did) I present to you my best and most unique wedding cake EVER. Not a super duper massive accomplishment, I haven't done a gazillion wedding cakes. I've done six. But, the fact that number includes my own wedding cake, and this one is still my best and most unique, is perhaps more significant.

I did this cupcake tower for two gorgeous surburban hippies' outdoor wedding on Mt Glorious. Our car broke down on the way to deliver this cake........think two lane road, winding up a mountain, no mobile phone reception, 100 cupcakes patiently waiting in boxes...... it was the stuff cake delivery nightmares are made of.

It ended well, RACQ came, put the cap back on the radiator (yep, that's all it was - love RACQ) and we made it up the mountain to set up the cakes.

There were gorgeous bunches of Australian natives throughout the wedding and I attempted to replicate these in the cake topper.

This was by far my biggest challenge, I spent many an hour researching, borrowing library books and browsing the web for other similar sugar work. I think, considering it was my first flower arrangement ever, it came out well :)

The cupcakes were a mix of caramel and choc mud topped with scroll impression work and mini Australian natives.

I am so glad these guys trusted me to do their cake. It was a wonderful challenge that I'm so proud of.

Here's to more followers!!