My youngest boy Jake was very excited that his pre-school teacher’s birthday was coming up.  He so desperately wanted to make her a cake so Thursday night we made a batch of cupcakes for her to share with the class.

Jake helped me with measuring the ingredients and putting them into the bowl, cracking the eggs, turning on the mix master and of course licking the beaters and the bowl!  

We made a simple vanilla cupcake mix and I decorated with vanilla buttercream and handmade fondant butterflies and stars.  They turned out well and went down a treat with the class at pre-school!

When I was first getting into cake decorating, I was keen to get a lot of practise.  So when a friend of mine’s daughter was having a birthday party, I offered my services of making the birthday cake.  I was very excited when she accepted.  Also, not having any girls myself, it was a great chance to make a “girly” cake.  Thanks Donna!

	For a little girl’s 3rd birthday, the options were endless.  We decided on butterflies and pink.  The main cake was milk chocolate mud cake covered with ganache and fondant.  I shaped this cake from a square.  For decorations around the cake, I made little insects: bees, lady beetles, caterpillars, along with some little flowers and placed all around the cake.  The writing was done using purchased gel icing.
	I made some cupcakes for Scarlett also which were white chocolate mud iced with pink strawberry buttercream.  I topped them with some hand made butterflies and a few sprinkles.  I was pleased with the end result and they are still now one of my favourite cupcakes!
	I was over the moon when Donna asked me to make a cake for her son’s 2nd birthday in December last year.  So now for a little boy’s cake.  My direction was that Bailey likes big trucks and smarties, so I went with that.  Since Scarlett’s cake was a hit we again went with a milk chocolate mud cake covered with ganache and fondant, shaped as a truck – again, I shaped this cake myself from a square cake.  I put smarties in the back of the truck and used coloured fondant and letter cutters for the wording and number signs.

I hope that Scarlett and Bailey both enjoyed their cakes!

Its hard to pick a favourite, but this one would be a close contender as my favourite cake so far.

I decorated this cake for my niece Gabrielle’s 3rd birthady.

The cake is a milk chocolate mud cake, one of my favourite self tailored recipes. Covered in ganache with an outer layer of sugar paste fondant. The decorations are made using modelling paste.